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Clearly relieved to move past that topic, Sevastyan said, "We had no relatives, so they ree for their upbringing I stayed away, fearing prosecution, but also because I look so much like my father, ht of me I didn’t know until years later that Maksim had convinced the authorities that he and Dmitri had witnessed our drunken father’s fall, and that their older brother was rief Even then, Maksim could spin a tale like no other"

Fondness for his brother had crept into Sevastyan’s tone, at odds with the chilliness between theht I had saved my brothers from an abusive tyrant, that they’d be free At least I could wear that badge" He clasped his forehead "Yet just this week, Maksim admitted to me that the caretakers who came in to raise him and Dmitri wereworse than our father"

"How?" I asked, but I could guess His brothers had been abused, just as Sevastyan had--as if that was always going to be their fate, no ht it

"I won’t speak more about it, because that’s not my secret to tell"

I recalled that day of theto me, just wrapped his ar him afloat Had he just learned of this from Maksim?

"I understand, Sevastyan But you can’t take the blame for that You were just twelve--you couldn’t have known"

"I abandoned them That’s how they see it, and they hate me for it Maksim less than Dmitri, because he remembers me more But deep down, they both want me to suffer for their fates Why would I ever want to reveal my family to you, when I know they despise me?"

"I don’t care how anyone else feels about you"

"Would you not? I didn’t want anything to affect your opinion of me Sometimes you look at me as if I’m so what that feels like to ave me an idea "What would happen if you found out thatunheroic? What if you discovered that I’m hated--and that I hate myself for every ti off the distance, and I wanted hi to win--in work, in life--I was losing you"

Not trusting myself to speak, I offered hied for it He absently tooktheth, I said, "Thank you for trusting usted with me?"

"Of course not" I wanted to wrap ht this moment was too tenuous "With your father, you acted in self-defense I think things got " Over tiuilt overwhelht: if he hadn’t protected himself, he would have died "You didn’t have a choice"

"Every day, I look in thelike him," I said vehemently