She licked her lips. "If I may ask, who is he?"
Discomfort was quite visible in his body language yet, her father answered. "The future pakhan."
"T-The—" Katrina stuttered and hesitated before putting a pause on it completely. Natya beside her choked on the water she was drinking.
Her grandmother made a distasteful noise. "The girls cannot even say the word 'Pakhan'. I can only imagine what they will do when it comes to taking his name. This is why I told you to tell her as soon as possible."
"This is not how Katrina will act in his presence and the party is barely days away." Her grandmother gave her a good look before turning to look at her father again. "We have to figure out a dress for her as well. She is to be presented in front of everyone."
Great, a coming out address once again.
Ivan nodded and picked up his fork. "You can take care of what you can, my mother. I will figure out the rest of it."
The silence lasted only a few seconds before her cousin raised her hand, making her father smile. "Yes, Natya."
"May I ask a question?"
Ivan closed his eyes for a second in silent amusement, that was why she had wasted her hand, but alright. "Yes. Please go ahead."
"What is the name of the Pakhan?"
"Not the pakhan, Natya," he corrected gently, "the future pakhan. His name is Matvey Ivanov."
Heat rushed to her cheeks. So that was his name.
The future pakhan.
As far as she knew, it was Uncle from the side of his mother, who was ruling as the current ruler until they deemed Matvey to be fit.
How old was he? Could she ask that to her father?
The banquet that she was going to attend, she was going to be there. Would that mean that she was going to make a conversation with him?
That we quickly looked at her father. He was focused on eating, probably had a lot of things going on in his mind as well.
Then she looked at her grandmother. Even she appeared to be thinking about something else too.
Katrina did not even bother to look at her sister. Natya was only going to cause more trouble if she was ever presented in front of the future pakhan.
She would probably end up saying something that was either going to be extremely offensive or just stupid. Even if she asked natya a question now, chances were she was not going to get a good answer.
Perhaps she could talk to her father after all of this was over.
She once again gave a glance to her father who had already finished what was on his plate. Maybe after dinner when he was not surrounded by people.
At least some of the questions she had could be answered, for the rest, time would tell.