Backstory
Zoë was born in Heart Castle on October 1, 1992, the only daughter of Georgios Kattalakis, a Six of Hearts, and Charlotte, then a Seven of Hearts. Her mother had been born into Hearts too, as had her family for more generations than had been recorded by the Hearts’ historians, but Georgios was from the outside, a Greek soldier who’d been facing dishonorable discharge and court-martial when he’d found the Deck.
Her childhood was unremarkable and unblemished, like any child in the Deck’s; she went to school, where her high intelligence made her excel, and buried herself in the library reading at almost all other times, starting the process of reading her way through her Suit’s collection. Zoe was painfully awkward and shy as a little girl, and reading books was easier than conversations, even if it drove her mother crazy - Zoë should be making the connections that would serve her well at court, help her to advance with all of the candidates for the Hearts’ face cards. Her father told Charlotte to let the girl be, and spent his own free time filling her head with stories of Greece.
He got sick when she was twelve.
It was cancer, a rivulent strain of stomach cancer, and Georgios fought it as best as he could for a year and a half before he called a halt to all treatments. To let himself rest, he told people, and that was when they knew it was over; Georgios had always been one to say that he’d rest when he was dead.
He passed in his sleep, two months after Zoe turned fourteen, and just before Christmas. Charlotte shut them both away from the rest of the court until just after the new year dawned, and then they emerged. Zoë returned to school, and Charlotte - who had always been satisfied with her rank of Seven - threw herself into advancing. A higher rank meant more responsibilities, and more responsibilities meant less time. Less time to think, and less time to mourn. Less time with her daughter, but that was a consequence Charlotte wouldn’t realize for years.
As for Zoë herself, she did what she’d always done when she’d felt lost. She threw herself into her reading and studies. She spent hours on horseback riding, and she grew up faster than she otherwise would have. She slowly grew from an awkward and shy little girl to a calm and poised teenaged girl, never any trouble. When she reached her majority at fifteen, she was given the rank of a Two, and she quickly advanced from there to Three, and then Four.
She became a Five at seventeen, and her mother gave her Sirona as a gift of congratulations. When she became a Six, close to her eighteenth birthday, she moved into her own rooms. Zoë and Charlotte talk about as much as they have since Georgios death, meaning that they speak everyday, politely and affectionately but without saying much of substance at all. It’s not a problem for Zoë.
In all honesty, she wouldn’t be sure what to do with a mother who was like Charlotte had been before she turned fourteen. Which is to say that Zoë wouldn’t be sure what to do with a mother at all.