“Ah.” Smirnov leaned back, stroking his beard. “And this is why you did not trust Fyodor’s cousin. This is understandable, I think. You suffered at the hands of these political enemies?”

Zivon stilled. It still chafed against everything in him to share, but it was why he had come. He needed someone to tell him if he was as hopeless as he felt. “They killed the woman I was to marry. Murdered her and left her on my doorstep to find.”

Smirnov muttered something under his breath. It sounded sharp, Slavic, but Zivon couldn’t quite make out the syllables. The priest shook his head. “This is terrible. No wonder you hesitate to trust.”

“The Bolsheviks . . .” He heard the way he said it, the way Lily must have been hearing it. Felt the bite of his nails against his palm, though he didn’t recall telling his hand to fist. He squeezed his eyes shut. “How do I forgive them, Father? They took everything from me. Everything. My career, my home, my bride, my brother. Everything I thought I was, they stole. I fear . . . I fear I hate them.”

“All of them?”

His eyes sprang open again. “Pardon?”

Smirnov’s eyes somehow managed to look both understanding and challenging. “Do you hate every Bolshevik, Mr. Marin? Man, woman, and child? That is quite a burden to take upon your shoulders.”

“I . . . do not know.” He forced his fingers to relax. “I do not know who is directly responsible. I suppose I have lumped them all together in my mind.”

“Easy to do, on the one hand.” The priest toyed with the end of his long beard. “To hate in broad strokes. To paint everyone as the same, da? Do you hate all Germans too? Bulgarians? Ottomans? They were also our enemies.”

His breath eased out. “No.” He’d met some who seemed to, but that had always struck him as ridiculous. Yes, they were fighting them. Yes, the Germans were responsible for the death of Batya and countless others. But war—war where nation was pitted against nation—had never felt like this to him. It was just men from each side serving their country. “That never felt personal. Even when my father fell in battle, I knew it was not that he was targeted specifically. Not like this.”

“So then. Do you think every single Bolshevik has personally named you an enemy? Did every single one conspire to kill your bride?”

“Of course not.”

“Perhaps, then, you do not hate them all. Perhaps you hate only the one or two to blame for this.”

For a moment, his spirit lifted. Then his brows slammed down. “Is that really better?”

Father Smirnov chuckled. “Better? No. But easier to overcome, perhaps. When we consider the task of forgiving hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of men, that is daunting indeed. But one or two? Think how much easier that will be.”