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Tayui watched her son in silent contemplation, tracking each of his movements and facial expressions. While Attila fumbled with this new information -- or, more appropriately, vague avoidance of disclosing any information -- Tayui was watching him carefully, trying to plan her next move. The father Attila truly deserved had been a woman, and the father he had gotten was a monster, born and bred. As long as Haku was alive, he would never know of his four children. Hopefully, with this latest war, he would finally be destroyed. It had been her own fault, too. She'd wanted attention and love. The danger had appealed to her: sleeping with a monster and taming him with her touch. Perhaps she had not so much tamed him as she had sedated him. She was still alive, and so were her children; but at what cost? Attila was right: it was unfair, but she still could not tell him. No, Tayui loved her son too much for that.
“Shaeniire Vanim,” Tayui replied confidently, pausing for a moment, but continuing: “was my mate when I was a member of Jaded Shadows, and even through death as a ghost. Eventually, the afterlife beckoned.” She frowned, recalling the events. There was an entire family Attila had that he knew nothing about. “We adopted two children together: Ember Agaric and Agani de'Luah. Ember Phoenix is named after Ember Agaric. We adopted her after my two good friends, her parents, died. After Shaeniire died, Agani ran off and Ember died. But Ember's mother was named Rain Oriel, so I suppose you have a family in them as well.” But even they were more of a family then Haku would ever be. Ember, and even Aidan, had a place in her home that Haku never would.
Attila's second question added another angle to the problem. How could she put this delicately? How could she tell her son that the first man she'd met who was willing to sleep with her was the one who impregnated her? There had to be some sort of cruel coincidental humour in there. Somewhere.
“It was one night. I never loved him. I might have felt other things toward him, but it wasn't love. Passion, certainly, but not love.”