Seta awoke, the ceiling of the hogan above her. Was it all just a dream? She sat up, her heightened sense of smell taking in the heady aroma of Eron all over her as she touched her mouth with her fingertips, and felt her kiss swollen lips. She still tasted him.
“How do you feel?”
She turned to find Hastiin Sani sitting near her, having watched over her in her sleep.
“Betrayed,” she answered. “I saw my father when I drank from Atsidi.”
“My visions told me you would.”
“Did you know who I was all along?”
Hastiin Sani smiled. “My visions told me a great warrior woman with great magic would arrive to protect us and we were to protect her. When I saw you I knew you were her. I saw you were Navajo, I felt you belonged to this tribe. My heart would not let me believe you were my long lost granddaughter until I saw you fight and heard your battle cry. I saw your father in your war face. I heard him in your cry. He lived inside you and for a moment, my son was with his people again.”
Seta’s eyes watered. “He is dead.”
“The Great Spirit took him before you drew your first breath,” Hastiin Sani said as his shoulders slumped.
“Who was he? How did he know my mother? Did Atsidi know?”
“Atsidi knew nothing until tonight. I told him everything and now I will tell you the story of how your mother and your real father came together, and how she betrayed us, and took my son’s life.”
NINE
“Hello, Mother.”
Loma gasped, dropping the dish in her hand as she spun around. Her eyes moved from Seta to the door and back again as the dish broke.
“Seta? Is it really you? You are really here?”
“Do I not stand before you?” Seta asked.
“I had heard you died, and after you never returned…” Loma’s gaze drifted to the door once more.
“You told me I could not return, remember?”
“Oh Seta.” Her mother’s gaze fell to the floor and when it returned to her, tears coated her dark eyes. “I was desperate to keep you and my grandson from being hurt. I would have taken you back. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone.”
“Did you ever love anyone? My father? Hastiin Bidziil?”
Loma’s mouth fell open, her eyes grew wide.
“I have been with my father’s family. I know what happened. I know you had an affair with my real father and when the man you told me was my father found out you betrayed him, you said he took you without your consent. You had my real father killed along with other innocent members of his tribe. My family!”
“They would have killed me!” Loma looked to the door again and wept. “I never heard the door open yet you stand before me. It is true. You are dead and Rialto lives in the count’s castle. You have come back to haunt me.”
“I am not dead, yet not alive.”
Loma’s brow creased. “I do not understand.”
Seta considered telling her mother the truth that she was a vampire, but that would mean exposing Eron and Christian. Hunters would be sent for them the moment she left her mother. It was best her mother thought her just a ghost. “I walk in the night but must hide from the day. I live in shadow now, forever mourning the loss of what I once was.”
“No!” Loma fell to her knees on the floor, crossing herself. “Say it is not true.”
“Count Roberto Garibaldi stole my son from my arms and threw me over the cliff outside his castle. I will watch over my son from afar until I can be with him again.”
“I am so sorry, Seta. This was not the life I wanted for you.”
“No. You wanted my life to be a lie, to never know who I truly was.”
“I did it to protect you.”
“You lied to me long after you were safe. I deserved the truth.”
Loma looked up at her. “You must forgive me, Seta. Everything I did, I did for you.”
“No more lies, Mother. There is no need to continue. You will never see me again after this night.”
“Why did you come? I would have been more at peace believing you were with the Lord. Did you reveal your fate of unrest to me to punish me for a mistake made so long ago? I loved Hastiin Bidziil. I love you, Seta. I love Rialto.”
“You allowed the man you loved to die? To be murdered?”
“He told me to.”
“What?”
Loma stood and held on to the back of a chair to support herself.
“I knew I was with child. I told him. He was so happy, so proud, but he knew our love was forbidden. We planned to be together but your fath… my husband, he found out. He and his men found us together. Your real father loved you before you were even born. He told me the story to tell if we were ever discovered so that no one would try to take my life. He was a mighty warrior. He stood a chance, a chance he was willing to take.”
“He was killed.”
“He was killed protecting you and I. He died out of love for his woman and his child. I wish it had been different. You can be angry with me for trying to protect you from the pain of how you were conceived, that is your right. Do not accuse me of not loving your real father, or betraying him. I did what he told me to do. I loved him and I still do. I also love you. We had a duty to protect you and we did. Did you not die trying to protect your son? Are you not here now because of him? You would have moved on and found peace if not for him. You are a mother. You will do anything for your child as I did anything for mine, including suffering the loss of the man I loved.”
Seta looked away. Looking at her mother had been easier while angry. Her tears had no effect on her then. She noticed one of Rialto’s blankets rested over the arm of the chair by the hearth, where her mother sat every night. A little rumpled, she imagined her mother holding it every night, twisting it in her hands, bringing it to her nose to smell Rialto’s sweet, innocent scent. Her own eyes burned with the threat of tears.
“I wish he had lived. I wish you had known him. I pray that one day your son will know you too.”
Her anger spent, at a loss for words, Seta turned and left, ghosting through the wall of the small home she’d once shared with her mother and son. She could not bring herself to give her mother words of forgiveness, but she could no longer speak words of condemnation either.
Seta's Fall: A Blood Revelation Prequel Page 4