Chapter 236: The Weight of a Name
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For a heartbeat he almost answered with an easy lie. Nothing. I am fine. Just tired. The usual things people said when they did not know how to begin.
But he had already spent two days surrounded by truths large enough to tear holes through ordinary speech. He no longer had the energy for little lies.
His fingers brushed once against the edge of the table.
"A lot," he said quietly.
Lily came farther into the room and sat opposite him without waiting to be formally invited. That was one of the things about Lily. She knew when politeness mattered and when affection mattered more. Her eyes searched his face carefully, not pushing, just waiting.
"Tell me," she said.
Sekhmet let out a slow breath through his nose.
His mind did not went to this morning.
It did not go to the void land, or the new grass, or Bat Bat being bullied by grammar, or even to the sealed half-gods waiting in hidden darkness under his authority.
It went back.
Back to that night.
Back to the study.
Back to the moment Elena had finally closed the door, stood across from him in silence for several breaths, and decided that the years of half-truths could no longer hold.
Two nights ago.
The study had felt smaller than usual that night, though perhaps that had only been because the world outside it had become too large.
Sekhmet remembered following Elena down the corridor after returning from the void land. The maids had withdrawn. Bat Bat had, after much complaint, been bribed away with sweet fruit and the promise that someone would later explain why secret aunts kept appearing in the family like rare curses. Lady Seraphiel had gone to a separate chamber to rest. Mira and the others had been told gently but firmly to wait.
Then it had only been him and Elena.
The study was one of the older rooms in Dawn House. It did not flaunt wealth the way newer noble rooms did. Its shelves were dark wood, worn smooth at the edges from use. The desk was large, built for real work rather than decoration. There were ledgers, maps, old sealed documents, and one lamp burning low enough to make everything feel intimate without becoming dim. It smelled of paper, ink, and old patience.
Elena had closed the door herself.
That sound had been very small.
Very final.
Sekhmet had stood near the desk instead of sitting at first. His body still felt too full of battle, too full of system messages, too full of blood and questions and the strange hard weight of everything that had changed. He had looked at Elena and knew, with the kind of certainty that arrived without words, that whatever came next was not going to fit inside the life he thought he had known.
Elena had studied him for a while.
There had been no hurry in her face. But there had been gravity.
When she finally spoke, her voice was steady.
"There are things you need to know."
Sekhmet remembered his own answer.
"There are too many things I need to know."
That had pulled the faintest shadow of sadness through her expression.
"Yes," she had said. "There are."
She had moved to the side table first, poured tea for both of them, and handed him a cup. The gesture had almost felt absurd at that moment. Family secrets, hidden gods, dead half-gods, a sealed void prison, and Elena was still making tea.
Then again, perhaps that was exactly why she did it. Tea had structure. Tea reminded people that the world could still contain ordinary movements even while truth was being peeled open.
Sekhmet had taken the cup but forgotten to drink it.
Elena had remained standing for a few moments, as though deciding where a story this ugly should begin.
Then she said, "Your father had a family before this one."
Sekhmet had blinked once.
The sentence had not sounded as large as it was.
It took a second to settle properly.
"What?"
Elena had met his eyes directly. "I do not mean a wife and children hidden somewhere, if that is where your mind went first."
Despite everything, despite the pounding inside his thoughts, a small shame had flickered through him because that had been exactly where his mind had tried to go first.
Elena had continued.
"Your father came from the main Dawn House. Not this branch. Not this city. Not this domain." Her voice had lowered slightly as if the old names themselves still carried weight enough to disturb a room. "He used to be the young master and heir of the Dawn House of the Middle Domain of Null."
Sekhmet had stared at her.
Even then, even in that moment, his mind had needed to translate the words more than once before they became shape instead of sound.
"The Middle Domain," he had repeated.
"Yes."
"The main Dawn House."
"Yes."
He remembered setting the teacup down very carefully because he suddenly did not trust his own fingers.
The Dawn House of Slik had always felt significant to him. Modest sometimes. Sometimes pressured. Strange around its edges. But still a house with age and rules and hidden strength. If that was only a branch, only an offshoot, then what was the original? How large was the thing his father had truly come from?
Elena had answered that without him asking.
"The Dawn House in the Middle Domain is ancient," she had said. "Not old in the way merchants say old when they want furniture to seem costly. Ancient in the way mountains are ancient. Houses rise. Houses fall. Alliances shift. Domains change. But Dawn House remains. They hold vast power in the Middle Domain. Influence over trade, law, military force, private territories, bloodline resources, and several divine pacts that most people are not even allowed to know exist."
She had paused then, perhaps giving him time to breathe.
He had not taken it.
"They are one of the strongest powers in the Middle Domain," she had finished.
Sekhmet remembered the feeling that moved through him then.
Not awe.
Not only awe.
Shock had too many layers for one clean emotion.
His father.