When Spring Died

Chapter Three

"Your Highness, can you possibly explain to me why in Marena's name your firebird brought a letter from Frantsiya?!"

Sasha peeled one eye open and raised his head from his desk. He'd been in the middle of a very pleasant dream where he'd felt the sun on his skin for the first time in his life. It burned and blistered him from head to toe, searing his insides with heat; he liked the sensation. As he yawned and stretched, the feeling faded, giving way to the drafty coldness that permeated the air.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Yuri," he said, laying his head back down on his arms, chasing the remnants of warmth he'd imagined. "And haven't I told you to stop reading my letters?"

Yuri Smirnov, Sasha's most trusted courtier, began to seriously question his choice of a career and started to wish wholeheartedly he had not proved so reliable and trustworthy as to become a favorite of the interim tsar. He slammed the letter down on the desk, making Sasha jump.

"If I don't read them, nobody will. Look."

Sasha, realizing he would not be allowed to fall back to sleep and continue his dream, groaned and sat back up to snatch the strip of paper to see what the fuss was all about. He skimmed over it, a smile curling across his face as he did so.

"I sincerely hope you did not make your bird fly all the way from Ryssland to Frantsiya. All the same it has found me. I don't believe that was your intention."

"Oh this," he said. "Yes, I'd had too much vodka and decided I wanted a pen pal. It worked, Yuri. Congratulate me!"

Yuri's already pale complexion went positively snowflake white. "Your firebird arrived back to the palace utterly exhausted. I couldn't figure out why until I saw the note. How could you possibly become so drunk that you think it's a good idea to use a firebird to send a message to a foreigner that far away?!"

"Please don't shout so loud. My head is killing me," Sasha complained while he massaged his temples. His head didn't actually hurt. It just seemed like an apt time to complain about nothing.

Yuri raked a hand through his shoulder-length black hair. "Not only that, Your Highness, but you've written to a noble. A Frantsiyan noble of all people! They're the only people in that nation who've learned our language and have the capability to write it so well!!"

"I assume it was a woman," Sasha mused. "It must have been. This handwriting is far too pretty to be a man's. Why it makes yours look like chicken scratch."

Yuri scowled. "I do not write chicken scratch!"

"Yes, and it's not snowing outside. Oh, dear me, it is snowing outside, what does that say?" Sasha hopped up and began to pace, holding the note up to the light. "I sincerely hope this is from a woman. Otherwise I might have accidentally confessed my most ardent love to a foppish nobleman in the Spring Courts. How embarrassing."

"You did what??" Yuri's pale eyes widened in shock. He looked ready to pass out.

"It wasn't my fault. Vodka brings out the passion in me."

"Your Highness...that's...you've..."

"I must write back at once!"

"No! You can't!!"

"You can't tell me what to do. I'm the tsar, and I say I want to write a reply."

Yuri, in a fit of adamancy, snatched the bottle of ink from the desk and held it behind his back before Sasha could reach it. "You are not the tsar yet, so you don't get to do that." He lifted his chin in the air, daring Sasha to oppose him.