Thanks to WAA01 for the edits.
******
Imagine, if you will, a parallel world just like ours, yet so unlike ours. Where science is now the mainstay of our world. Magic, or more precisely magjols, have been the main stay of this similar Earth since man had learned how to harness it. Like ours this Earth has had wars committed in the name of some god, atrocities committed at the hands of soldiers who were following orders of their leaders to cleanse the gene pool of those who didn't a have single trace of magjols in their bodies. However, as the ages passed, and enlightenment came to the world of man, wars have become a thing of the past. In their place duels between representatives of quarreling nations have taken the world by storm. While the system isn't perfect, it had led to a lasting peace, of sorts, for the past five hundred years.
"You cheating bitch!" His father's voice thundered through their home. His pale blue eyes glanced over to the two siblings cowering in his room. He's known for a while, how he knew he couldn't say it was just a feeling he got when he looked at them, that they were not his siblings.
"Keep your voice down the children will hear you!" His mother hissed.
"I don't give a flying fuck if those two brats of yours know their mother is a cheating slut!" They all heard the smack that resounded loudly in their home.
"I understand you're angry with me Jason, but you don't need to call me or the children names just to make yourself feel better."
"The fuck you say, this is my house, I'll call those whinny little brats any damn thing I want. Don't like it there's the fucking door!"
"Fine! I thought we could be civil about this, I guess I should have known better."
"What and allow you just to walk all over me! Go fuck yourself Amanda, you're pussy isn't that great."
"Very well if this is how you want to do things. We'll see you in court. A commoner like you has no chance of winning against nobility like my Edward." His anger burned in his veins at what he was hearing. He was at the age where his magic was beginning to manifest itself, like it was that day, as the knickknacks he had gathered in his child-like innocence dotting his room began to shake violently. "He thought you might do this so Edward already talked a judge into giving me temporary custody of Adam."
"You are not talking my son from me so you can whore yourself out to this... asshat!" Again, Adam heard the slap, and still it didn't phase him. He was in agreement with his father. He wasn't going to go with her just so she could do whatever it was she did with this Edward.
"Get it through your head, Jason, as tiny as that brain is of yours, you can't stop me. If you try you'll find yourself in jail. Do you want that?! Huh! Do you ever want to see Adam again? Fight me on this and you will never see him again! Am I clear!" Amanda screamed out at the top of her lungs. "Just face it Jason, I don't love you anymore. Just sign the papers, get on with your life, this isn't as world ending as you're making it out to be," she said, in that condescending voice of hers that Adam knew so well.
"Nah, just nine years wasted on a cheating slut when I should have married Mandy, at least she's truthful, unlike the bitch I'm staring at!" Jason spat.
"Please," rolling her eyes, "I saved you from a life of misery," Amanda said, waving off the statement. "Now this kind constable will keep an eye on you while I fetch the children's things." An evil light played along her eyes enjoying the rage she saw in Jason's eyes.
"You better take every last scrap of their crap with you if you don't I'll burn it all. And you better believe your so-called beloved Edward," Jason sneered at the name, "isn't going to like the press when they learn that a so-called noble can't even take care of his own bastard children. If you thought you were sneaky about it, you're dead wrong."
"And all they'll see is a hurt, angry man whose wife got tired of living a commoners life when a noble one is the one she desires," Amanda said, from over her shoulder.
"I curse you Amanda, I curse you so everyone will know your true self," Jason growled his magjols shimmered in his eyes as he silently cast the curse on his soon-to-be ex-wife.
"Oh no! A curse! Whatever am I to do?!" Amanda taunted as she walked down the hallway to her eldest son's room. Knowing how her other, better, children would always find their way to his room whenever she or Jason raised their voices, which had grown in frequency over the past few months. She was a little annoyed that her news wasn't hurting Jason like she thought it would have. He had to have known about her and Edward before she told him she was leaving him. She would have thought he would be happy since she wasn't asking anything from him not even child support. She knew she could talk Adam into permanently staying with her... or so she thought until she saw the look in her son's eyes. A look of sheer hate within their depths. "Jill go help your brother pack, we're going to go live with daddy," Amanda said sweetly, looking down at the two children she had with Edward.
"Yea! Daddy!" A three-year-old Jill said happily, before taking her fraternal twin by the hand and leading him to his room.
"Adam..."
"I hate you," Adam seethed angrily, or as furiously as a six-year-old could.
"You must have heard that fight," softening her tone, "I understand you must right now, but this is for the best. Edward can give you everything your father can't," Amanda said, in a motherly voice.
"Except he isn't my Dad!" Adam shouted out.
"Don't say that, give Edward a chance, you'll see. The life of a noble is better than... this," Amanda said, gesturing around the room.
"I'm not going!"
"You are, so the sooner you pack the sooner I'll show you your new home," Amanda said, trying to sound upbeat about it. Sighing loudly when Adam grew stubborn, "Pack," she said forcibly, "enough for two weeks, Edward will get you better, more status fitting clothes later. And no crying!" Amanda barked when she noted her son's quivering eyes. "Get it done! Or you can wear nothing!" she growled stomping out of Adam's room to check on her more important children.
"Don't worry Adam, I'll have you home soon," Jason whispered into his son's ear as he held a weeping Adam close.
"Come on, Adam," yanking her son out of his father's grasp, "we're leaving, you've already made us late," Amanda grumbled dragging Adam behind her while he screamed out for his father. "You're making this tougher than it needs to be," she huffed, pushing Adam into the back of the car Edward had sent with her.
Adam pressed his tiny face against the glass of the window. Yearning for his father to save him. He had no wish to go live with his mother. Even being so young he had seen both sides of his mother, her public face and her private one. He knew he was only a prop for his mother to make herself look good. That's all she ever really cared about. His father, while strict, Adam knew his father loved him, unlike his mother.
"Really, Adam?! It's not like you won't see your father again," Amanda sighed rolling her eyes at Adam's childish display. Arching an eyebrow when she felt something surge in her son when Adam glared at her. "
I guess it is time to have him tested. Won't it be great if Adam tests well and studies under Edward
," she giggled into her mind. "
He'll see, this will be good for us
," Amanda said to herself.
In truth, it did not go well for Amanda or Edward the moment Adam was forced to move into that manor of Edward's. Adam was difficult on the best of days, and others he wasn't controllable, or controllable enough, for the nanny's Edward hired to look after the children. However, that all changed a month into his exile from his home. Due to the class structure of the world around him, nobles and royalty could pretty much get away with murder so long as nothing pointed directly at them. Those who knew Jason knew he wasn't suicidal as the papers had reported. Nonetheless, they all suspected that Amanda and her future new husband had a hand in it. What of Adam? He knew first hand they had a hand in his father's death given how he had overheard them laughing about it one night. And so began the coldest of the silent wars known to mankind.
"Adam, what's the meaning of this?!" Amanda hissed standing in a room that was meant for the servant's living quarters. Noting how all his belongings, minus the items she and Edward had gotten him since moving in, were displayed around the room. "This isn't your room, yours is upstairs beside your brother."
"He's not my brother," Adam spoke coldly, from his sitting position on the floor a rudimentary book of magic open across his lap. "And why do you care where I sleep. You're not here anyway," he uttered factually, knowing the number of times he's seen his mother since moving in could be counted on one hand, with fingers left over.
"Adam, I expect everything packed up and back in that room before dinner, am I clear?!" Amanda said, in an authoritative voice.
"If I don't." Adam replied combatively.
"Adam, I know you're mad about your father's death..." A chill ran up her spine as those pale blue eyes of his shot up to her.
"I hate you; Dad is dead because of you. I wish it was you!" Adam yelled loudly for all the household staff to hear.
"Adam, son, you don't mean that," Amanda spoke thinking it was just her son's grief talking; proving just how little she knew her own child. Looking behind her when she felt a hand on her shoulder. A smile rose the corner of her lips, knowing she had made the right choice in divorcing Jason as her eyes fell on Edward.
"If he wants to stay here that's fine, he is, after all, a commoner's son. He doesn't know what refinement is," Edward said, putting on airs. "Give him time, the children are looking for you." Amanda nodded and started to hum as she walked up the stairs to the ground floor. "Listen you common rat, I don't care where you sleep, you could sleep in the gutter for all I care, yet you're mother insisted I take you in. So either get on board or I'll send you away where they teach real men manners," Edward said, with contempt.
"Go ahead. I don't want live here anyway," Adam uttered in defiance.
