last salvation ( the devil always wins ) .

exerpt : a midwinter night's dream

START EXERPT.

in the reign of the tsar ivan kalita, or so said the tales, a maiden clad in rags rode through the kremlin gates, accompanied with nothing but a tall grey mare. despite her filth and ashen cloaks, rumours trailed her footsteps like snowfall and wolves. she had such grace, the people said, the eyes of the rusalki, like a swan maiden in fairy tales. the rumours, at length, reached the court of the then prince, nikolai.
the prince was young, and he was playful, quite amused by the apparent muse of folk tales, and so he said, bring her to me; i have never seen a swan maiden.
nikolai was a prince, eaten by ambition, valiant and intelligent. it's how he survived, for moscow was no mother to her princes. and yet, they said afterwards, when he saw the girl, tumbling black hair and cherry red lips, he sat unmoving, and the romantics swore his eyes were glassy when he took her hand.

the prince was of age, newly crowned heir and eligible for marriage, noble girls paraded before him each day, and each day he sat, entranced by the swan maiden that appeared of nowhere. merely a year after, he married the lady, after countless snowy rendezvouses at the dead of the night.
though, even the grand prince of moscow and soon to be king could not silence the whispers. they said, during their courting, the prince would come back each night smelling of bougainvillea and lilies. and he too, would not say where she came from, never and ever. the serving women whispered that she could bring forth rain, take animals and spring the future from her dreams.

but the people are suspicious, and so is his father. his son, frost-haired and handsome, marrying a girl like her when there are so many others? they would not deny her beauty, incandescent and fair, with smooth bronze skin that blushes like a rose and a sheet of night for hair. still, beauty means little in a world of connections, and the queen beseeches him to marry another; a princess perhaps, or even a countess. think of the country, she hisses, a duchess herself, rich with lands and associates.
the prince stays firm, retreating to his witch of a wife every day, and every day he sits at the breakfast table smelling of flowers and love.

and soon, prince becomes tsar, and his beloved wife the tsaritsa. being the governors of a nation is no easy feat, and the lady frowns at the tactless faux pas of nobility, the only intelligence they have known being the subtle nips and insults and literature they read tirelessly with no perception.
the maiden was a wild sprite, and each day she faded more and more, into a dim shadow who could not bear life behind byzantine screens and heavy jewels.

midwinter blows through kremlin, frozen and forbidding. the queen sits at her window, the bitter frost of wind burying her handmaiden's shout of closing the windows before she catches sickness. they do not know that she revels at the icy bite of winter, that she was borne to life by the snow. she watches as the snow falls in imperious sheets, her cheeks growing red.
then, a low pitched call and the quiet crunch of snow. the sound is hollow and echoes through the white expanse. the queen almost smiles, white-eyed and mystified.
an elk makes its slow walk towards the queen, majestic and milky white, the oak brown of its antlers glowing a near translucent amber with the dimming light from her lamp. it's liquid dark eyes were on the lady, and she leaned forward, puffs of icy breath exiting her mouth.
in her excitement, her fingers pricked against the metal of the windowsill, blood dripping gently on the snow. she does not take much notice of the pain.