Location: Freehold Estate Council Chambers, Arvia Province
Time: Midday, three days after the Kindling, Year 2847 of the Lower Realm
The council chamber reeked of fear-sweat and burned ambition. Jade huddled in the shadows beside the great oak doors, her small body pressed against cold stone as voices rose and fell like storm winds. Three days. Three days since the temple, since the word that had shattered everything: Voidforge.
Abomination.
The whispers followed her everywhere now—servants crossing themselves when she passed, guards averting their eyes, even the estate cats hissing from shadows. (Something's wrong with me. Something broken.) But she didn't understand what, or why, Mama wouldn't speak to her, wouldn't even look at her anymore.
"—cannot allow this stain to remain," Elder Thorne's voice cut through the murmur of debate, sharp as broken glass. "The girl is a walking curse upon our bloodline."
"She's my daughter!" Za'thul's roar shook dust from ancient beams. "I'll not have her—"
"Your daughter?" Elder Koraven's laugh held winter's bite. "That thing shares no blood with House Freehold. Look at what the Kindling revealed—she is hollow, void, an affront to the natural order."
Thing. The word struck like a physical blow. Jade pressed closer to the door crack, amber eyes wide with confusion and growing terror. They were talking about her—she knew that much—but the words felt too big, too heavy for her small mind to hold.
Inside the chamber, Shyenho sat rigid in her chair, beautiful face carved from marble and madness. Once, those jade-green eyes had looked at Jade with love so fierce it could melt steel. Now they held only revulsion, as if something precious had rotted from within.
"My daughter," Shyenho whispered, voice cracking like winter ice, "my real daughter was stolen. Replaced." Her hands trembled as she pointed toward the doors where Jade hid. "That is not mine. Look at it—look how it breathes our air, walks our halls, wears our name like stolen silk!"
The madness had taken root in the temple, blooming black and thorned in the moments after Korvanis spoke that cursed word. (Changeling, Shyenho had whispered that first night, pacing their chambers like a caged beast. The demons took my child, left this empty shell.) Every hour since had fed the delusion, watering it with shame and broken dreams until nothing remained but bitter certainty.
"Shyenho." Za'thul's voice gentled, the tone he'd once used for lovers' quarrels and small hurts. "She has your eyes, your smile. She's—"
"It has my daughter's stolen face!" Shyenho's shriek echoed off the stone walls. "Can't you see? The way it watches us with those amber eyes—cold, calculating, wrong. No child looks at the world like that!"
(Like what?) Jade pressed her small hands to her chest, feeling her heart hammering like a trapped bird. She didn't understand the grown-up words, the politics and bloodlines and curses, but she understood rejection. Understood that somehow, in ways she couldn't grasp, she'd become something unwanted.
Something wrong.
Elder Thorne cleared his throat, shuffling parchments with deliberate care. "The law is clear in cases of... aberrant manifestation. When a child proves fundamentally incompatible with clan bloodlines—"
"She's five years old!" Za'thul slammed his fist on the council table, making goblets jump. "Whatever she is, she's still—"
"Still what?" Elder Koraven's voice dripped poison honey. "Still human? The High Mage himself couldn't detect even a spark of essence within her. In ten thousand years of recorded history, no human has ever manifested as completely void. She is an impossibility, Clan Leader. A walking violation of natural law."
Natural law. The words tasted of ash and endings.
Shyenho rose like a wraith, silk robes pooling around her feet. "I know what must be done," she said, voice hollow as an empty tomb. "The creature that wears my daughter's face must answer for its crime."
"What crime?" Za'thul's amber eyes blazed with desperate confusion. "She's done nothing but exist!"
"Existing is her crime!" Shyenho's voice cracked, centuries of pain bleeding through. "Don't you understand? Somewhere, my real daughter—my beautiful, powerful child—is lost, stolen, replaced by this... this void that mocks everything we are!"
The madness was complete now, polished to gleaming clarity. In Shyenho's mind, the story had crystallized: demons or dark spirits had stolen her true child—the one destined for greatness, for Flamewrought rank or higher—and left this hollow shell as a cruel joke. (Not my fault, the delusion whispered. Not my bloodline. Not my failure. Something else did this.) It was easier than accepting that sometimes, despite dragon blood and perfect lineages, the universe simply... didn't care.
Elder Thorne leaned forward, political calculation glittering in his pale eyes. "If the Lady Shyenho believes adultery has occurred—that the child is not of true Freehold blood—then clan law is quite specific."
Adultery. Another grown-up word Jade didn't understand, but one that made her father go very still and very dangerous.
"You're suggesting," Za'thul said slowly, "that I publicly accuse my wife of infidelity? Claim the child is... bastard-born?"
"It would explain the... irregularities," Koraven said delicately. "No true Freehold child could manifest as void. Therefore..."
Therefore. The word hung like a blade over everything Jade had ever known.
Za'thul's hands gripped the table edge, knuckles white with strain. Political wheels turned behind those amber eyes—calculations of damage, reputation, survival. A null child was an impossibility that threatened everything. But a bastard child born of adultery? That was merely a scandal. Manageable. Containable.
"The Starglaze clan has already withdrawn their support," Elder Thorne continued remorselessly. "Lord Starglaze publicly disavowed his daughter this morning. Quote: 'No child of our bloodline could manifest such aberration. Therefore, none of our bloodline was involved in its creation.'"
The betrayal cut deep. Shyenho's own father, casting her aside to protect clan reputation. Even family meant nothing when faced with the impossible.
"So," Za'thul said finally, voice like ground glass, "what do you propose?"
"Trial," Koraven said simply. "Public trial for adultery, with the child as evidence of the crime. Let the people see that House Freehold cleanses its own corruption."
Shyenho nodded eagerly, madness and political necessity aligning. "Yes. Yes. Let all see what that creature really is—a bastard born of stolen seed, wearing my daughter's stolen face. Let justice be done."
Justice. The word tasted of iron and endings.
Outside the door, Jade felt something cold settle in her chest. (This is bad. Really bad.) The certainty came from somewhere deep and strange, like an adult's voice whispering in her child's mind. (Political maneuvering. Scapegoating. They're going to—)
"The trial will be public," Elder Thorne declared. "Tomorrow at noon, in the great square. The charges: adultery, bringing shame upon the clan, and..." he paused, savoring the words, "harboring an abomination within sacred bloodlines."
"And the sentence?" Za'thul's voice was barely a whisper.
"Death by stoning," Koraven said with satisfaction. "As prescribed by clan law for adultery committed by the spouse of a clan leader. The bastard child will watch, so all may see the fate of those who sully pure bloodlines."
Death. The word hit Jade like a physical blow, even though she didn't fully understand its weight. But she understood watch—they wanted her to see something terrible happen to Mama. Something that would hurt.
Something final.
The next day dawned gray and bitter, ash-clouds rolling in from the eastern peaks like harbingers of doom. Jade sat in the servants' quarters, wearing rough-spun clothes instead of silk, her amber eyes dull with confusion and growing dread. Mama hadn't come to say goodbye. Hadn't even looked at her during the trial.
The trial had been swift, efficient, brutal in its political necessity. Shyenho had stood before the assembled crowd—three thousand souls packed into Arvia's great square—and confessed to adultery with wild, desperate eyes. (Not my fault, she'd whispered to the magistrate. *My real daughter was stolen. This creature they bring as evidence—it's not mine. Not mine.*)
The crowd had believed what they needed to believe. That House Freehold, despite ancient bloodlines and carefully bred genetics, had been betrayed by a wife's infidelity. That the impossible void-child was simply bastard-born, explanation enough for any aberration.
(Political theater,) that strange adult voice whispered in Jade's mind as guards led her through stone corridors toward the square. (Scapegoating. They can't accept what I am, so they're rewriting history to make it palatable.)
The thought felt too big for her five-year-old mind, but somehow she understood it anyway.
The great square buzzed with anticipation, three thousand voices rising like storm-wind as Jade was positioned on the execution platform's edge. Below, a circle had been marked in white chalk—ancient law dictating that adulteresses be stoned within the sacred bounds, their blood sanctifying the earth they'd defiled.
Shyenho stood in that circle's center, hands bound, silk robes replaced with sackcloth and ashes. But her eyes—oh, her beautiful jade-green eyes—burned with righteous madness, fixed not on the crowd or her husband or approaching death, but on Jade herself.
"You," she whispered, voice carrying in the sudden hush. "You killed my daughter. You stole her face, her place, her future. You killed us all with your emptiness."
Killed. The word tasted of rust and broken promises.
"Mama?" Jade's small voice cracked across the silence. She didn't understand the chains, the crowd, the stones piled at the circle's edge like deadly fruit. "Mama, why—"
"I am not your mother!" Shyenho's shriek split the air like breaking glass. "My daughter was beautiful, powerful, destined for greatness! You are nothing—less than nothing—a void wearing stolen skin!"
The first stone came from somewhere in the crowd's depths, thrown by a hand Jade couldn't see. It struck Shyenho's shoulder with a sound like breaking pottery, spinning her around with the impact. She laughed—actually laughed—as if pain was proof of righteousness.
"Yes!" she cried, madness making her voice ring like temple bells. "Stone the adulteress! Stone the one who harbored aberration! But know this—" Her eyes found Jade again, burning with inhuman intensity. "—that creature is the real criminal. It killed my daughter. It killed us all. And someday, it will kill you too."
Someday, it will kill you, too.
The words hit harder than stones, lodging in Jade's chest like physical weight. Around her, the crowd's murmur grew hungry, anticipatory. More stones flew—a steady rain of judgment that drove Shyenho to her knees, then to her side, then to her back as blood pooled beneath her broken form.
But still she stared at Jade. Still, her mouth moved, forming curses and condemnations even as her voice failed. (Your fault. Your fault. Monster. Changeling. Killer.)
"Please," Jade whispered, tears tracking down her cheeks like liquid fire. "Mama, please don't—"
"Get away from me!" Shyenho's final scream split the air, fueled by blood and madness and absolute conviction. "You are not mine! You killed her! You killed my beautiful daughter and stole her face, and I will never, never forgive you!"
The crowd's roar drowned out whatever came next. Stones fell like judgment rain, each impact echoing off square stones with wet, final sounds. Jade watched through tears and terror as the woman who'd once sung her lullabies and kissed scraped knees was buried beneath righteous violence.
(She's dying,) that adult voice whispered with clinical detachment. (Political necessity. They can't kill me directly—I'm still Za'thul's acknowledged child, and kinslaying brings divine curse—so they're eliminating the witness to their failure.)
Failure. The word tasted of ash and broken dreams.
When the stones finally stopped falling, when the crowd's bloodlust had exhausted itself against broken flesh and shattered bones, silence settled over the square like a burial shroud. Shyenho lay motionless in her circle of judgment, jade-green eyes staring sightlessly at gray skies.
But even in death, her face held no peace. Only accusation. Only the terrible certainty that somewhere in the void-touched creature watching from the platform, a monster wore her daughter's stolen skin.
"It is done," the magistrate declared, voice carrying across the hushed square. "Let all witness: House Freehold cleanses its own corruption. The adulteress pays the price of her betrayal."
Betrayal. Another word that tasted of endings.
Guards moved efficiently, removing the body, cleaning blood from sacred stones. Political theater concluded, the crowd began to disperse—duty done, curiosity satisfied, normal life resuming. But Jade remained frozen on the platform's edge, small hands gripping weathered wood as understanding crashed over her in terrible waves.
Mama was gone. Forever gone. And somehow—in ways she couldn't understand but felt in her bones—it was her fault.
(Not your fault,) that strange inner voice tried to insist. (Political maneuvering. They needed a scapegoat for what you represent.)
But the voice felt distant, abstract. What felt real was Mama's eyes, burning with hatred and madness. What felt real were the final words, echoing in her skull like prophecy:
Someday, it will kill you, too.
"Take her to the pits," Za'thul's voice cut through her paralysis, flat and emotionless as winter stone. "She is no longer my daughter. She is... property. Nothing more."
Property. The word fell like a gravestone on everything she'd been.
But Za'thul wasn't finished. Even in death, even in political victory, the lie needed perfection.
"Bring the child forward," he commanded, voice carrying the weight of absolute authority.
Guards dragged Jade from the platform's edge, her small feet stumbling over blood-slick stones. The crowd pressed closer, sensing another spectacle, another piece of theater to complete their entertainment.
"Elder Koraven," Za'thul called, and the ancient mage stepped forward with ritual supplies already prepared—silver bowl, crystalline blade, vials of murky liquid that seemed to writhe with their own dark purpose. "The final evidence."
Evidence. The word tasted of bitter herbs and endings.
"What the adulteress confessed in madness," Za'thul announced to the assembled crowd, "we now prove with sacred magic. See how the bastard child was disguised—how forbidden enchantments hid her true nature from even a father's eyes!"
Jade struggled weakly as strong hands held her still, not understanding the words but feeling their weight like stones upon her chest. Around her, the crowd murmured with renewed interest. More theater. More proof of their righteousness.
Elder Koraven knelt beside her, ancient fingers surprisingly gentle as they tilted her small face toward the gray sky. "Such beautiful amber eyes," he said softly, almost sadly. "Dragon blood shows true, even in bastard get. But not for long."
The first spell hit like ice-water in her veins—foreign magic worming through her essence-void body, finding purchase in flesh and bone where power should have dwelt. Jade screamed, a sound that cut through the crowd's murmur like breaking glass, but the hands held her fast.
"See how the deception unravels!" Za'thul's voice boomed over her cries. "Watch as false bloodline markers fade, revealing the truth beneath enchanted lies!"
The transformation was agony beyond description. Her amber eyes—the dragon blood inheritance that marked her as Za'thul's daughter—dimmed like dying embers, shifting through shades of brown and gray before settling into flat, lifeless black. Common eyes. Peasant eyes. Eyes that held no hint of noble bloodline or draconic heritage.
But that wasn't all. Elder Koraven's second spell twisted her features subtly, erasing the too-familiar curve of cheekbone that matched Za'thul's, softening the proud nose that declared her Freehold heritage. When the magic finished its work, she looked... ordinary. Unremarkable. A bastard child who could have been sired by any common farmer or tradesman.
"Behold!" Za'thul's voice rang with theatrical triumph. "The adulteress's final crime revealed—enchantments woven into the child's very flesh to mimic true bloodline! See how the bastard's common features show now that the deception is broken!"
The crowd gasped and pointed, seeing what they'd been told to see. Evidence of magical deception. Proof that their clan leader had been the victim of elaborate betrayal rather than... whatever she truly was.
(Clever,) that strange adult voice whispered with something like admiration. (Remove the physical evidence of your paternity, claim the child was disguised by magic to look like your daughter. Now the resemblance becomes proof of deception rather than blood relation.)
Proof of deception.
Jade touched her face with trembling fingers, feeling alien features where familiar ones had been. In the reflection of a puddle's surface, black eyes stared back—empty, common, powerless. Nothing remained of the dragon-blooded child who'd climbed temple steps three days ago.
That girl was dead. Erased. Replaced by this hollow thing wearing stolen skin.
"Let this be a lesson," Za'thul declared, his voice echoing off stone walls with finality. "House Freehold suffers no deception, tolerates no corruption, harbors no aberration. Justice is done."
Justice is done.
The crowd began to disperse, satisfied with their entertainment, their righteousness confirmed, and their world-view intact. Shyenho had been punished for adultery. The bastard child's true nature had been revealed. Order was restored.
Guards closed around Jade—not the gentle escorts who'd once guided a clan leader's daughter, but rough hands that gripped without care for bruises or tears. They dragged her from the platform, through streets that had once welcomed her, past faces that now showed only disgust or pity or morbid curiosity.
No one looked at her and saw Za'thul's daughter anymore. The magic had seen to that.
The slave pits opened like a mouth to swallow her—dark stone tunnels carved deep beneath the estate, where the unwanted went to break and die. The overseer looked her up and down with calculating eyes, seeing five-year-old fragility and estimating survival odds.
"Aberrant get," he muttered, making notes on a tablet stained with things Jade didn't want to think about. "Orders say treat her like any other property. No special consideration for former... status."
Former status. Another nail in the coffin of what she'd been.
They threw her into a cell barely large enough for her small body—stone walls slick with moisture and darker stains, straw that reeked of previous occupants' despair. The door slammed shut with finality that echoed in her bones.
Darkness. Complete and crushing, and final.
In that darkness, something shifted in Jade's mind. The strange adult voice that had been whispering observations and analysis grew stronger, clearer, more insistent. (Tactical assessment. Five years old, physically weak, no allies, hostile environment. Survival odds... not good.)
Not good.
But still alive. Still breathing. Still... something.
(First rule of survival: assess your situation. Second rule: adapt or die. Third rule: never, ever give up.)
The voice felt foreign and familiar all at once, like remembering a dream that might have been real. But in the crushing darkness of her new reality, it was the only thing that felt solid.
The only thing that felt like hope.
Outside her cell, the slave pits echoed with sounds of misery—sobbing, cursing, the wet slap of leather on flesh. This was where she belonged now. This was what she'd become.
Property. Aberrant. Void-born.
Monster.
But monsters, Jade was beginning to understand, had their own kind of strength. Their own way of surviving in a world that wanted them dead.
In the darkness, black eyes opened with new purpose. Not understanding, not yet—she was still too young, too shattered by loss and betrayal. But purpose nonetheless.
(Survive first,) the voice whispered with cold determination. (Understand later. Plan after that. But survive, always survive.)
Always survive.
The words felt like a promise. Or maybe a threat.
Either way, they felt like truth.