The Shining Falcon

Chapter XI Awakenings

She lay full‑length and languorous in the warm spring meadow, the new grass soft and cool against her bare skin, her long hair shining golden in the sunlight, so attractive a contrast against the bright young green that she kept turning her head lazily from side to side to admire it. Birdsong and insect chirpings were dreamy and soft in the quiet air, and the sweet scents of growth were all about her. Ljuba laughed softly for sheer pleasure, and a falcon's chuckle answered her.

Finist. Finist had come swooping silently down to a landing, altering shape smoothly till he was man again, sprawled lazily beside her, his long, supple body as golden in the sunlight as her own.

«Ljuba…» Her name was a caress on his lips. «The winter was long and lonely.»

«You've forgiven me? Those candles—the enchantment‑I did it only because I love you.»

«Akh, my dear… What man could resist you? What man could fault you?»

«Finist…» She reached out an arm to encircle his neck,, pulling him, unresisting, down across her, welcoming his strength. His lips brushed her cheek, nibbled teasingly at an earlobe. But then, bewilderingly, he was murmuring:

«But there is still the little matter of Erema, and the knife.»

«I had nothing to do with any — "

«You killed him, didn't you? You destroyed him, mind and body.»

«Finist, no!»

«You killed him to get at me. You killed him to steal my throne.»

«No, oh, no!»

And with that, gasping, Ljuba awoke in her bed, with chill winter sunlight stealing through the slats of shutters closed against the cold.

«God, what a ridiculous dream.»

«Lady… ?» asked a sleepy voice, and Ljuba turned her head sharply to stare down at the form there beside her. Finist… ?

Good Lord, no. This man was dusty brown of hair, suntanned of skin… a guard, though for the life of her she couldn't remember his name. Young, handsome, and a fervent enough lover, if not subtle. She'd taken him into her bed to help combat the tedium of at least one of the long, seemingly endless winter nights…

And to combat a certain loneliness, too: Finist…

For a moment more, she felt the dream linger about her. Then, with a sudden cry of anger, Ljuba was on her feet, clutching a blanket about herself.

«Up!» she commanded. «Get up and get out!»

Then, as the bewildered guard stumbled to obey, Ljuba thought better of it, and called him back.

«Here. Drink.»

«Wine? Ah, lady, your pardon, but I really don't — "

«Drink!»

Hastily, he obeyed. Ljuba watched his eyes go dreamy and vague from the effects of the drug in the wine, and purred, «You spent the night alone. Alone, do you understand?»

«Alone," he agreed dully.

«Now—get out of here.»

Dourly, she watched him leave. Ever since the near‑disaster of Erema's death, Ljuba had realized that her only safe course of action to allay Finist's suspicion would be to lead a quiet, apparently blameless life, at least for a time. Even if it meant her lovers must be drugged to en-sure their silence. Even if at certain crucial moments she heard herself call out a royal name, longing for silvery hair against her own, amber eyes hot with passion…

Dammit, no, I am not in love with the man!

Then why were there tears in her eyes?

Akh, blame it on this interminable winter! Days of being pent-up indoors because of cold or storm were beginning to wear on her nerves.

Ljuba flung open the shutters with a crash, welcoming the blast of chill, restoring air. She'd decided that her time of quiet innocence should last until the spring; no one could be expected to live anything but a quiet life in winter, anyhow.

But, wondered Ljuba with a touch of wan humor, was she going to be able to last till then?

«Enough!»

Finist hurled the parchment down with savage force, glaring at the counselors who stared at him in amazement.

«But… my Prince…» Semyon began tentatively.

«Enough, boyar!» Finist struggled for control. «We have spent the entire morning going over and over these ridiculously petty boundary quarrels as if we could actually do something about them. I told you this was useless, but no, you wouldn't believe me! Boyars, we can't settle anything now, not in the middle of winter with snow covering everything!»

«But surely we could…»

The last threads of temper snapped. «Surely you could get out of here, all of you!»

With nervous glances at each other, they gathered up their scrolls and maps and scuttled out of the chamber. Only Semyon dared to linger. «My Prince, I understand. We've all been short of temper lately. It's the season. The winter wears on all of us, particularly you younger folk — "

«Don't patronize me, man.»

«But — "

«I gave you a command. Get out!»

Semyon's sigh expressed volumes. But, shaking his head, he obeyed. Alone, Finist turned to the window, un-bolting the shutter and flinging it open, welcoming the wave of cold that swept into the hot chamber. Akh, he hated this room, the claustrophobic little Golden Chamber, all pretty yellow silk, with its low ceiling and one small window, but it was one of the few rooms in the palace warm enough to suit his shivering boyars. As though they weren't swathed in enough furs to warm a village!

Leaning on the windowsill, looking out over his silent, white-shrouded city, his breath frosting the air, Finist reluctantly had to admit that Semyon was right. It was the weather wearing at all of them; once the joyousness of Yule and Winter Solstice and New Year's celebrations were past—his people were nothing if not ecumenical in their holidays—there was nothing left but long nights, short days, and cold. No one travelled, save by sleigh or skis for brief jaunts; there wasn't any journey worth the risk of a frozen death. Even Finist was restricted. Winter flights, with no warm thermal currents to ease his wings, burned up almost more energy than they were worth. In the forest, he knew, the magical folk were almost all in their various forms of hibernation; even the leshiye, those tricky, shape-shifting forest lords, slept.

But we foolish humans stay awake. With far too much time in which to think.

And, as it had so many times already in the nearly six months since the incident, his mind wandered back to the still-unsolved puzzle of Erema's mad attack and Ljuba's so fortuitously timed rescue.

Finist gave a sigh of frustration. Once he'd recovered from the strain of his ill-starred attempt into necromancy—and what a damnably foolish thing that had been! — he'd gone in search of the boyar's knife. But there'd been no trace of it. And his appeals to courtiers and servants alike had met only with blank, innocent stares. Anyone in the palace could have picked up the blade, or simply thrown it away!

Nor had he any more success in tracking down any plot behind Erema's attack. There hadn't been, thank Heaven, any secret, slowly fermenting revolution brewing. No, it really was beginning to look more and more as though the young boyar had been acting on his own insane behalf. Unless Ljuba… Dammit, he knew—no matter how illogically—that Ljuba had something to do with it. Yet there wasn't any proof, there never had been, not the slightest shred, magical or mundane. And lately his lovely cousin had been living as innocently and quietly as a little nun (hardly a nun, thought Finist, not Ljuba!), being as remotely polite to him at the Yule celebrations as though there'd never been that feverish night, those heavy-scented candles…

She, it would seem, had taken his warning to heart.

And he? Try to ignore it as he would, he kept recalling that frantic I love you! And for all and all, as the winter dragged on, he was beginning to find his magician's will sorely tested. What if he visited her just once more, without the candle-spell or any other enchantments this time, just to see what would happen if…

The very thought of it stifled him. God, had he come to this, lusting for a woman he neither liked nor trusted? All at once the walls of the Golden Chamber were too close about him. Finist thrust his head out of the window, gulping in lungfuls of air so clean and cold it ached. It wasn't enough. Recklessly he tore off his regal robes, letting them fall unheeded. Falcon once more, Finist took flight, trying to outrace his thoughts.

Oh, God, would this winter never end?

Deep in the forest, it grew colder still, and terrifyingly bleak. In the farmhouse, the exiles lived in growing fear of death by freezing or starvation. The latter seemed increasingly more likely. Their careful hoard of food had run alarmingly low. But there was no larder to raid, nothing to do but cut their rations and move as little as possible to conserve their strength. Faces grew gaunt and tempers short, and Maria began to wonder if a quick death at the hands of Svyatoslav's executioner might not have been more merciful after all…

And then one morning she woke to an unfamiliar, regular sound. For a time she lay still, trying to puzzle it out, then at last threw a blanket over the clothes in which she'd been sleeping for warmth, and struggled to pull open the complaining door. A blast of cold air staggered her—but it no longer had that bitter bite to it. The farm was bright with sunlight. And the sound she'd heard—

Was the steady drip of melting icicles.

«Spring," breathed Maria. «Oh, dear God… Father, Lissa, come, hurry! It's spring!»