Chapter 226: The Weight of Blood
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Sekhmet’s eyes narrowed faintly. The words should have felt triumphant. Instead they felt heavy. Like medals hammered from bone.
A fraction of Blood God Blood.
That explained the weight in his limbs. It explained why his veins felt hot and cold at the same time. It explained why the hall smelled so vivid now, every cracked stone, every drop of spilled blood, every breath from every living body reaching him with impossible clarity.
His chaos energy pulsed deeper than before, less wild in one way and more dangerous in another. Even his skin felt different, denser somehow, as if the flesh under it had learned a harder language.
His bloodlust shivered again, then dropped sharply.
[Ding! SYSTEM Notification: Bloodlust pressure is decreasing.
Forbidden target lock maintained successfully.
No collateral breach detected.]
Sekhmet exhaled.
That breath felt like coming back from the edge of a cliff and realizing only afterward that half his body had already gone over it.
Across the hall, Sofia and Natasha remained sealed, both forced into human form. Neither of them spoke. Sofia knelt with silver hair in disarray, her elegant mask cracked at last, fury and calculation fighting in her eyes.
Natasha looked worse, one hand braced against the floor, black hair falling over her face as she glared up like a wolf with its teeth removed.
They were still dangerous in the way all predators were dangerous, but now the danger was trapped behind law and artifact and the sheer pressure of the two women standing over them.
Lady Seraphiel did not take her eyes off Sekhmet.
Elena did. Not because she trusted him completely. Because she knew him enough to understand something important. If he had wanted to turn on them, he would have done it already.
Sekhmet looked down at Alex’s corpse again.
He did not want the body left here.
Maybe it was instinct. Maybe caution. Maybe the part of him that did not want the servants of Dawn House to find a half-god vampire lying in the center of the hall like some nightmare centerpiece.
He lifted his right hand. Void energy stirred.
The space beside Alex’s corpse warped and darkened, folding inward like a wound opening in the air. Blackness spread in a narrow oval, quiet and hungry. The corpse slid across the stone with a wet scrape and vanished into the void land without ceremony.
Alex’s body was gone.
Even Sofia flinched.
Natasha’s eyes widened by a fraction.
Lady Seraphiel noticed that too.
Sekhmet let the void close. The darkness pinched shut as if it had never existed, leaving only a cracked floor and the smell of blood behind.
For the first time since the fight ended, Elena moved.
She stepped closer, slowly, carefully, still ready in case he snapped. The old habit in her body had not left. She had spent too long facing monsters to approach one carelessly, even when that monster was a boy she had watched grow.
"Sekhmet," she said quietly.
He turned his head toward her.
The glow in his eyes had dimmed. Not gone completely, but dimmed enough that more of him was visible again beneath it.
"I am here," he said.
His own voice sounded strange to him. Deeper. Colder. Like the fight had sanded something inside it.
Elena studied his face for a second, then nodded once as if filing away the answer to a private fear. Behind her, Lady Seraphiel finally relaxed a fraction. Not much. Just enough that the air stopped feeling like glass about to crack.
"Elena," Seraphiel said.
Elena’s mouth moved slightly, the closest thing she ever came to amusement in moments like this. "I noticed you."
Seraphiel arched one elegant brow. "You noticed me and still let me hide?"
Elena shrugged lightly. "You were not helping the curtains. One of them nearly fainted from trying to support your dignity."
For the first time that night, something almost like a real smile touched Seraphiel’s lips.
"You are no fun," she said.
Sofia, still kneeling, made a sound halfway between a laugh and a cough. Even at her worst, she apparently had the instincts of someone who could appreciate absurd timing. Natasha just looked offended on behalf of the entire species.
Elena glanced toward Sekhmet, then back to Seraphiel. "We will speak in private."
Seraphiel understood immediately. Her gaze slid once over the sealed women. With a flick of her fingers, another layer of radiant law wrapped around them. Not enough to hurt. More than enough to silence movement and prevent stupidity.
Then she and Elena stepped away toward the far side of the hall, near a fractured pillar and a curtain that had survived the battle through what could only be described as divine favoritism.
Sekhmet remained where he was. He could hear them anyway.
Not clearly enough to catch every breath from this distance, but enough. His senses were different now. Sharper. The blood god fraction inside him had made sure of that.
Elena folded her arms and faced Seraphiel. "Why are you here?"
Seraphiel looked faintly offended, which on her face was almost graceful enough to be art. "You truly know how to ruin a mysterious entrance."
Elena did not blink. "Answer me, Why are you here?"
Seraphiel let out a small breath through her nose. "I came for Eyra."
Elena’s eyes changed at that name. Not softer. Deeper.
Seraphiel continued in a quieter voice. "He asked me to look after his son from the shadows if something went wrong."
Elena’s jaw tightened slightly. "He knew this might happen."
"He knew something would happen," Seraphiel corrected. "He did not know the shape of it. Only that the city was becoming restless, old powers were sniffing in ugly corners, and his son was standing too close to the center of it all to be ignored forever."
Elena glanced once toward Sekhmet.
"He cannot come himself," Seraphiel said. "Not yet."
Elena looked back at her. "Because of that place."
Seraphiel nodded once.
That was all. No long explanation. No dramatic speech. The words carried enough weight without one.
"He is still there?" Elena asked.
"For now." Seraphiel replied.
"And the situation?" Elena asked.