Free Web NovelChapter 233: Chapter 233: Preparation For The Conclave Provision
Eve stood still and tried to find her center.
The bond came first....always did now, warm and immediate. All three of them were there in different frequencies. Damian like steady ground under her feet. Damon restless, fidgeting even when he was sitting perfectly still somewhere. Silas far away but constant, this low hum she’d learned to hear without actually hearing it.
Then she went deeper.
Past the bond. Past everything that had happened in the last few months.
There was something older underneath. Something that had been there before New York, before the pendant, before she’d known any of this was real.
The thing that used to pull people toward her in clubs without her meaning to. That made men lean closer when she talked. Made women watch her cross a room. Made the whole space feel different when she walked into it, like she’d shifted gravity somehow.
Her nature. Just hers. From before she’d had a word for it.
"There," Raphael said quietly.
He’d felt it, that moment when she stopped trying so hard and just existed. "That’s what we’re working with."
Eve took a breath.
"Let it out now," he said. "Just a little. Just enough to feel what it does."
She did and the room changed.
Not in some dramatic way. Just warmer. Fuller. The air felt heavier, like it had substance now. Raphael stood across from her looking carefully neutral, but his eyes were locked on her face.
"More," he said. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
"Uncle...."
"More. I’m two hundred years old, Eve. I can handle it. Give me more."
She let more out and the room got warm fast.
Too warm. She watched Raphael stand there without moving, but she could see the effort. His jaw tight. His whole body working hard to stay analytical when everything in the room was pulling him somewhere else.
"Good," he said, voice strained. "Now pull it back."
She did and he room cooled down.
Raphael let out a sharp breath. "Good," he said again, sounding normal now. "That’s how it works. Open, close. Open, close." He looked at her. "We do it until you don’t have to think about it anymore. Until it’s automatic." A pause. "Then we go further."
"How much further?"
"Further than you want to," he said. "Every single time."
They trained for four hours.
Open and close. Open more, close. Open until Raphael said stop.
By hour two she was sweating. Not from moving around, but from the effort of doing something her whole system had been trained not to do. Like flexing a muscle that had been locked in place so long that just using it hurt.
By the third hour it got easier.
By the fourth hour she could open all the way, not Conclave level, not yet, but further than she’d ever deliberately gone, and then close it back cleanly. No jagged catching feeling like the first tries.
Raphael finally called it to a close for the day.
He looked exhausted. She felt bad about it for maybe three seconds before remembering he’d volunteered for this.
"Tomorrow we go further," he said. "And we’re bringing people in."
She stared at him.
"You need to practice with people in the room," he said. "Not your mates. Other people. Staff from Seraphine’s estate who’ve agreed to it, who know what they’re signing up for." He paused. "The Conclave is two hundred people, Eve. You can’t walk in there having only done this alone."
"Okay," she said.
"And Eve."
She looked up.
"What you just did," he said. "Opening fully like that." He held her gaze. "That was extraordinary. You understand that, right?"
She didn’t say anything, just look at him.
"I’ve been around for two hundred years," he said. "I’ve felt a lot of things. What you just did..." He stopped. "Your father made that room weep. But you’re going to do something completely different."
"What?" she asked.
He looked at her for a long moment.
"I don’t know," he said. "I’ve never felt anything like it." A pause. "And neither will they."
***
Maya was still awake when Eve got back.
She was curled up on the sofa in their shared sitting room, knees pulled to her chest, reading an actual physical book she’d gotten from somewhere in Seraphine’s building. She looked up when Eve walked in.
Took one look at her face.
"That bad?" Maya said.
"Not bad," Eve said, dropping into the chair. "Just a lot."
Maya closed the book and waited for her to start talking.
Eve told her. Not everything, not the technical details or the specifics of what the provision actually was. Just the shape of it. A room full of people. Three days from now. Dropping every wall she had and letting them see exactly what she was.
Maya listened without interrupting.
When Eve finished, Maya was quiet for a second.
"Are you scared?" she asked.
Eve looked at her.
"Yes," she said.
Not trying to sound brave. Not managing it. Just yes.
Maya nodded slowly. "Good."
Eve blinked.
"I mean it," Maya said. "Good. Because you’ve been doing the face."
"What face?"
"The one where you’ve decided everything’s fine and you’re handling it and nobody needs to worry about you," Maya said. "You’ve been wearing it since we got back from Malachai’s prison." She paused. "I know that face, Eve. I’ve known it for six years."
Eve said nothing, because Maya was saying the truth.
"You’re allowed to be scared," Maya said. "You’re about to stand in front of two hundred supernatural people and open yourself up completely. That’s huge. Being scared makes sense."
"Being scared doesn’t help anything," Eve said.
"Being scared and pretending you’re not is worse," Maya said flatly. The tone she used when she’d made up her mind and wasn’t discussing it anymore.
Eve looked at the window.
"What if I can’t close it back?" she said quietly.
The thing she hadn’t said to Raphael. The real fear underneath all the practical concerns.
"Can you close it now?" Maya asked.
"Yes."
"Could you close it an hour ago?"
"Yes."
"Then you’ll be able to close it in three days," Maya said. "Because you’ll have practiced it a hundred more times between now and then."
"It’s not the same room," Eve said.
"No," Maya agreed. "It’s a scarier room with higher stakes." She paused. "But you’ve been in scary rooms before."
Eve thought about Malachai’s office. About facing Katerina in that arena. About walking through that dark passage at midnight with forty meters between her and her best friend.
"Yeah," she said.
"Yeah," Maya said.
They sat there for a moment.
"Your dad did it," Maya said. "Forty years ago. Same thing, probably the same room."
"Same provision," Eve said. "He passed."
"So will you," Maya said.
"You don’t actually know that."
"No," Maya said. "But I know you." She picked her book back up. "That’s enough for me."
Eve sat in that chair and watched her best friend read in the lamplight. Something loosened in her chest. Not the fear—the fear was still there. Just not as alone with it anymore.
"Maya," she said.
"Mm?"
"Thank you for being here." fгeewebnovёl.com
Maya turned a page.
"I obviously cant’t be somewhere else," she said and smiled.
***
Eve lay awake that night long after the room went quiet.
She could feel the bond, all three of them. Damian’s steadiness. Damon’s restless warmth. Silas like this frequency far away that she’d learned to tune into without thinking about it.
She reached for them.
Felt them all reach back immediately.
She thought about her father standing in a room full of people and dropping every wall he had.
She thought about what Raphael said. He was completely, entirely real. And the room felt something true for the first time in years.
She thought about what she’d felt in the training room today. That older thing underneath everything.
She didn’t know what the Conclave would feel when she opened up.
Raphael didn’t know either.
Nobody knew, because it had never happened before.
She stared at the ceiling.
Three days.
She closed her eyes.
Opened that door just slightly....just enough to feel the edge of her own nature. The warmth of what she was when she stopped managing herself.
Held it.
Closed it.
Opened it.
Closed it.
Over and over until finally, somewhere in the dark, she fell asleep.
