Page 43 of Sanctuary

“Look, about the whole snake thing…”

She raised her eyebrows at him. The woman could cut with a look like nobody he’d ever met.

“It’s my fault,” he said. “I did it. I just want to clarify that it wasn’t intentional bullying.”

“Then what was it?”

“Proximity and lack of control.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, I can’t wait to hear this.”

He gathered himself.

“Well?”

“Hang on. I stuffed all my feelings down like a proper man, and it takes some effort to bring them back up.”

“Take your time.”

Roman sighed. “I was a really unhappy twelve-year-old.”

“You said that part.”

“My parents were separating. They’d separated a couple of times before, but this time it felt different. Final.”

His parents had never married, although his mother introduced herself as Mrs. Tihomirov to this day when the occasion called for it. Now, after years of watching them clash and make up, he was sure they would never leave each other. Age had mellowed them both enough to live in the same house most of the time, and their fights had lost much of their former viciousness. But back then, it was chaos.

“My sisters were panicking. It felt like the family was collapsing. Mom and Dad had tried to shield us from their problems as much as they could, but they were angry with each other. My brother was…”

“A shithead.”

“Perfect. He was perfect. He was seven years older, and he was good at everything. He was at the top of every class. Theoretical, practical, didn’t matter. Top three with a spear, number one with a bow. He was a sniper. When he went hunting, even if everyone else came back empty-handed, he would always bring home game. I never had patience for the bow.”

“You seemed to do fine half an hour ago,” she said.

“Years of practice. To my brother, it came naturally. I once asked him how he did it, and he told me to stop thinking. Make myself empty. Don’t be bored, don’t be worried. Just be empty, and wait.”

She sighed.

“My brother never got in trouble. No matter what the task was, he would do it properly every time, exceeding expectations, while I couldn’t put a foot right. I came from a prominent magical family. I had to uphold our reputation. Great things were expected of me, and somehow everything I touched turned to shit.”

“Ah yes, the poor little pagan prince,” Andora said, but her words didn’t have any bite to them.

“In my first semester of the fifth grade, I ended up in the principal’s office more times than my brother had ever been in his entire twelve years at the Academy. It had gotten to the point where, when I got in trouble, they would call him for the parent-teacher talk. He never got angry. He never berated. He just looked at me like I was a maggot. Like he had expected me to amount to nothing, so there was no point in being disappointed.”

“That’s a lot of feelings,” Andora said. “Are you going to be alright?”

“No worries, after this is done, I will put them back where they belong, and we won’t talk about this again. Ever.”

“Well, at least you have a plan.” Her tone told him his plan was stupid.

He really didn’t want to keep going, but he was doing this, in part, to atone. If a member of the faith had come to him for spiritual guidance in this matter, he would have advised them to talk to the injured party and to unburden themself. There was a cost to that, because to do it properly meant to lay himself bare. Forgiveness would come or it would not, but, as Farhang had said, this was the reckoning he deserved.

Although right now it didn’t feel like unburdening would help much.

“Anyway, it was decided early on that my brother would become the Black Volhv after my father. My parents always said it was his right as the firstborn.”

“But there is no such rule, is there?” she asked softly.

---