“I’d send every one of those dakii over the tallest mountain to fall to their death if I could, our glory with them.” Uncle Byorsh smacked the table. “But we should be proud of our own, proud of what the Kleesolds can do. Especially now.”
“Do you remember when we were cornered outside Klees?” Uncle Dinhal called across the room, diving into a story of how Josik had saved them all.
Most of Iryana’s table was listening raptly, but Hadima was staring at her hands, clenched in her lap. Her eyes were empty.
They talked about how their father had fought off three dakii at once, saving a small child that had gotten stuck under a wagon, but all Iryana could picture was her father yanking her back to his side by her hair. They shared how Josik had lifted the wagon, a feat for five men, and let the kid crawl out. Iryana remembered him throwing her into the wall, her body snapping against the cabinet.
“You can only hope to be half the man your Uncle Josik was,” Uncle Byorsh called to his children.
“Hope for more,” Iryana growled lightly under her breath. She was shaking now.
How could they? Howcouldthey? That rage burned in her, growing and growing with each story, each feat of the once-great man that had helped ruin Iryana’s family.
“I miss our brother every day,” Uncle Dinhal was saying to Uncle Byorsh, Aunt Emadya rubbing his shoulder with a sorry look on her face.
Iryana couldn’t take it.
“Enough!” She slammed her hands on the table as she stood, the bowls and cups rattling wildly. “He wasn’t a good man. Not to me. Not to my mother. Not to any ofus.”
Uncle Byorsh’s face twisted with shock and confusion as he stared at Iryana. “You were too young when he was injured,” her Uncle Byorsh argued, patronizing. “You don’t remember what he was like outside of that bed. Anyone would struggle with an injury like that. He wasn’t himself. I’m sure it was frustrating taking care of him on your own.”
“He was brave and a great teacher,” Uncle Dinhal added, though he looked more conflicted that his older brother. “Taught me everything I know. I will always be grateful for that.
Iryana could barely breathe. They were looking at her like a child throwing a tantrum. Like she hadn’t lived through hell while they all pretended her father didn’t exist. Could they truly have no idea? Had they averted their eyes so well?
She looked to her sisters. Hadima looked like a deer about to be shot through the eye, but she didn’t really know, either, did she? Misha wouldn’t even look up. Perhaps she didn’t remember. They didn’t say a word either way.
Iryana tried to keep her mouth shut, she really did. But then Uncle Dinhal opened his mouth to sprout more praise for her father and Iryana snapped.
“He was a monster!” she screeched. “He beat her, you know that, right? He beat my mother. But he’ssuch a hero.” She sounded unhinged even to her own ears. “Blamed every pain on her for being such a lazy,worthlesswife! When the poppy would wear off, he’d threaten to kill her, to kill us, if we didn’t get him more. She tried to wean him off it, but it made him too violent. Too unstable.“She tried to hide her bruises from us. Kept us out of the cottage as much as she could. Changed how she braided her hair so we wouldn’t see the huge clump he’d tore out. She cried every night! Turned away from me and Misha so we wouldn’t know, but I could feel her shaking. The only time we got any peace was when he was high on the poppy, strapped down to that bed, as it slowly killed him.
“Before you took Misha back after mom left, I had tohideher from him! Lock her outside of the cottage when he was in a rage so he wouldn’t hurt her. He threw her dolls through a window once, glass shattering everywhere. She cried so hardand I couldn’t get to her before she ran outside and through the glass to get her doll. Does that sound like a hero to you?”
Aunt Emadya approached her slowly, hands gesturing for her to calm down or sit—she wasn’t sure and she didn’t care. “Let’s just take a—” her Aunt started to say, but Iryana stepped further away, not finished.
“You took Misha and then I was ALONE with him! The poppy could never keep him high long enough, and every time he came down from it, all he wanted to do was make me hurt just as much as he did. What a gods-damned fucking hero!”
“Iryana—” Uncle Dinhal tried to cut in, but Iryana still couldn’t stop. She was pacing, shaking. Her heart bleeding.
“And none of you cared! The clan didn’t protect my mother. Didn’t protect Misha. Didn’t protect me. You needed him out of the way so you could focus on the monsters outside the wall. So you trapped us with one, and I didn’t have a wall to keep the monster from me.” Her voice dropped low and haunted. “You might have mourned him but I wasrelievedwhen he died.”
With that admission, her ammunition ran out and Iryana fell silent. The air felt thin as her chest heaved, her throat raw and her eyes so wide they burned. The room was painfully silent. She took in the appalled looks of everyone in the room. They cut right through Iryana’s rage. Shame immediately doused the fire of her rage.
“I never should have come.” Iryana stumbled from the table and raced for the door, regretting every word that had spilled from her lips.
Her emotions were a wild mess that she had no hope of understanding, but they surged inside of her in a sick, twisting heap. Underneath that pile, there was a thread of relief that she didn’t understand. She’d hurt her sisters by calling attention to what their father had done, hurt the rest of the family. She shouldn’t be relieved.
Iryana was halfway across the family’s courtyard when her grandmother’s aged voice cut through the cool night air.
“Iryana, stop.”
Despite the years spent separating herself from her family, the oaths she took in direct contradiction to the ones she’d taken for the Kleesolds, Iryana couldn’t ignore a command from her First.
Iryana hovered, but she didn’t turn around.
“I am so sorry, my dear granddaughter.”
The shock of those words had Iryana spinning, disgust curling her lips back over her teeth. “You’resorry?”
