Uriel looked up sharply, his features softened as his entire body swayed with the music and he closed his eyes. Memories flooded him, and he knew better than to succumb to the siren of the past.

Instead he became one with the rhythm, old and melodic, speaking of home as it throbbed from the Steinway in the empty auditorium. Too soon though Carnegie Hall would be packed, as so many other places had been when he played. Uriel only saw faces from his memory, his baby sisters, his mother, his father; his brother, and he gasped softly, his hands falling flat against the keys as he shook his head.

“Balakirev, though passionate, always did tax the artists.” Stella smiled nastily as she approached on high heels. Uriel couldn’t be sure but he felt the sneer in his wife’s voice, deriding his abilities as she had so often done in the past.

“Evidently, it was not so distorted that you did not recognize it, my dear.” He felt himself sit upright, pride shielded his heart as he looked at her fair face. Cascades of long golden hair, wide blue eyes full of scorn and hate, so unlike the ones he grew up with. There was no pride in her eyes, only arrogance, and he turned from the gaze as if slapped.

“You have a guest,” she stated flatly and turned on clipped heels to leave him with the director.

“Your wife seems to disapprove of your choice of music.” The director was an elderly man, grey beard with sparkling green eyes that missed nothing.

“My wife just disapproves,” Uriel shrugged helplessly.

“A great pity.” Ryan said with a sad smile. “I’m a little surprised at your selection for the concert.”

“Are you surprised, or do you disapprove as well?” Uriel folded his hands in his lap, long, elegant fingers pale against the dark green pullover and jeans.

“Disapprove? Of Balakirev? Never, it is a piece worthy of your skill; I’ve long been a closet fan of the Mighty Handful.”

Uriel laughed and it was genuine as the corners of his eyes creased. “Yes well along with Cui, Borodin, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov they proved to be a handful. However, I think it’s more polite to refer to the masters simply as the Five, don’t you?”

Ryan nodded as he pursed his lips. “There is little doubt that they steered Russian composition away from the European school and rediscovered native Russian melodies, showcasing them as it were to the international musical community. Though Balakirev’s style is highly reminiscent of the European Romantics.”

“You refer of course to Liszt. Yes, yes, but nevertheless he utilizes distinctly Russian elements. Sadly for all his pioneering work, his rather disagreeable personality has left his works largely neglected perhaps with the exception of Islamey.”

“Hardly his most representative work but largely valued for its opportunity of showmanship.” Ryan agreed.

“And I am nothing if not a showman.” Uriel smiled again although there was an element of sorrow in the expressive blue eyes.

“You are nothing if not a consummate professional; I had thought though that you would play Islamey rather than the Fantasia on Themes from Glinka's A Life for the Tsar.” “It has a grander architecture concept and technique, but I had intended to add Islamey into the recital,” Uriel nodded.

“As an encore?”

“If I am good enough to warrant one, then yes.”

“How is your mother?” Ryan asked suddenly, aware of the hurt the question caused as Uriel looked down at his hands.

“The cancer has taken her completely. My half-sister Ekaterina has told me as much, but it is the fate of my sisters which bothers me.”

“And your brother can be of no assistance?”

“I doubt he would care. My mother was not especially kind to him, wronging him on my behalf.”

“Braht, I have always cared.” Illya’s voice sounded from the back of the hall where he had listened mesmerized by his brother’s gift, his own body caught in the bittersweet melody. “Enough to send them my pay check each month and to fret over them.”

Ryan looked between the two men and studied them; he knew the stories of hostility and pain that had passed between them. Petty squabbles of children that had become insurmountable over the years of separation. He saw the tension in the lithe frame that stalked towards the dais with all the calm and grace of a deadly hunter. Ryan noted that Uriel smiled gently, the corners of his mouth twitching up to meet his eyes.

“More than I have been allowed to do,” Uriel noted sadly. “I am a disgrace to my family in Russia, and the authorities will grant me no opportunity to care for them.”

Illya stopped and looked up, the pain in his brother’s face more than he could bare and he steeled his resolve.

“I doubt if Papa were alive he would find disgrace in the way you play.”

Uriel brightened for a moment. “You mean that?”

“I have never lied to you,” Illya stated.

“No you never have. But I am forgetting my manners. Dr Ryan Perrin, this is my brother Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin.”

“A pleasure.” Ryan extended his hand and shook Illya’s surprised at the hidden strength in the large hands and the scars on his wrists where his shirt sleeve’s rode up made him uncomfortable.

“I sincerely doubt that sir; however, if it is not inconvenient I need to speak to my brother, in private.”

“Of course.” Ryan patted Uriel’s shoulder as he walked away and Illya mounted the dais in one step.

“I doubt this is a social call or that you missed me, so what is it you want?” Uriel studied the keys as his fingers tinkled out a haunting melody. He was beyond speech when his brother simply sat next to him and played the same tune on the lower scale with a degree of competency that astounded the younger man. “I had forgotten you could play.”

“You forgot?” Illya remonstrated dropping into Russian.

“We played together as children.” Uriel smiled as he followed his brother’s lead.

“Brat, I taught you as a child. Despite the fact you resented me.”

“Yes I did. But then, Illyusha, I was a child.”

“And now? Do you still resent me?”

“No. I’ve missed you.” The first brittle cracks opened and tears were shed from years of loneliness. Years lost to misgivings and politics, and Illya found his heart beat painfully in his breast as he laid a hand on the hunched shoulder. Uriel, proud, defiant and spitting curses the last time they faced off, came willingly into his arms and laid his head against the strong chest as the sobs shook him.

“And I you. Perhaps when this is done we can discover what it is to be brother’s again?” Illya soothed gently.

“Then you are not here to kill me?” Uriel’s hands shook.

Illya sighed. “That is the price I’m asked to pay in order to save our sisters.”

“Odd, I had always believed it would come to this. That my freedom was bought with blood and my death would eventually be required. I had not expected it so soon though.” Uriel sighed resignedly.

“Argh!” Illya stood and paced. “If I wanted you dead Uriel you would be, make no mistake as you are the master of that instrument,” he pointed accusingly at the Steinway, “I am no less competent in mine!”

“So you have a solution?” Uriel frowned.

“Together we could find one that did not involve wholesale slaughter.”