Chapter 227: The Weight of Blood II
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Seraphiel’s gaze cooled. "Bad enough that he asked for help and bad enough that he hates needing it."
That actually did pull the ghost of a smile from Elena. "That sounds like him."
Seraphiel’s own expression softened by a fraction. "Yes. It does."
Elena was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was lower. "He should have told the boy more."
"He probably wanted to," Seraphiel said. "But wanting is not the same as being able."
Elena stared at her for a second, then gave a slow nod. There were too many old wounds in that small motion for the hall to count.
"And you?" Elena asked. "How long have you been watching?"
"Long enough to know his son inherited both the family talent and also his father’s talent for trouble."
That nearly made Elena laugh. Nearly.
"He killed a half-god," Elena said.
Seraphiel’s gaze shifted to Sekhmet again. "Yes."
"He is still growing."
"Yes."
"He should not have survived that."
"No."
Elena let the silence finish the thought for her.
Neither of them said aloud what came after. If Sekhmet could do this now, then the future around him had just become far more dangerous.
Back in the center of the hall, Sekhmet wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and stared at the red smear left on his skin. His body felt heavier than before, but not weak.
The heaviness was structural, as if invisible architecture had been built into him. His spine felt straighter. His muscles held more pressure. His chaos energy rolled beneath his skin with the low, steady force of deep water.
Two skill upgrades.
His mind touched the thought but did not choose yet. Not here. Not while the smell of death was still in the air and two sealed enemies were glaring at him like they wanted to write a complaint to their leader.
He looked toward Sofia and Natasha.
Sofia met his gaze first. Her voice was rough when she spoke. "Do you know what you have done?"
Sekhmet’s expression did not change. "Yes."
That answer unsettled her more than denial would have.
Natasha spat blood onto the floor and said, "You killed someone older than the bones under this city."
Sekhmet looked at her for a moment. "Then he should have learned not to put his throat in my mouth."
Even Elena, from across the hall, tilted her head slightly at that line. Seraphiel covered the lower half of her face with two fingers as if disguising amusement from the gods themselves.
Sofia shut her eyes once, briefly. Perhaps in frustration. Perhaps in disbelief. Perhaps because being threatened by a young vampire who had just spoken like that was too irritating to process without a pause.
A moment later Elena and Seraphiel returned.
The hall felt smaller with the three of them standing near one another now. Less like a battlefield. More like the center of a secret no one had wanted to open yet.
Elena came to Sekhmet’s side first. She studied him carefully, taking in the calmer eyes, the steadier breathing, the absence of that earlier killing hum. Her hand lifted slightly as though she wanted to check his face the way she had when he was younger, then stopped halfway and lowered again. He was not a child, and tonight had made that painfully clear.
"Are you stable?" she asked.
"For now," Sekhmet said.
Seraphiel stood a few steps away, her presence was elegant and terrifying in equal measure. Under better circumstances, he might have been too overwhelmed by who and what she was to speak properly. Right now his mind was too full for awe to fully settle. There were too many questions clawing at each other inside him.
Still, manners survived where panic did not.
He looked at her and bowed his head slightly. "Thank you."
Seraphiel’s eyes softened.
"You do not need to thank me for preventing this hall from becoming uglier than it already is," she said. "But I will accept it anyway. I am fond of good manners. They are becoming endangered."
That was so dryly delivered that even Sekhmet almost smiled.
Elena glanced between them, then said, "Let me introduce you. Sekhmet, this is your aunt."
He blinked.
Elena continued before his mind could trip over the word too badly. "Lady Seraphiel. Friend of your father."
That did not reduce the confusion. It multiplied it, wrapped it in silk, and set it on fire.
"Aunt," Sekhmet repeated.
Seraphiel’s mouth curved. "One of those aunts that appear from ancient family disasters, hidden promises, and questionable emotional decisions made by your elders."
Sekhmet stared at her for a second.
Then, because there were too many questions and no possible way to ask all of them without sounding like a collapsed bookshelf, he simply nodded once.
"I have many questions," he admitted.
"I know," Seraphiel said.
It was not dismissive. It was worse, somehow. It was the tone of someone who knew the list was long enough to need furniture.
Elena glanced toward the exit, then toward the sealed women. "This place is no longer fit for answers."
Sekhmet followed her gaze. She was right. The hall smelled like blood, cracked law, and bad choices. It was not a place for family revelations unless the family in question had a professional curse.
He looked back at Seraphiel. "Please visit our house. Take some rest there."
Seraphiel studied him with a strange look in her eyes. There was warmth in it. Also memory. Also pain old enough to have manners of its own.
"You invite dangerous guests very politely, just like your father." she said.
Sekhmet’s mouth moved faintly. "It seems to run in the family."
That one actually made Elena smile.
A small smile. Brief. Real.
Seraphiel let out a soft laugh, the sound quiet in the ruined hall. "Very well. I will come."
The words settled over the three of them with a weight that had nothing to do with the battle.