Page 114 of One For my Enemy

“And perhaps if you’d spent more time caring about your brothers than you did yourself,” Dimitri cut in, “you’d be asleep in your own bed now, Roma, instead of running to me.”

Roman grimaced, letting his nails bite into his palm.

“Do you think I can take even one breath without the pain of his loss?” he asked Dimitri, letting them both suffer the unspoken weight of Lev’s name. “Do you really believe I’m not drowning, Dima, in my own remorse?”

It took a moment for Dimitri to respond. For a second, Roman thought he saw his brother’s face soften.

“I believe it.” But then, once again, Dimitri Fedorov became a man of stone. “You want my forgiveness to help you breathe, is that it?” he asked, and to that, Roman said nothing. “I have no interest in providing you relief. If you suffocate for what you’ve done, so be it. You’ll have done it well enough without my help.”

Roman flinched. “Lev wouldn’t want us to be like this with each other, Dima—”

“No, Roma.” Dimitri’s voice was hard and grim. “Don’t delude yourself. Lev wouldn’t want to bedead.Just because he would die for you, or I would, doesn’t mean either of us ever wished to. You don’t get to speak for his ghost.”

There was nothing to say to that, as Dimitri already knew. Roman merely stood in his brother’s darkened living room and suffered in silence, forced again to bear the weight of what he’d done.

“Sleep on the couch,” Dimitri muttered eventually. “You know where the blankets are.”

Roman shook his head. “No. I should go. I shouldn’t have come.”

For a moment, Dimitri looked like he might argue, but then he shrugged, impassive.

“We both have to adjust to life after Lev. Do what you must, Roma, and I’ll do what I have to. You aren’t nothing to me, you’re just…” Dimitri trailed off. “We’re different people than we were.”

Roman nodded numbly, barely registering a sound as Dimitri took the corridor to his bedroom. Dimitri was right, after all. They had never really been close; Koschei had united them and Lev had softened them, but now—without Lev, and with Dimitri’s newfound aggravation with their father—there was nothing but blood to keep them in the same room. By the time Dimitri’s door fell shut, the sound echoing through the halls of his apartment, Roman finally managed the certainty to leave, making his way down to the street.

He shivered in the cold night air. It would be getting warm again soon, but that was unlikely to improve the chill in his bones. He turned, briskly making his way down the street, and stopped short at the sight of something.

The moonlight glowed on the long, dark hair of a shimmering figure, her grey gaze cold.

“Sasha,” Roman said, and swallowed.

She didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. She was deathly still.

“Sasha,” Roman said again, blinking. “Please, I never wanted this to happen—”

She stepped towards him and his hand shot out, crackling unsteadily. Whatever magic it would take to keep a ghost at bay, he no longer possessed it.

How had everything gone so wrong?

“Sasha, please—”

“Who did this to me?” she whispered, her voice as solemn and incorporeal as the breeze. “Was it you, Roman?”

“No, Sasha, I wouldn’t—”

“Or was it Koschei,” she said, her eyes flickering in the dark. “Tell me, son of Koschei, would I be dead if not for him?”

Roman stared at her, and stared.

Slowly, she tilted her head, smiling eerily at him.

“Will Koschei even mourn your loss, Roma Fedorov?” she asked, taking a step towards him, and immediately, Roman stumbled backwards, tearing through the night without another glance.

V. 4

(Undead.)

Sasha waited until Roman was out of sight before reaching for her cheek, shaking her head.

---