- Mayla POV -

The morning light streamed softly through the infirmary windows. Mayla sat on the edge of her bed, her suitcase neatly packed. Trafalgar would soon return from his uncle Mordrek's funeral, and once he did, she was ready to leave.

Her chestnut hair spilled loosely over her shoulders as she combed it with steady fingers. It felt strange not to wear the maid's uniform she had been dressed in for most of her life. Trafalgar had told her she was no longer his maid, and though she had accepted it, the thought still made her uneasy. For now, she wore a plain dress, simple but clean, a reminder that she remained in the Morgain castle only for a few more days.

Her body still carried traces of weakness from the coma she had been forced into not long ago. Moving carefully, she glanced at her belongings, satisfied that everything she needed was already tucked away inside her luggage.

Almost everything.

Her eyes shifted to the side of the bed where one item still rested, left deliberately outside the suitcase. A small, worn book with frayed edges.

Her diary.

Mayla picked it up slowly, her fingers brushing over the familiar leather cover. 'I've had this diary for nearly fifteen years,' she thought, pressing it against her knees. 'Since the very beginning—since I was assigned to serve Trafalgar. I was five back then, and he was only a baby.'

Every Morgain child had a personal attendant, chosen early to serve as their right hand for life. It was tradition among the Eight Great Families, meant to ensure heirs could dedicate their days to training sword and magic rather than wasting time on trivial tasks.

And for her, that duty had become something more.

Mayla shifted into a more comfortable position, tucking her legs onto the bed and placing the diary across her lap. With a quiet breath, she opened it. The first page greeted her with crooked lines and uneven letters, the clumsy handwriting of a child barely learning how to hold a quill.

She smiled faintly. 'My handwriting was terrible back then… but of course, I was only five.' A soft chuckle escaped her lips, echoing faintly in the still room.

The words, written in that childish tone, carried her back in time:

"The young master Trafalgar is a baby. He is different from the others. He does not have light hair or light eyes like them. His colors are dark. He is one year old now. They say nobody knows who his mother is. I hope they find her soon."

Mayla covered her mouth, laughing softly. The lines felt so innocent, so blunt. 'I really sounded like a little spy trying to spy on the whole world,' she thought.

Her gaze softened as she closed her eyes briefly. 'How naïve I was back then. Children don't understand the weight of the words they hear. Only later do they begin to grasp the shadows behind them.'

She let her fingers trace the ink on the page, faded but still legible. Being at Trafalgar's side since infancy meant she had shared his tutors, listening in on every lesson. That was how she had learned to read and write far earlier than most common children. By the time she could put her thoughts on paper, this diary had already become her secret companion.

She turned the page carefully, the paper crackling faintly under her touch. More memories waited for her—memories she wasn't sure she wanted to face, yet couldn't stop herself from revisiting.

The next entry caught her attention. The handwriting was still clumsy, but steadier than before. She had been seven then, already trying to sound more serious, like a vigilant shadow beside her young master.

"Three years. That is what the young master Trafalgar is celebrating today. I am seven now. The young master has failed to awaken his core at the age of three. Lord Valttair's wives whisper things about him, but I never understand what they mean. Lady Seraphine is always near the young master. She watches him more than the others."

Mayla exhaled slowly, her eyes narrowing. 'It's true… Lady Seraphine was always hovering around Trafalgar. I never knew why.'

She leaned back against the headboard, pulling her feet onto the mattress, diary steady in her hands. With a slow flip of the page, she moved forward in time.

Another entry stared back at her—this one when Trafalgar was six, written with her childish attempt at authority:

"The young master has worked harder than all his brothers and sisters, but still he has no mana core. Elira, who is only a little older, has already reached near the second stage. I don't understand. The young master trains more than anyone."

Her lips pressed into a thin line. 'This was when it all began… the whispers, the ridicule, the way his siblings looked at him as if he were less. To be born into one of the Eight Great Families and fail to awaken at six… it was like carrying a brand of shame.'

Yet she remembered it clearly: Trafalgar never bowed his head. Not then. He fought, stubbornly, with everything he had.

Mayla's fingers tightened slightly on the diary. 'Until that day…'

Her eyes drifted to the next set of pages, the ink growing darker, her handwriting sharper and uneven. She didn't need to read further to know what came next. Even after all these years, those memories burned clearly in her mind.

That was when everything changed.

That day, she had been searching for him. Trafalgar had vanished from the training grounds, ignoring both instructors and siblings. She had wandered through the halls of the Morgain estate, calling his name softly, until she finally found him in one of the forgotten corridors.

He was sitting against the cold stone wall, knees pulled to his chest, his gaze fixed on nothing. His hair clung to his forehead with sweat, his clothes disheveled, and there was something unnatural about the way he held himself.

But what struck her most—what carved itself into her memory—was his eyes.

The light was gone.

She had known Trafalgar since he was a baby, had seen him laugh, cry, fight, and dream. Even in his worst days, there had always been a fire inside him, a stubborn spark that refused to die. But in that moment, there was nothing. His gaze was hollow, a void where life should have been.

At the time, she didn't understand. She was too young to grasp the weight of what had been done to him, too naïve to put into words the kind of violation that could extinguish a soul so quickly.

But she understood the silence.

She understood the way he recoiled when she tried to touch his shoulder, the way he didn't speak for hours, the way he sat there as if he had left his own body behind.

Even now, years later, her throat closed at the memory. Tears welled in her eyes, blurring the ink on the diary's pages. 'That was the day,' she thought, clutching the book against her chest. 'The day he stopped being the boy who smiled at me for sneaking sweets into his room. The day Rivena took something from him that I could never give back.'

Her tears spilled freely, running down her cheeks. The weight of helplessness pressed hard on her chest. She had been there for him every day, sworn to protect him, yet she had not seen the danger until it was too late.

The diary slipped slightly in her grasp, the leather damp beneath her fingers. She closed it, unable to read more for now. Her heart ached with every beat.

She whispered into the empty room, her voice trembling: "I'm sorry, young master… I couldn't protect you back then."

Her tears stained the leather cover, but after a long pause she drew a shaky breath and opened the diary once more. The next page waited for her.

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