Insane.
Completely fucking insane.
Also brave in a way that makes my throat tight, which just pisses me off more.
"You're serious."
"I've been thinking about it all night."
"All night. While recovering from watching me shoot our father in the face. That's when you decided to—"
"Yes." No hesitation. "I know what I saw. I know what you did. And I know that the House is empty now, and someone is going to fill that vacuum whether we like it or not. It could be creditors. It could be Coin, swooping in to claim assets. It could be some distant cousin I've never met who'll sell everything and disappear with the money." She pauses. "Or it could be me."
"It's not safe."
"Is anywhere?"
"Some places are less likely to get you killed."
"And some places are mine." Her chin lifts, and I recognize the stubbornness there because I've seen it in the mirror. "I spent my entire life making myself small and quiet and useful so he wouldn't—so things would be easier. And now he's gone. He's actually gone. And for the first time in my life, I have a choice. I can stay small forever, keep hiding, keep being grateful for corners to disappear into. Or I can take up space."
I can't argue with that. I want to—I want to shake her and scream and lock her in this room until she comes to her fucking senses—but I can't argue with that because I know what it is. I know what it costs to keep making yourself disappear.
She's choosing to stop shrinking. And I hate that I understand it.
Shit.
"Discord can protect you here," I try anyway, grasping. "Koshin's already—"
"Koshin is protecting you. I'm a guest. A courtesy extended because of what you mean to him, not because of anything I am." She shakes her head, and there's no bitterness in it—just clarity. "I won't spend the rest of my life as someone's courtesy, Io. Not even yours."
"That's not—" I bite off the denial because it is. It's exactly what she'd be here. Tolerated. Housed. Provided for, sure, but always as an extension of my presence, my bond, my sudden inexplicable importance to a god who collects truths. Always in my shadow, when she's spent her whole life in shadows already.
"Fine," I manage. "Okay. So you go back. You claim the House. Then what? You're twenty years old with no political experience, no alliances of your own, and our family name iscurrently synonymous with 'the one whose daughter murdered him.' How exactly does that work?"
"The one whose heir murdered him. For cause." Seris's mouth twists—bitter, almost amused, and it's so close to an expression I'd make that it catches me off guard. "That's a story. That's something people will remember. 'Lord Solyne was so terrible his own daughter shot him in his bedroom.' That gives me power, Io. Not much. Not a lot. But some."
"Or it gives people a reason to come for you. To make an example. To prove that daughters can't just—" I stop, force my voice back down from wherever it was climbing to. "You watched. You were there. You screamed when I pulled the trigger."
"I remember." Quiet. Steady.
"And now you want to go back to that house. Sleep in that house. Live in rooms where he—"
"Yes."
"Why? Why would you choose that?"
"Because I'm done letting him win." She says it simply, like it's obvious, like it's the only answer there could ever be. "Even dead, even gone, if I spend the rest of my life hiding from what he did to us, he wins. If I let his house crumble because I'm too afraid to walk back through those doors, he wins. I won't give him that. Not anymore."
Silence settles between us. My jaw aches from clenching it—I don't know for how long, but the muscles are cramped and sore. She shouldn't have to do this. She shouldn't have to be brave about any of this. She should get to fall apart, recover, heal—whatever people do when the monster finally dies. Not immediately march back into the monster's den and take his crown.
But she's not asking permission.
That's the thing I keep circling back to.
She's not asking for my opinion or my blessing. She's telling me what she's going to do.
"I hate this," I say finally, because it's the only honest thing left.
