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The years between ten and fifteen passed like a long, gray season. There were no celebrations. No festivals. No gifts. The midwife's hair turned white, her back bent like the old tree behind the cottage, and her footsteps grew slower with every winter. John took over everything. The cooking. The chopping. The patching of the roof whenever it leaked in the rain. He learned because there was no one else. No one came to help.
By the time he was twelve, the nobles in the manor no longer ignored him.
They began to notice him.
It started with glances from the windows whenever he crossed the courtyard with a sack of grain or a bucket of water. Then came the whispers. The laughter. He heard his name spoken behind hands. Bastard. Dirtblood. Cottage brat. Names that dug into him like thorns.
One day, while passing through the back gardens on an errand, one of the elder sons stopped him.
It was Julian White.
Firstborn of the Duke. Tall, handsome, confident. His silver and navy uniform shimmered with magical embroidery. A golden chain hung across his shoulder. Everything about him screamed nobility.
He stepped in front of John with a smirk on his face. "You walk with your eyes too high for someone born in filth," he said.
John held his tongue. He didn't respond. He never talked with any of his half siblings.
Julian tilted his head. "Are you proud, bastard? Do you think your blood gives you rights to live here?"
John shook his head.
"Then why do you look at this place like it belongs to you?"
Before John could respond, Julian slapped him.
SPAT!
It was fast, unexpected. A sharp crack filled the air. The pain bloomed across John's cheek instantly. He tasted blood at the corner of his mouth.
Julian laughed. "Learn your place, low born."
That night, the ring pulsed again. This time, it felt warm. John sat awake, watching the glow in the darkness. No voice spoke. But something stirred beneath the surface. Like a breath held back, waiting for the right moment.
He didn't cry. He hadn't cried in years. He promised himself that we won't cry. He will be strong. Strong enough to earn respect from those who look down on him.
At thirteen, his chores were doubled. The midwife could no longer stand without help. Her breath wheezed when she spoke. Often for days she didn't leave bed at all. John took care of her, just as she had once taken care of him.
She taught him old stories when she could. About the founding of the kingdom. The rise of magic. The hearts of people that could forge Circles of power.
"Nine Circles," she said. "Each one a ring inside your heart. The more you unlock, the stronger your magic becomes."
She was sitting near the gate that day, wrapped in a faded quilt that smelled of dried herbs and old woodsmoke. Her voice trembled with age, but her words were clear. She stared at the fire as if it held answers to questions even she no longer dared to ask. The flames danced in her eyes, casting shadows on the lines carved deep into her face.
John had been sitting on the floor with a half eaten crust of bread in his hand. He looked up at her, hesitant. His voice was barely a whisper.
"But I think I don't have any magic," he said.
She turned to him slowly, her cloudy eyes soft but piercing. "You will," she said.
"How do you know?" he asked.
"Because your eyes see the world as it is," she replied. "That is rarer than any power. And because you carry the bloodline of mages. Magic sleeps inside you. But one day it will wake. And nobody knows what type of power they will awaken. No matter what type of magic someone gets, it all depends on how you use it. The method of using magic determines how strong you are or can be."
He did not fully understand what she meant. But the certainty in her voice made something ache in his chest. He wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe that there was something special about him. Something more than the chores and the silence and the stares from behind manor windows.
That was the last spring he would ever hear her voice.
She died during a thunderstorm. A wild, angry storm that rolled in from the northern cliffs and slammed against the cottage like a beast clawing at the sky. Rain battered the roof. Lightning tore the clouds open. The wind howled through the cracks in the shutters. And inside the little cottage, she lay on her bed, still as stone.
John sat beside her all night, holding her hand. Her skin was cold and thin as paper. Her breath came shallow and slow. He begged her to stay. He whispered promises. That he would take care of the cottage. That he would try harder with the chores. That he would be strong. She said nothing. Her lips moved once, like she was trying to form a word, but no sound came.
When the morning came, she was gone.
The storm passed. The rain stopped. But inside the cottage, a deeper silence settled.
John did not cry at first. He just sat beside her bed, staring at the window, listening to the wind outside. The world felt too big all of a sudden. Too wide. Too empty. The one person who had ever spoken to him like he mattered was gone. She had been the only one who treated him like he was more than a shadow. More than a low born boy with a strange ring and no past.
He was twelve when he buried her alone, behind the cottage, beneath the old tree where the branches bent like old arms toward the sky. He dug the grave himself. The earth was wet and heavy from the storm. His hands blistered and bled. His knees sank into the mud. The cold clung to his bones. But he kept digging.
There was no one to help. No one to mourn. No one from the servants house came. No one from the manor even noticed.
When the hole was deep enough, he wrapped her in her favorite blanket and laid her gently inside. He said no words. He had none. Just silence. Just the sound of birds returning to the trees. Just the wind whispering through the grass.
He placed a smooth stone at the head of the grave. That was all he could give her. Then he sat beside the grave until the sun disappeared behind the hills and the stars blinked awake in the sky.
That night, he wept.
He buried his face in his hands and sobbed until his throat burned. He cried for her. For loneliness. For the coldness of the world that kept pushing him aside. He cried until he had no tears left, and still the pain did not leave. It stayed like a weight inside his chest, a heavy ache that refused to fade.
He was alone now. Truly alone. The cottage was silent without her. The fire no longer felt warm. The walls no longer felt safe. Every shadow reminded him of her absence. Every creak in the floorboards made him look up, hoping she would appear again.
But she never did.
Days passed. Then weeks. And the world went on. The servants passed by the cottage as they always had, eyes down, faces blank. The manor lights still burned each night. But no one looked his way.
The ring on his finger pulsed once. Faint. A slow throb of warmth. He looked down at it. And for the first time since her death, he whispered to it. "I miss her."
A few days later, the beatings began.
It was never announced. Never discussed. Never spoken of in the halls or whispered at the garden walls. But it became a pattern. A ritual. A quiet sport hidden in shadows. Julian and the other four half brothers found reasons. Or rather, they invented them. A scroll missing from the study, though John had never set foot inside. A vase shattered in the hall, though he had spent the entire day chopping wood behind the cottage. A noble's robe brushed by wind borne dust, and somehow it was his fault.
Each excuse was thinner than the last, yet each one was enough.
They would come in the afternoons or just before dusk. Always when no one else was around. One brother would slip in first with a sour smirk. Then another. Soon all five would gather like crows on a carcass. They never spoke much. Just a nod or a glance between them before fists started flying.
It was never in front of others. Not officially. Never where a noble eye might wander. But inside the cottage or behind it… where the bushes grew thick and the ground was packed with old roots, they would corner him. Laughing sometimes. Silent other times. And take turns.
After a month he learned not to scream. Not because he wanted to be brave, but because it hurt more when he did. They liked it when he made noise. It gave them something to measure. Something to chase. If he cried out, they would keep going. If he curled up quietly, they would eventually get bored.
Sometimes a servant would pass by and see. A flicker of a figure in the window. A shadow shifting behind the bushes. A thud. A grunt. The sound of something breaking.
But they looked away. Always.
He was beaten five times each day. Once by each brother. They rarely showed up together anymore. They began to space it out, like a schedule. One would visit before breakfast. Another during midday. One after sunset. Another in the middle of the night when the moon was bright and silence thick. They called it fairness. Equal turns. Equal cruelty.
Some days he could not move.
He would lie behind the cottage, curled up in the dirt, arms wrapped around his ribs. His body was bruised. His lip split. One eye swollen shut. No one came for him. No one asked if he was alright. The world kept moving. The manor lights kept burning and the Nobel parties kept happening. The servants kept walking past. Eyes down. Lips sealed.
His brothers made a game of it.
They kept a tally. Julian, always the ringleader, scratched a mark on the back of the cottage wall with a knife he had been given by their father. Every time one of them hit John, they carved a new line. By the end of the month, the wood looked like a page filled with ink. They joked about prizes. Who could come up with the best excuse. Who could make John fall to his knees first. Who could draw blood without leaving a scar.
It was a sport. He was their sport. And the worst part was not the pain. It was the silence.
The hollow quiet after they walked away. The knowledge that no one cared. That he could scream, cry, or bleed, and the world would not flinch. That the only thing waiting for him after the beatings was the same empty cottage, the same cold floor, the same grave behind the tree.
He began to wonder if the Nine Circles were not inside his heart after all. But outside. All around him. Made by the people who shared his blood.
One day he came home with blood dried across his lip and bruises lining his ribs. He lay on the cot in the corner of the cottage, eyes on the ceiling, fists clenched. The ring glowed again.
This time, the light spread across his hand. A voice stirred in the back of his mind. Not full words. Just the faintest hum. He closed his eyes.
"I haven't forgotten," he whispered. And the light faded.
By fifteen, he was taller. Although he never received proper training like his half brothers, yet his body became much stronger than them from the non stop beating, for the past three years. His eyes held a different light now. Not hope. Not pride. Something colder. Quiet and sharp like the edge of a blade kept hidden beneath cloth.
That was the year the Duke called him.
He had never heard the Duke speak to him directly before or never seen the duke face up close. Not once in fifteen years. But a messenger arrived one morning, dressed in black, and handed him a letter.
The seal was red wax. The family crest pressed into the center. John opened it with steady fingers.
The letter says: He was to appear in the great hall before the court. Alone.
The walk through the estate was silent. Nobles watched him pass. Servants turned their heads.
He stepped into the grand hall and felt the air shift. The ceilings rose high above, supported by marble pillars etched with mana veins. Red carpets ran down the length of the room. Chandeliers floated overhead, glowing with enchanted crystals.
The Duke sat at the far end, dressed in gray silk robes lined with silver. His face was hard and unreadable.
John walked until he stood ten paces away and bowed. "Sir, You summoned me."
The Duke studied him in silence. "You have lived under this roof for fifteen years," he said. "Sheltered, Fed, Clothed. Despite your blood."
John said nothing. "You are not recognized by the world. You are not one of my heirs."
Still, he remained silent. The Duke's voice grew colder. "Your presence here breeds shame. Contempt. You are a wound the family cannot allow to fester."
He raised one hand. "You are hereby banished from the House of White. From this day forward, you are no longer welcome in these lands."
The silence in the room was absolute. John looked up. He didn't speak. Didn't beg. His heart beat once, slow and clear. The ring pulsed faintly on his hand.
He bowed once more. "Understood."
He turned and walked out. No one followed. No one stopped him. Not even Julian, who smiled from his place along the court wall.
As John stepped past the manor gates, the guards closed them behind him with a loud metallic slam.
Clang.
He didn't look back.