Location: Freehold Estate Slave Pits & Upper Levels, Arvia Province
Time: Late autumn, Year 2849 of the Lower Realm
The wake-up bells clanged like death rattles through stone corridors, harsh metal against wet rock. Jade rolled awake on her bed of moldy straw, muscles protesting every movement. Two years in these pits had taught her that mornings began before darkness lifted, when guards kicked doors and shouted obscenities that echoed off damp walls like curses from hell itself.
(Another day in paradise.) She'd grown taller but thinner—all sharp angles and careful movements now. Seven years old, with calluses on her palms and scars mapping every lesson the pits had carved into her flesh. The worst scar ran from her left shoulder to her elbow, courtesy of Overseer Garek's favorite teaching tool—a leather whip studded with iron.
Don't fixate on past pain, that familiar voice whispered in her mind. Focus on immediate threats and opportunities.
The voice had gotten stronger over the months, offering advice that somehow felt... experienced. Like it belonged to someone who'd survived worse than slave pits, which was impossible. Jade was seven years old. What could she possibly know about worse things?
"Up and moving, aberrant!" Guard Captain Thorne's voice boomed through the cell block. "Work detail in ten minutes. Anyone still horizontal gets acquainted with my boot."
Jade rolled to her feet with practiced efficiency, joints protesting the stone floor that'd served as her bed. Around her, other prisoners stirred with the sluggish movements of the chronically undernourished. Coughs and groans filled the air—the symphony of the damned greeting another day in hell.
Cell forty-seven had become her world. Six feet by six feet of moldy stone, a bucket that reeked no matter how often it was emptied, and straw that hadn't been changed since she'd arrived. But it was her space now. She'd learned to read the patterns in the stone, to find the one corner that stayed relatively dry, to position herself so guards couldn't see her face during their rounds.
"Little Voidforge." Zhek's voice came from the adjacent cell, rough with sleep but warm with genuine affection. "Ready for another beautiful day in paradise?"
Despite everything, Jade almost smiled. The old man had kept his word about looking out for her. Over two years, he'd become her anchor in a world designed to drown lost children.
"Paradise would have a better breakfast," she whispered back—their morning ritual.
"And prettier guards," he completed, same as always.
It wasn't much, but it was theirs. A small rebellion against a place that tried to steal everything human.
The work rotation today was Upper Level duty—cleaning the estate floors where actual family members lived. Jade had mixed feelings about these assignments. On one hand, they meant better air, natural light, and occasional glimpses of food that didn't resemble paste. On the other hand...
They meant seeing her former family.
Steel yourself, the inner voice advised. They'll attempt psychological warfare to break your resolve. Don't allow it.
The advice felt oddly specific, like it came from someone who'd faced similar betrayals. But Jade pushed the thought away as Guard Thorne unlocked her cell.
"Clean-up duty, aberrant. Try not to embarrass the clan more than you already have."
The escort chain was daily humiliation—twenty slaves linked together with iron collars and rough rope, shuffling through estate corridors like a parade of broken things. Jade had learned to keep her head down, to avoid eye contact, to make herself as invisible as possible.
But invisibility only worked until someone decided to notice you.
"Well, well. Look what crawled up from the pits."
Jade's blood turned to ice water. That voice—smooth, cultured, dripping with entitled cruelty—belonged to her cousin Edvard. Fourteen years old now, grown taller and broader, but his eyes still held the same calculating malice that'd marked him as dangerous two years ago.
Don't react, the voice urged. Give him nothing to work with.
But Jade was seven years old, and seeing family—even family that hated her—made her heart clench with involuntary hope. Maybe things had changed. Maybe time had softened their anger. Maybe—
"She's gotten uglier," another voice observed. Saphira stepped into view, now sixteen and beautiful in the cold way of sharpened steel. Her coal-black hair was elaborately braided, her robes made of finest silk, her Crucible Core glowing with the soft blue light of Torrent Runemind Vanguard 6th Class advancement.
Everything Jade could never be.
"I think she's gotten smaller," Edvard laughed, circling the slave chain like a predator. "Two years of pit food, I suppose. Amazing what proper breeding... or lack thereof... will produce."
The words hit like physical blows. Smaller. She had gotten smaller—not just thin from poor food, but actually shorter than she should be. The healers said malnutrition during growth years could stunt development permanently.
Another thing the pits had stolen from her.
"I heard she still can't access her Crucible Core," Saphira continued, examining her fingernails with theatrical boredom. "Still Voidforge. Still worthless. Father was right to have mother executed—imagine the embarrassment if this thing had been acknowledged as true family."
They're attempting to provoke emotional response, the voice warned. Standard psychological manipulation tactics. Don't engage.
But rage was building in Jade's chest like molten metal, hot and dangerous and impossible to contain. They were talking about Mama's death like it was a convenience. Like murder was just another household chore.
"I wonder," Edvard mused, crouching down to Jade's eye level, "if she remembers what it felt like to be human. Before she was revealed as the aberrant she always was."
His breath smelled of sweet pastries and expensive wine—all the things slaves never tasted. All the things she'd lost when magic failed to manifest in her child's body.
"Answer when spoken to, slave," Saphira commanded. "Or have the pits made you mute as well as useless?"
Jade's hands clenched into fists. Two years of careful invisibility, of swallowing pride and anger and grief. Two years of learning to survive by being nothing.
But they were talking about Mama.
"She died because of you," Jade said quietly, her voice steady despite the furnace burning in her chest. "Both of you. You could've spoken for her. Could've told the truth about what really happened. Instead, you watched and did nothing."
The words fell into sudden silence. Even the other slaves on the chain had gone quiet, sensing danger in the air like animals before a storm.
Edvard's face went very still. Very cold.
"What did you say?"
Abort, the voice urged frantically. Retreat immediately. Apologize. Run if necessary.
But something had broken loose inside Jade—two years of accumulated rage finding a crack in her careful control. She was seven years old, and she'd lost everything, and these two had watched it happen.
"I said she died because you're cowards," Jade repeated, louder this time. "Because you let Za'thul murder her rather than stand up for what was right."
Saphira's hand moved faster than thought, backhanding Jade across the face with a crack that echoed off corridor walls. The blow sent her sprawling against the slave chain, rope burning against her throat, iron collar digging into flesh.
"You will address Lord Za'thul with proper respect," Saphira snarled, her composure finally cracking. "And you will never, ever speak of that adulteress in our presence again."
But Edvard was already moving, his hand glowing with pale blue light of Torrent essence. Advanced Sparkcasting—the kind that could freeze blood in living veins or boil water in human tissue.
"I think our little aberrant needs a reminder of her place," he said, power crackling around his fingers. "Saphira, hold her still."
This is extremely dangerous, the voice said with sudden urgency. He's planning to cause serious injury.
Jade struggled against the chain, but twenty other slaves were linked together, and they weren't about to risk their own safety for one Voidforge child's defiance. Rough hands grabbed her arms, holding her motionless while Edvard approached.
"Torrent Essence, Sparkcasting School," he announced formally, like this was a lesson instead of torture. "Ice Lance technique, modified for precision work."
The spell formed slowly, deliberately—a needle of crystallized water sharp enough to pierce flesh, cold enough to freeze blood. He was showing off, demonstrating his power over someone who had none.
"This is for speaking out of turn," Edvard said, placing the ice needle against her left shoulder.
The cold burned worse than fire, driving through muscle and nerve like a living thing. Jade bit her lip to keep from screaming, tasting blood, refusing to give them the satisfaction of her pain.
"This is for disrespecting the clan," he continued, moving the needle to her right arm.
More burning cold, more carefully controlled agony. The ice didn't just pierce—it spread, freezing tissue around the wound, turning living flesh into something dead and numb.
"And this," Saphira said, taking the needle from her cousin, "is for being born at all."
She drove the ice into Jade's stomach, just below the ribs, angling upward toward vital organs. Not enough to kill—they weren't that stupid—but enough to leave permanent damage.
This time, Jade couldn't help the scream that tore from her throat, echoing off stone walls like the cry of something being murdered. The pain was beyond description, beyond endurance, beyond anything a seven-year-old should have to survive.
But she did survive. Somehow, impossibly, consciousness held on even as agony tried to drag her into merciful darkness.
Stay conscious, the voice commanded, suddenly sharp with authority. Don't let them see you break. Don't give them that victory.
Through the haze of pain, Jade saw her cousins watching with clinical interest, like they were studying an insect's death throes. No guilt. No hesitation. Just the mild satisfaction of a job well done.
"Clean that up," Saphira told the guards. "And make sure it doesn't bleed on the good carpets."
They walked away laughing, their voices fading down the corridor like a bad dream. Leaving Jade curled on cold stone, three ice needles still embedded in her flesh, blood pooling beneath her small body.
The other slaves looked away. They'd learned the same lesson she had—survival meant not getting involved. Help one person, and you might be next.
But Old Man Zhek wasn't on this work detail. Zhek would've—
No. Even Zhek couldn't have stopped this. Nobody could stop the Freehold family from doing whatever they wanted to their property. That's all she was now. Property to be used or discarded as they saw fit.
We need to extract those needles, the voice said, practical despite everything. They'll cause infection if left in too long.
We. There it was again. Like there were two people sharing the same broken body.
With trembling hands, Jade began the agonizing process of extracting ice from her wounds. Each movement sent fresh waves of pain through her nervous system, but the voice guided her through it with calm expertise.
Shallow angle for the shoulder wound. Don't twist—pull straight out. That's correct.
How did she know that? How did she know anything about treating combat injuries?
Pressure on the stomach wound. That one's deep. Maintain pressure until bleeding stops.
The knowledge felt borrowed, like someone else's experience flowing through her mind. But that was impossible. She was seven years old. She'd never been in combat, never treated serious injuries.
Had she?
The thought felt dangerous, like probing a wound that wasn't ready to heal. So Jade pushed it away and focused on staying alive, staying conscious, staying human in a place designed to turn children into broken things.
By the time the work detail ended, she'd managed to stop most of the bleeding. The wounds would scar—everything in the pits eventually scarred—but she'd live. Probably.
Guard Thorne looked her over with professional disinterest, noting the blood and torn clothes but not commenting. Family business wasn't his concern.
"Back to the pits, aberrant. Try not to bleed on anything important."
The descent into darkness felt like falling into a grave. But it was her grave now, the only home she had left. And somewhere in that darkness, Zhek would be waiting with whatever comfort an old slave could offer.
As the iron door clanged shut behind them, sealing her back into the underworld, Jade made herself a promise. She would survive this. She would grow stronger. And someday—somehow—she would make them pay for what they'd done.
Not just to her. To Mama. To every slave who'd died forgotten in these pits.
Good, the voice said with quiet satisfaction. Anger is useful if channeled correctly. But don't let it consume you. That way lies madness.
Again with the oddly specific advice. But Jade was too tired to puzzle over it now. Too hurt to do anything but curl up in her cell and let darkness take the pain away.
Tomorrow would bring new horrors, new lessons in survival. But tonight, she would rest and dream of better things.
In her dreams, there were ships that sailed between stars and a woman with emerald eyes who never stopped fighting for freedom. She wouldn't remember the dreams when she woke, but they'd leave their mark.
They always did.
The pits had tried to break her today. They'd failed.
Tomorrow, they could try again.