The Phoenix Aspect

C0003: A Despicable Family

After High Mage Saunders announcement, pure pandemonium broke out. Most people had never heard of a null before, the guests were confused, while those in the know such as Jayde's parents were horrified.

How could they, being so outstanding produce something as aberrant as a null. Nulls were people without any magic. In Doha even the lowest slave had magic. The only creatures in Doha that were magic-free were the lowly beasts.

"Y...y-ou must be mistaken," Za'thul shouted out, stuttering for the first time in his life. High Mage Saunder announcement was a disaster. If High Mage Saunders was correct, this would be the most embarrassing event in the Freehold clan's history.

How could their daughter be lower than a slave, a beast, could you even consider her to be a human? Who had ever heard of a magic-free human?

"Clan Leader Za'thul, I have confirmed it twice, you saw that I even used multiple crystals, there is no mistake, your daughter is a null," said High Mage Saunders coldly.

High Mage Saunders then went on to clarify: "Your daughter has no magic ability whatsoever, she is the first magic-free ‹human› born since ancient times," High Mage Saunders stressed human, as though he doubted Jayde was human.

The guests were shocked; then everyone started whispering, the ladies snickering behind their hands, while some of the men were smirking, delighted with the catastrophe befalling the Freehold Clan.

Elder Ebi, Za'thul's third uncle realized that Freehold Clan needed to act quickly. Apologizing he sent all guests home. After everything had quietened down, the elders called an urgent meeting with Za'thul.

After hours of heated debate, the elders decided that Za'thul would discard Shyenho as his main wife, she would be found guilty of adultery. Unfortunately, Jayde being a null had been made public, and the news would have spread far and wide that getting rid of the child quietly was no longer an option for the clan. They needed to come up with a solution that would remove any taint of this aberration.

To explain away the color of Jayde's eyes, they would tell everyone that Shyenho had weaved a spell on Jayde when she was born changing her eye color to hide her adultery and that Za'thul had discovered this after investigating the matter. Za'thul would rather live with the humiliation of everyone knowing that his wife had cheated on him, than having an abomination like Jayde as his daughter.

Shyenho was quickly tried and found guilty; even the Starglaze Clan refused to interfere, they did not want to be associated with an aberrant like Jayde. After being found guilty, the Freehold Clan followed family law. Shyenho was sentenced to death by public stoning.

To lay this matter to rest as quickly as possible, on the third day after Jayde's Reading Day, Shyenho was dragged through the streets of Arvia, where she was beaten and stoned to death. Her name, as well as Jayde's, was removed from both the Freehold and Starglaze Clan ancestral records.

Up until the day of her mother's execution, Jayde has no idea what was going on. She had been dragged away after High Mage Saunders announcement and locked up in her room. No matter how loud she screamed and cried, no one tendered to her.

On the day of her mother's execution, Jayde was made to watch as her mother was stoned to death. Her father had already arranged for one of the elders to cast a spell on her to change her beautiful amber eyes to black, as well as to make slight changes to her face to remove any similarity to him. Her beautiful clothes were confiscated, and she was dressed in the rough tunic uniform of the Freehold Clan's slaves.

Shocked and confused Jayde tried to call out to her father, she was desperately seeking comfort from her parents. As she ran up to her father, he brutally beat her, shouting at her to get away, calling her a bastard, and many other words that she did not understand.

After being kicked and punched a number times, her small body was filled with pain, blood dripped from her mouth, and she had numerous cuts on her body. One of the maids roughly pulled her away and told her to stay away from the family members, that she was a slave and should be obedient.

Her small body trembled as she watched her beautiful mother dragged through the streets of Arvia, while the crowd jeered and threw rotten vegetables and stones at her. Jayde struggled to break free of the slave who was holding her.

Finally, Jayde managing to escape and ran up to mother, not understanding what was going on. All she wanted was for her mother to hug her like she did in the past, and tell her that everything was going to alright, but instead of embracing her, her mother's eyes were filled with bone-chilling hatred, it was like she was looking at a monster.

"Get away from me, you ugly monster, you are an abomination, you are not my child!" her mother screamed.

With her hands tied, all Shyenho could do was try to kick her daughter.

"Give me back my daughter you b***h!" Shyenho howled.

Struggling hard against the ropes, Shyenho tried her hardest to get to Jayde, her greatest desire at that moment was to strangle this child, tear her to pieces, eat her flesh and drink her blood.

In the time that she was imprisoned Shyenho had come to the conclusion that Jayde was a changeling, that someone must have swapped out her real daughter with this demon child.

Exhausted and with her strength and magic suppressed, Shyenho collapsed, still muttering all the time for Jayde to give her daughter back. The guards dragging Shyenho through the streets had lost patience watching the drama and pulled her away.

In a final burst of strength, Shyenho shouted at Jayde.

"You have killed me, you murderous b***h!! You have killed me."

That was the last time Jayde ever saw her mother, but her last words were branded onto her mind, and for years to come, they would replay in her dreams.

After Shyenho execution, Jayde was thrown into the slave pits. The slave pits of the Freehold clan was the worst place in the Freehold Estates to be assigned too. Only people who had betrayed the family, murderers, and rapists were assigned to the Slave pits — it was considered hell. It was said that is was better to die than to be thrown to the pits.

It was here, in these slave pits that Jayde was to spend the next ten years of her miserable life. Beaten and starved Jayde slaved away from sunrise to sunset, if it weren't for Old Man Zhek, Jayde would have perished within a couple of days of arriving.

Old Man Zhek, took Jayde under his wing and tried his best to protect her. He taught her how to survive, were to steal the best food, how to hide from the guards and fellow slaves.

For eight years Old Man Zhek guarded Jayde, but life was hard in the pits, and when Jayde was eleven years old, Old Man Zhek passed away, leaving Jayde all alone. For two years Jayde struggled to survive on her own.

But fate was a fickle b***h, and she had one last joke to play on Jayde.

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