Chapter 42: The Ghost of House Aethernis
They headed back inside the house, Evelisse still muttering under her breath, something about showing that hag something, mostly out for her blood.
"I still can’t believe that bitch said that," she said, dropping onto the couch. "’Whatever she is.’ What does that even mean?"
"She meant it as an insult,a poor one at that." Seraphina said gently, sitting beside her. "So try not to give it more weight than that, Eve."
Aurelia stayed quiet, watching Lucien from across the room instead.
"So husband, you never really told us much about your family, I know the common knowledge but I would like to hear more about it from you, maybe your time in it?" she said finally.
Lucien paused. "Didn’t think there was much worth telling."
"There is now that we have her behind our tails." Aurelia said.
---
He sat down heavily on the couch, considering where to even start.
All three girls sat next to him.
"I’ll start with the common knowledge first."
"House Aethernis," he said. "One of the great demon noble houses consisting mostly of vampires. My father’s the current patriarch and Arch Duke. My mother was his first wife through political marriage, same as most noble unions. Cassandra’s his second wife, she also has multiple children."
"And what about your siblings?" Seraphina asked carefully.
"There’s five of them, all half-siblings, technically." He counted them off.
"Adrian Dracul Aethernis, the oldest around thirty and her first son and child, he has a Mythical bloodline and Legendary talent, and from what I’ve heard, is the current heir after I got kicked out. Ambitious, cold, calculating, and authoritative. He doesn’t resort to petty bullying and was mostly indifferent to me rather than cruel."
"Then there’s Vivienne Dracul Aethernis the oldest daughter and second child, twenty-eight, Legendary bloodline and Mythical talent, elegant, political, barely acknowledged I existed. But I would say she is the closest to her mother, being a snake like Cassandra and from what I’ve observed, she is two-faced and socially manipulative."
"Then there’s Silas Dracul Aethernis the second son and third child, twenty, Legendary bloodline and Legendary talent, he’s the one who actually enjoyed making fun of me. Hot-tempered, aggressive, and fiercely competitive and used physical intimidation and loud confrontations to assert dominance over those below him like some gorrila in heat."
Evelisse laughed hearing the last part, even Aurelia chuckled a little and Seraphina blocking her mouth. Seeing this he smiled and carried on.
"Isolde Dracul Aethernis the second daughter, seventeen, Mythical bloodline and Mythical talent easily the most talented of all of them, she mostly ignored me, but occasionally joined in with words rather than anything physical. I would say she is the opposite of Silas and more like Adrian.
"And finally Lysander Dracul Aethernis, the youngest son and child, twelve years old and still waiting on his own awakening. Barely knew I existed at all so we never interacted much besides the occasional glimpse, so I don’t know much about him "
Evelisse’s expression darkened with every name. "So you grew up surrounded by geniuses."
"Surrounded by everyone I was supposed to be and wasn’t," Lucien said. "Yeah."
"Also what’s up with that hag, is she a beast, having so many children." Evelisse asked.
"Its not that much, especially for high nobles, in my house there are succubi and even inccubi with dozens of children, some of the older ones even having hundreds of offspring." Serephina said, shocking Evelisse.
---
"What about your mother husband, you didn’t mention her." Seraphina asked, quieter now.
Lucien shrugged. "She disappeared when I was young, around six or seven, officially, she ’left.’ Rumor said she eloped with someone else, some lover or something." He said it flatly, without much weight behind it.
"Nobody ever confirmed anything so it just became another stain attached to my name."
"You don’t want to know what actually happened?" Seraphina asked.
"When you’re six and everyone around you keeps saying someone abandoned you," Lucien said, "eventually you stop caring whether it’s actually true, doesn’t change how it feels."
Nobody said anything for a moment.
---
"I kept the heir title for a while," Lucien continued for where he left, "since I was technically the first wife’s eldest son, nobody actually expected me to become patriarch, though. That became obvious pretty fast."
"Thisbshould be about the time children awake right?" Aurelia asked.
"Yes, ny siblings started awakening. One after another, all powerful bloodlines, real talents, actual cultivation potential." He spread his hands. "And I got an Uncommon bloodline and nothing else. No even a talent."
"So they stripped your title," Aurelia said.
"Eventually, but that’s not really when it got bad." Lucien leaned back.
"It wasn’t dramatic, nobody announced ’now we treat Lucien like garbage.’ It was slower than that. Servants stopped bowing all the way. People stopped talking to me unless they had to. My meals got smaller, or later, or just forgotten entirely. Requests I made just didn’t happen anymore and people whispered when I walked past, calling me a stain, disgrace, etc."
"So you became invisible," Seraphina said softly.
"I became a ghost," Lucien said. "In my own house."
---
"Some of them must have bullied you with the wah you described them," Aurelia said and it wasn’t a question.
"Silas mostly with Vivienne, some of Isolde’s comments too." Lucien’s mouth twisted slightly.
"Because they knew nobody would ever punish them for it."
"Why not?" Evelisse demanded. "You were main clan why didn’t they stop those bastards!"
"Well technically," Lucien said. "But being part of the main house wasn’t the same as mattering. There’s a difference."
Aurelia’s eyes narrowed slightly, working through it. "So why didn’t anything worse happen? If nobody cared what happened to you,"
"Well gotta thank the ancestors house rules," Lucien said.
"Nobody’s allowed to kill a fellow clan member inside the main estate. Doesn’t matter how much they hate you. Break that rule, you’re looking at crippling, imprisonment, sometimes execution harsher, if the victim’s part of the main house."
"And it’s no like they could just break these rules because their father was the Patriarch, even he has people who want to bring him down within the clan, to take his place."
Aurelia went still, understanding dawning. "So the house protected you."
"The house protected its own rules, which inturn protected me" Lucien said. "Not the same thing."
---
"Why didn’t you run away, then?" Seraphina asked quietly.
Lucien looked at her. "Where would I go and how would I go?"
Nobody had an answer to that.
"Outside those walls," he said.
"I was nobody. No backing, no strength, no protection. Anyone could’ve done anything to me and called it an accident, inside, at least, the rules meant something, even if nobody wanted me there, the law said they couldn’t just get rid of me."
"So you stayed," Aurelia said.
"I stayed. Spent most of my time in my room, or the library, what little of it I was actually allowed access to, given my rank.
Avoided my siblings like the plague, avoided the servants and avoided my father entirely, if possible."
He shrugged. "Got pretty good at not existing, honestly."
’Explains a lot about the guy who eventually needed a Guild alias without blinking,’ he thought privately. ’Practice makes perfect or so they say.’
---
Aurelia’s jaw tightened. "You were a member of the main clan," she said again, like repeating it might make it make sense. "And they treated you like that."
"Technically, and that’s how most nobles are, right?" Lucien said.
"That’s—" She cut herself off, visibly reining something in.
Aurelia understood better than most what it meant to be judged entirely by bloodline and talent, and stripped of everything the moment you fell short.
Seraphina reached over and took his hand, quiet and warm. "You shouldn’t have had to endure that alone."
"Didn’t have much of a choice," Lucien said.
"You do now," she said, squeezing his hand.
That landed harder than he expected.
Evelisse, meanwhile, had gone rigid with barely contained fury. "I hate them," she said flatly. "All of them."
Lucien laughed, a little surprised. "You barely know them."
"I know enough," Evelisse said.
"They don’t get to treat someone like that and then look down on everyone else like they’re better."
’Very her, but she’s too innocent.’ Lucien thought, warmth cutting through the heaviness of the conversation.
’Direct, unfiltered, completely on my side without a second of hesitation.’
---
Sensing the mood tipping too far toward heavy, Lucien decided to intervene on his own behalf.
"Although," he said, standing to start dinner, "if we’re being honest, maybe my father simply wasn’t very good at keeping his wives satisfied."
Everyone froze.
"Maybe that’s why my mother left, and why Cassandra is so bitchy all the time?" he continued, entirely deadpan, already reaching for ingredients as they made their way to the kitchen.
"Lucky for me, I didn’t inherit that from him seeing how much you hurt enjoy our time, thank the Goddess Blood for that." He said dramatically while pretending to wipe sweat off his forehead.
Seraphina clapped a hand over her mouth.
Aurelia actually laughed, a real, surprised laugh.
Evelisse nearly toppled sideways off the couch.
"LUCIEN!"
"What? I’m exploring possible theories."
"You cannot just say that out of the blue!"
"I absolutely can and I just did."
---
Once the laughter settled, Lucien turned serious again, looking at all three of them.
"It’s in the past," he said simply. "And honestly, if none of that happened, I wouldn’t have met you three. So I’m not going to waste time regretting any of it."
He set down the knife he’d been holding.
"We’ll recover," he said. "All of it, your bloodlines. Your talents. Your cultivation. And we will rise higher together. "
Aurelia’s eyes sharpened.
"We’ll build this family from absolutely nothing," Lucien continued. "And one day, nobody’s going to be able to touch us."
"Not even the Demon Emperor?" Evelisse asked, half joking.
Lucien smiled. "Especially not the Demon Emperor."
---
Aurelia spoke first, quiet and certain. "Then we’ll become strong enough."
"Together," Seraphina added.
Evelisse threw a fist in the air. "We’ll become the strongest family on the entire continent, no I the entire world!"
"That’s the spirit," Lucien said.
"And," Evelisse added immediately, "we’ll need a cool family name, something that’ll make our enemies tremble just remembering it."
Lucien paused. "Right. That’s still hanging out there, isn’t it."
---
As they headed toward the bathroom to wash up, Evelisse latched onto the topic with alarming enthusiasm.
"So what are you calling us?"
"Haven’t decided."
"It needs to sound powerful."
"Sure."
"Something mysterious."
"Okay."
"Something that makes people tremble when they hear it."
"You’ve been watching too much anime, Eve" Lucien said.
She ignored him entirely. "How abou.... the almighty Bob."
Silence.
Seraphina turned slowly. "...Bob?"
"House Bob," Evelisse said, with total confidence.
Lucien stared at her.
Aurelia’s mouth twitched dangerously.
"Evelisse," Seraphina managed, "Bob is a person’s name. Not a house name."
"Exactly, that’s what makes it memorable and unique."
"It’s unique, I’ll give you that, Eve."
"But we’re trying to become the strongest family on the continent," Lucien said, "not a a traveling circus."
Aurelia finally lost the battle and laughed outright.
Evelisse pouted. "Fine no Bob, and don’t look down on the almighty Bob!"
"Also I’m choosing the new name." She said a beat later.
"That’s what I’m afraid of," Lucien said.
---
They reached the bathroom still bickering, Evelisse throwing out increasingly dramatic suggestions, Seraphina laughing helplessly, Aurelia clearly enjoying the chaos more than she’d ever admit.
Lucien watched them for a moment, something settling warm and certain in his chest.
’Eighteen years, I’ve had a family name and no family.’
’Now I’ve got a family while the name can wait.’
He followed them in, already bracing for whatever ridiculous suggestion came next.
***************
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