Page 126 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
I gulped my tears down and simply enjoyed being surrounded by the only family I had left, even from miles upon miles away.
They’re alive, they’re alive, they’re alive, chanted in my mind.
I opened my mouth to speak, still used to being the First Daughter among them, but the words stuck on my tongue. Nothing could truly do justice to this reunion.
Clara beat me to it.
“I’m sorry my dad’s an asshole,” she said.
The silence suddenly crumbled with our relieved laughter. Even Evie giggled, and she’d barely met the man or faced Clan machinations.
“Glad you said it first, because it was literally hurting my chest to keep it inside.” Dax raised a glass of something amber in the sky and took a big gulp. “What the fuck is Silas doing, Clara?”
“Not listening to me, that’s what.” She rubbed her cheeks, her golden bracelets clacking. “He won’t see me, won’t talk to me, won’t answer any of my letters. I don’t know what to do. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said quickly as Clara’s fingers dug into her scalp, pulling at her golden hair. “Silas is his own man, with his own decisions. Stupid, destructive, conceited decisions. He cannot be reasoned with.”
“You–” Clara’s crestfallen face struck me right in my heart. In that moment, the feared Protectorate negotiator vanished, replaced with a young girl whose father was ignoring her. “He talked to you?”
She looked at me like she was begging me to say no and I felt rotten.
I could put on a brave face for them and keep my coat buttoned around my neck, despite the heat in my room, but I could not lie to them.
I nodded grimly.
Clara released a shuddered breath and fell back against the back of her seat, an austere piece of wood which looked to have been cobbled together from scraps. “I should have seen it coming.”
Just like I’d missed every warning sign before Orion’s trap snapped shut. “Don’t beat yourself up. I need to tell you–”
“Nobody could have,” Dara said at the same moment. She shook her head sadly before spearing me with her eyes. “Allie, I’m sorry for your loss, because yours is the greatest. Alaric was a great man and he will be sorely missed.”
All thoughts of my own treachery vanished as the sting in my eyes threatened to spill down my cheeks. I blinked rapidly and looked up at the ceiling. My family hadn’t yet seen me weak–I still wanted them to remember me as the feared Huntress they’d all looked up to.
I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, seeing me crumble would send a cascade of worry onto them. I missed him like the very air I breathed, but I couldn’t allow that pain to seep from me and taint their smiles, as tired as they already were.
There wasn’t much I could control about my situation, but this I could handle.
I had to.
“Thank you,” I said once the lump in my throat eased. “He is missed. Every day.”
Dax raised his glass, just like my father used to at the start of family diners. My chest throbbed with an ache I couldn’t voice. “May the gods receive him in their embrace as if he was one of them.”
“He shouldn’t have gone that way.” Clara shook her head, shadows crowding her lovely dark eyes. “He could have talked some sense into my dad.”
“It doesn’t help to dwell on the past,” Dara said. Even though they all looked at me like the leader and Evie had been born first, Dara had the oldest soul among us. Sometimes I felt like she was the one guarding our hearts, while I fought with the world to protect us. “Alaric did great things with the time he had.To protect is to endure.”
We all chanted the same words–except Evie, the only one of us who hadn’t been raised on traditions and incantations.
I released a long, shuddered breath. I still couldn’t grieve my father properly. Doing so would mean truly accepting he was no longer here. That I had failed to protect him. Protect us.
I selfishly refused to face that reality outright.
Not now.
Not yet.
“Anybody know anything about Uncle Maksim?” I hated that my voice sounded so raspy. Mercifully, none of my cousins pointed it out–which meant they’d noticed and realized how much the mere mention of my father affected me.
