"Father is Alive."
The sentence landed so quietly it almost didn't land at all.
For a moment, no one moved, no one spoke, just the faint collective stillness of people whose minds had heard something and were refusing, instinctively, to accept it before they were certain.
The women looked between each other, then around the room, the confusion on their faces genuine and unguarded, as if checking whether someone else had heard the same thing and could confirm it.
Lady Irina leaned forward slowly, her eyes finding her son's face, searching it.
What she found there was not a joke, nor a mistake. Andrei's expression carried the particular weight of someone who had been holding something for a long time and had finally set it down, somber, still, the easy warmth of happiness completely gone from his eyes.
She turned to Venedikt.
He looked back at her with the same cold, resigned quiet, the face of a man who had already made his peace with a truth.
