And that’s all he manages to say before he completely shatters in my arms.
Chapter 29
Kirill
Funerals shouldn’t happen in summer.
It feels wrong to sit in a church, staring at a coffin holding someone you love while the sun shines brightly outside.
Give me rain, pouring down as if it will never stop.
Give me violent winds and chaotic sheets of water slamming against the church’s stained-glass windows.
Give me a damn hurricane threatening to tear the very roof from this holy place because that better reflects the pain and suffering clawing through all of us.
Don’t give me sunshine.
Don’t give me birds chirping as if this is just another beautiful day.
Because it’s not.
Because today…we bury a beloved sister into the earth.
Raw emotion clogs my throat as the Orthodox priest chants prayers in Old Church Slavonic—words weBratvamen have long since memorized, even if some of us don’t fully understandtheir meaning. Yes. We’ve attended too many funerals in our lives, not to know the words by heart now.
But some funerals stand apart from the rest.
And this one… most of all. This one… will haunt us forever.
For today we lay ourPakhan’swife to rest.
My gaze drifts to the front pew where Misha sits alone, hollowed out, carved into a shell of the man he once was.
There are no tears in his eyes.
No expression on his face.
No life in his gaze.
My brother is already dead.
He died the same day his precious Elena did.
No matter how hard my brothers and I have tried to reach him these last few days, to pull him back from the edge, our efforts have been in vain.
After her death, he locked himself inside Elena’s room, her body still lying upon their marital bed as if she were only sleeping. According to Orthodox tradition, the soul lingers near the body for three days. That belief is why Misha refused to leave Elena’s side, clinging to whatever time death had not yet stolen from him.
He did not eat.
Did not sleep.
Did not speak.
The only person he allowed inside was the Orthodox priest, who came daily to recite the traditional prayers for the departed. Incense filled the room. Candles burned beside her body. Psalms were whispered into the shadows.
And when the third day came, when the priest said Elena’s body must be prepared for burial, Misha carried out the final rites himself. He washed her. Dressed her. Crossed her hands upon her chest and placed a smallTheotokosicon between her fingers.
Now, here we all sit beneath gilded saints, watching our brother blankly stare at Elena’s open coffin as tradition demands, wondering if his pain will ever loosen its grip enough for him to speak to us again.
