Duke Donskoy spoke to his servant Ivan: “In wintertime the rare Almaz birds come to roost in our land. Their stay here is fleeting, only for a few days do they rest before departing to remoter regions. Since this is the first solstice festival that I will preside over, an Almaz shall sing its song for us.”
Ivan replied: “Ah sir, those birds are strong, nimble, and alert to everything around them. To capture one is an impossibility. Men of your father’s and grandfather’s courts tried and failed to achieve such a task.”
The day that Sergei became a soldier, Ivan felt the same fierce foreboding that he’d felt the year before when he watched his brother hurtling towards what looked like certain death.
Ivan remembered a snowstorm so heavy and ferocious that all that could be seen was a blinding sheet of white. During the whiteout the two boys spent time in the basement of their building cobbling together a few pieces of old wood to make a rickety toboggan. When they could finally go out, they’d carried it along a path flanked by piles of gleaming snow to a slope nearby. Ivan rode first, screaming with laughter at the freezing air slapping his cheeks as he careered downwards. Sergei did the second run, but the flimsy cart shattered halfway. Ivan watched as his brother was tossed in the air and catapulted to the bottom. Fear driving him, he ploughed frantically through waist high drifts to get to Sergei. By the time he got there Sergei was already standing up and brushing snow from his clothing. He shrugged away Ivan’s concern. ‘Nothing has happened. Wait before fearing the worst.’
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