Chapter 237: The Weight of a Name II
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The man who had disappeared into trade matters and strange absences and half-answers. The man who felt strong, yes, but still ordinary in the shape Sekhmet’s heart had chosen to understand. Stern sometimes. Distant in strange ways. Capable. Hard to read. But still a mortal man in the way sons assumed fathers were mortal unless something forced the truth differently.
And now Elena was telling him that father was not simply important.
He had once stood as heir to one of the most powerful ancient houses in the Middle Domain.
Sekhmet remembered the first question that had burst out of him afterward, but it had not been the most logical one.
It had been the most human.
"What about Lady Seraphiel?"
Elena had been silent for one second.
Then she said, "She used to date your father."
Sekhmet had actually laughed once then, not because it was funny, but because his mind had reached some bright cliff edge where laughter and disbelief briefly became cousins.
"What?"
Elena’s face had remained frustratingly calm. "They were in love."
That had made him laugh again, softer this time, more broken at the edges. "No. Wait. You are saying it like that, as if it is a normal sentence."
"It was normal to them."
"She called herself my aunt."
"In the way old families make relatives out of histories that never fully died."
Sekhmet had run one hand over his face.
"She and my father..." He had stopped because the shape of the thought still refused to behave. "How long?"
Elena had answered in the tone of someone stating the weather.
"A few hundred years."
Sekhmet had stared at her.
Then he had said the most honest thing his mind could produce.
"What?"
Elena had taken her own teacup then, but she had not drunk from it. Her eyes had rested on him carefully, almost kindly, though kindness did not make the truth smaller.
"Sekhmet," she had said, "your father is a god-level powerhouse."
That sentence had changed the room.
He remembered it physically. The desk. The lamp. The shelves. Even the shape of the shadows along the wall had seemed to shift under the weight of that one revelation.
He had always known his father was powerful.
He had not known that.
Elena had continued before he could interrupt properly.
"Gods can live hundreds of thousands of years. Sometimes longer depending on bloodline, domain, rank, injury, and circumstance. So yes. A few hundred years together is not strange for beings at that level."
Sekhmet remembered the expression that had crossed his own face then. He had not seen it himself, of course, but he felt it changing. The last soft illusion about his father being merely a difficult mortal had broken in that moment.
"He is a god."
The thought had repeated once.
Then another thought had struck right behind it.
Elena is calm about this.
And behind that, the next truth.
Lady Seraphiel is calm about this too.
His gaze had snapped back to Elena.
"You mean my father is a god. Lady Seraphiel is a god. And you are standing here telling me this like—"
Elena had cut in gently.
"Like I have known it for a long time."
Sekhmet stared. Then his eyes narrowed.
"And you?"
There had been a pause.
Then Elena said, "Yes."
One simple word.
It had carried no pride. No show. No dramatic reveal. Just the fact.
Sekhmet remembered feeling suddenly and absurdly young.
Not like a child.
Like a candle in a room where he had just discovered three mountains were sitting at the table pretending to be furniture.
He had taken a breath too sharp and leaned back against the desk slightly.
"You are a god too."
"Yes."
"And you have all been hiding it from me."
"Yes."
"And nobody thought to mention that."
Elena had almost smiled then. Almost.
"It was not my secret to tell. Until now."
Sekhmet remembered turning away for a moment, one hand braced against the desk, trying to sort the spinning pieces into any shape that would not make him feel ridiculous.
His father is a god.
Elena is a god.
Lady Seraphiel is a god.
Not distant storybook beings. Not holy myths drifting above the domains like rumor and worship. They had been in his life. Around him. Speaking plainly. Drinking tea. Watching him grow.
The truth made the whole structure of his past feel like a house that had secretly contained hidden floors.
When he looked back, Elena had given him the time to gather enough of himself to continue.
Then she said, "There is more."
Of course there had been more. There was always more.
She had stepped closer to the desk, her gaze moving not to him at first but to the old ledgers there, as if the habit of speaking difficult truths was easier when the eyes had somewhere neutral to rest.
"Your father got into a situation one day," she had said.
The phrase itself had annoyed Sekhmet a little, even then.
"A situation?"
Elena had given him a look that said yes, I know that is not a large enough phrase, but we are crossing the river one stone at a time.
"One day," she repeated, "your father returned home with an injured woman."
Sekhmet remembered the silence that followed.
Then Elena had added, "He told the family she was pregnant with his child."
The room had gone still.
Not because the lamp stopped burning or the walls stopped standing.
Because something inside the story had finally reached the point where all the earlier revelations bent toward one unavoidable center.
"My mother," Sekhmet had said quietly.
Elena had nodded.
"Yes. As you guessed."
He remembered the strange feeling that passed through him at the word mother. It had always been a shape without a face. A wound without clear edges. Something absent and never explained. Something he was not supposed to push too hard because even as a child he had understood, without being told directly, that asking too much about her made old pain wake up in the room.