Aísē: My Five Supernatural Wives

Chapter 158 158: Let Me Start From The Beginning

Braham didn't sit down.He planted the staff on the floor and leaned on it slightly, his posture settling in for something that was going to take a while regardless of how he stood through it.

"The Association," he began, "doesn't summon people to scold them. We're not a school. We don't have detention." He huffed, A small huff that might have been due to amusement. "What we do have is a problem when something exists that the rest of the supernatural world already knows about and the Association hasn't formally acknowledged."

He looked at me.

"You are that problem."

"Charming am I huh…," I joked with a sneer.

"Not an insult. A description." He tapped the staff once against the floor. "Five bloodlines. Your Eyes which carry the mystery which hasn't appeared directly in centuries. A signature in your eyes that belongs to something from before the gods we currently have." He spread one hand slightly. "Every faction with eyes has already noticed all of this. The cathedral made sure of that. The only entity that hasn't said anything official about any of it is us."

"And saying something official," I said, "means a meeting."

"It means a meeting."

Aisha had gone very still behind me. I didn't need to look to know it.

"A recognition hearing," Braham said. "Not a trial. Not a sentencing. A formal acknowledgment, on record, witnessed by representatives from every major faction, of what you are and what exists in the world because of it." He paused. "After that, the politics start properly. Before that, everything has been improvisation. Including, frankly, most of what's happened to you in the last several months."

"The sealed texts," I said.

Braham's eyes didn't move off me.

"You annotated them."

"I did."

"When?"

"Decades ago." He said it simply, no weight added to it, which made the weight land harder. "The signature in question doesn't belong to any bloodline currently active in the world. It belongs to something from the Age of Gods. Something that, as far as every record I have access to is concerned, doesn't exist anymore." He tilted his head slightly. "I annotated those texts because I wanted to know, if that signature ever surfaced again, what it would mean. I never expected to actually need the answer."

"And now you do."

"And now I do."

...

I looked at him for a moment.

"Austin," I said.

Something shifted in Braham's face. Not surprise. The look of a man who had been waiting for the question and had decided, somewhere along the way, that he wasn't going to dodge it.

"Austin Astor spent twenty years building toward exactly this," Braham said. "Crippled Matrix, exile, all of it real, all of it his own doing originally. But somewhere along the way he stopped working purely for himself and started working for someone else as well. Azazel….." He said the name like it tasted unpleasant. "And what Azazel wanted, and what Austin wanted, happened to overlap with what needed to happen anyway."

"Which was?" I inquired curiosity dancing in my eyes

"Getting Vanir Alucard to move. Getting Mephistopheles free and accountable instead of buried in a sealed vault no one was supposed to think about. And getting you," he looked at me directly, "standing somewhere visible enough that every faction had to stop pretending they hadn't noticed you."

I held his gaze.

"You knew what Austin was doing."

"I suspected. Suspicion and knowledge are different things, and I want to be careful with that distinction because it matters." He exhaled slowly. "But yes. I recognized the shape of it early. And I didn't stop it."

The room was very quiet.

"Why not," I said. Flat. Not accusing. Just asking.

Braham looked at me for a long moment.

And then, for the first time since he'd started talking, something in his face closed.

"Because the alternative," he said, "was worse. And because some things aren't mine to explain yet." He held up a hand before I could push. "Not won't. Aren't. There's a difference, and I'm asking you to trust that the distinction is real even if I can't prove it to you tonight."

I looked at him.

He looked back. Steady. Old. Not hiding that he was holding something back, which was somehow more unsettling than if he'd tried to hide it.

'He's not lying,' I thought. 'He's just not finished.'

...

"The meeting," I said. Letting it go. For now.

"Five days," Braham said. "The Association's seat. Neutral ground, technically, though neutral in the Association's case has always meant 'the ground we control and call neutral.'" A dry note in his voice. "Representatives from every faction with standing will be present. Vanir will be there for the vampires. Likely The wolves will also send someone, given the circumstances. The Druids. The witches. Possibly Hell, depending on how Lilith feels about her daughter's situation by then."

Liliana, behind me, made a small sound that wasn't quite a laugh.

"And me," I said.

"And you. At the center of it, formally, for the first time." Braham straightened slightly, the staff coming up off the floor. "Five days is enough time to rest. To prepare. To..." his eyes flicked, briefly, toward the others behind me, then back, "...settle whatever needs settling."

There was something in the way he said that.

I didn't ask.

"Get some sleep, all of you," Braham said, and the grandfather was creeping back into his voice now, the weight of the last twenty minutes lifting off him visibly. "This house has more guest rooms than it has reasons for guest rooms, Maria can show you where everything is, and tomorrow we'll start actually preparing instead of standing in my entrance hall having SERIOUS CONVERSATIONS." He said the last two words with audible capital letters.

Mariabell sighed from somewhere behind me.

"Come on," she said. "I'll show everyone to the rooms."

...

As the group started moving, Braham's hand landed on my shoulder.

Light. Brief.

"Five days," he said, quieter now, just for me. "Use them well, kid."

Then he was gone, the way he'd arrived, the air shifting and the space where he'd been standing simply empty.

I stood there for a moment.

'Five days,' I thought.

Then I looked at the group heading toward the stairs. Aisha. Liliana. Eva. Éve. Mephistopheles, walking a half step behind everyone else, quiet, the way she got when she was thinking about something she hadn't said yet.

'Use them well.'

I had a feeling I knew what he meant.

I followed everyone up the stairs.

....

...

A/N: Hi Guys it's been a While isn't it..(◕‿↼)

Well I guess I need to Apologize for leaving the story midway like this all the time, but believe me it wasn't without reasons...

I just Had been out of home for a few months and just returned home

Don't ask why.. I don't want to remember it..

So anyways I hope to release as many chapters as possible as an Apology but honestly I had been facing the so called Writer's block for a while so Don't expect the story to be smooth sailing again...

Just give me your support and help so I can Bring this story to the top

... By support Can i expect you to Become a Member of my Pat reon.. (✿◠‿◠)

I assure you the money won't be wasted (◕‿↼)

/Empire_of_Vanity