Golden eyes peered through the cracked doorway, spying on the man hunched over a sea of papers. The young boy grinned and slunk through the doorway, sure that his prey wasn’t paying him the least bit of attention. Long thin fingers reached for the silver key that hung from the man’s belt, half hidden among the folds of deep green cloth. They encountered the cool metal and the boy laughed to himself, sure of his victory. He carefully slipped it off its metal latch, nimble as a thief, and slunk back among the shadows until he reached the door. Holding a hand over his mouth to contain his glee he noticed a sudden change in the feel of the object in his grasp. Frowning he glanced down at his hand where a small snake hissed and struck at him threateningly. He shrieked and dropped the creature. It struck the floor and disappeared in a wisp of smoke.

“Father!” He growled, turning to find the man peering at him from the corners of his slanted eyes.

“Shouldn’t you be in lessons, Alexei?” His father asked as he sat back in the wooden chair and leveled a stern look at him.

Alexei Tsaravich drew up his full fourteen-year-old frame and did his best court walk back into his father’s study. He drew up a chair and perched on it, slightly annoyed by the fact that he had to strain to see over the piles of papers. One day, he sworn, he would be just as tall his father and then his son would have to stare over things to meet his glare.

“I do believe that I have exhausted my tutors abilities.” He said, folding his hands in his lap and adopting his father’s polite political mask.

Ivan Tsaravich folded his hands on the book he’d been studying and leaned forward, eyeing his son. “Really.”

Alexei nodded firmly. “Yes. There is nothing more they can teach me and I believe that the kingdom would be better served if its future tsar began to learn through experience.”

“Ah.” His father said, dryly.

“All my questions are answered with words stating that I should wait until I get into the real world and then I’ll see how things really are so I think that I should just skip the tediousness of learning things that would never stand up in a real world situation and go straight to exploring. Wouldn’t you concur father?”

“Well I certainly see you’ve been attending your speech and diplomacy lessons.” His father replied dryly. “But I fear that I must override your proposal and regulate you back to book learning.”

Alexei frowned. “Shouldn’t we put this to a vote?”

His father smirked and carefully turned a page in the yellowed volume before him. “I’m the Tsar. My decision trumps any votes.”

“But what about retaliatory actions from the majority? Haven’t you told me that a tsar shouldn’t trample on the wishes of the majority because they could revolt?”

His father stood and walked around the table. “Fortunately I am prepared from such an uprising and am prepared to institute both a curfew and forced labor to quell any outspoken rabble rousers.”

The young prince slumped, glaring up at his father. “Tyrant.”

His father laughed and dragged him from the chair and towards the door. “I am tsar for a reason, little one. Now back to lessons.”

Alexei dug his heels in and went limp in his father’s grasp, peering up through his dark red hair. “But it’s May Day!” He protested, “everyone else gets today off for it!”

His father shook his head. “Fourteen year old princes spend May Day learning. When you’re twenty we’ll talk about you getting today off.”

He gave the gangly teenager a shove through the door. Alexei scowled at his father’s retreating back and stormed down the hall. A high-pitched laugh made him cringe and he glared at the sandy haired girl who peered down at him from the second floor balcony.

“I told you it wouldn’t work!”

“Shut up, Sofiya.” He growled.

Sofiya laughed at him again and bounded down the stairs towards him. He seethed as she danced around him, on her longer legs. It was unfair, he thought to himself, father was taller than him, his teachers were taller than him, even the girls were taller than him. He hated being short. And he hated having to go to lessons.

Especially when certain friends of his made sure to position themselves just outside the window where he could clearly see them frolicking about while he was stuck in a dusty old room listening to a dusty old man blab.

“Let me look at you.”

Alexei groaned and stood still for his father’s approval. His father tugged at the emerald jacket and straightened the carafe of his shirt. Alexei protested when his father tied back the long strands of his dark red hair and clipped them in place but his father shushed him. He shifted from foot to foot urging his father to hurry up.

It was an age-old dance between the two of them. Alexei suspected his father got a sick sort of pleasure at keeping a boy who would rather be out climbing trees and seeing what was just over the next bend in the road standing still so he could make him look like a “respectable prince” and not a “bundle of weeds, road dirt, and skinned knees”.

Tsar Ivan never climbed trees or tried to catch ducks by diving from the ornamental bridge into the pond, a talent Alexei had honed to a near art . . . at least until the ducks had gotten tired of being captured and learned to stay well away from the bridge.

Well, Alexei amended with a mischievous grin, not that anyone at court saw. He’d gotten his father up a few trees in an effort to get back a snitched document or the crown of state. He had to admit, his father was pretty spry for a man about to celebrate his forty fourth birthday.

“Can I go now?” He begged, stamping his foot in impatience.

His father stepped back and gave him a final look over before sending him off with a grumbled “You’ll do.”

Grinning and capturing his father for an affectionate peck on the cheek he was out the door before the black haired man could find some other ornament for him to wear. He slid around the door, making his father’s guardian jump out of the way. He smiled and waved to the large man on his way down the hall.

Ivan looked up as his guardian stormed into the room, shaking his head. He laughed softly and pulled on the long over-robe a servant had laid out for him. “Just miss the storm?” He asked.

Byely glared at him. “I’m getting too old to chase him around. Let younger men do it.”

Ivan shook his head. “Don’t worry. The smell of food will bring him running back along with half the animals in the kingdom.”

“That wolf of his scared the new gardener half to death yesterday.”

“Yala.” Ivan murmured, digging through the chest on his bed.

“Excuse me?”

“Yala. The wolf’s name is Yala.” Ivan explained.

“Ah. I didn’t realize it had a name.”

“Alexei names all of his ‘pets’. Yala, Igor the old stallion that went to pasture last fall, Karstal the falcon that broke its wing and he kept in his room until it healed this winter. Peteor the bear cub he brought back two years ago.” He frowned and began shuffling through the covers of the bed, looking for some lost object.

Byely shook his head. “The fact that you remember them all amazes me, my lord.”

Ivan shrugged. “They are important to him. A father should know what his son is up to. Especially when they’re as prone to mischief as this one.” He sighed and snapped his fingers. From down the hall came Alexei’s sharp yip of surprise and a thin golden headpiece appeared in his hand. He gave Byely a long suffering look and they both shook their heads.

“Speaking of fathers, do you want me to meet him when he arrives?” Byely asked.

Ivan shook his head. “No. We have a larger than usual turn out for this festival. More people mean a higher likelihood of trouble. I want you out in the crowd. Besides, the winds have been pretty brutal lately, he’ll probably be too tired to do much when he gets here other than cling to a branch and take a nap. I’ll meet him when the festival starts to wind down.”

Ivan adjusted his clothes with a practiced hand. "Have you cancelled all my obligations for the next few days?"

Byely bowed his head affimatively.

Ivan paused, staring off out the expanse of windows along one wall. "I want to leave tomorrow afternoon. Quietly."

"And the prince?"

Ivan smiled. "He's flexible. Tell him right before we leave."

Byely shook his head in amusement. "As you wish, my lord."

“Come on!” Alexei hissed, glaring at the hesitant girl behind him. “You want to go there don’t you?”

Sofiya sniffed. “How are we supposed to get in? You know the Tsar keeps the door locked!”

Alexei grinned and held up the silver key.

She gasped. “How did you get that? You said he caught you trying to steal it!”

He laughed. “I swiped it from him when he was shoving me out the door earlier. I distracted him with one pilfered object so he wouldn’t notice the second! Clever isn’t it?”

“He’s going to kill you!” Sofiya giggled behind her hand, following as they slunk through the deserted halls of the palace.

A pointed face peered around a blind turn in the hall and nodded. “Thanks, Yala.” Alexei whispered, rubbing behind the wolf cub’s pointed ears. Alexei absently wondered how much longer he would be able to call his furred friend a cub. Yala was already larger than any of the other dogs in the palace and showed no signs of stopping her growth.

They didn’t see a soul as they flittered from shadow to shadow. Alexei took a certain amount of pride in the fact that he still managed to sneak along even in his brightly colored clothes. It had taken a bit of doing to get away from his father’s dais and the visiting boyars that tried to draw him into conversation but after he had presented his father with his birthday present it hadn’t been that hard to sneak away.

He shuddered. He hated the way the boyars looked at him, as though he were a troublesome colt that they were trying to figure out how best to break to their hand. He didn’t know why they ever paid attention to him at all. His father was in perfect health and his mind was still the sharpest in the kingdom. For all of his teasing words Alexei knew that it would be years upon years before he was given the throne. Indeed he was privately glad for it. He knew that he would do his best to mimic his father’s rule but he also knew that he would probably never be as clever as his father.

Sofiya had asked him once what he planned on doing for the rest of his life and he had thought long and hard on it. His father’s reign would probably see out another twenty years and to a fourteen year old boy that was forever. So what would he do for the rest of his life? His father had provided him with the perfect answer.

The tsar disliked traveling. He disliked anything that took him away from his collection of old books and his meticulously clean “work room”. If it was at all possible his father sent a representative out to take care of far ranging problems and Alexei had managed to get permission to go on a few of those trips.

On all those previous trips he had only listened to what was going on with half an ear, preferring instead to disappear the instant his feet touched the ground and find every nook, cranny, and hidden place in the wondrous new world he had been invited to. But on his last trip Sofiya’s question had rung through his head and he had dutifully shadowed his father’s advisor, listening to the exchanges and watching the proceedings. To his surprise he discovered he still had time to explore even though there was serious work afoot.

On their return he had dragged Sofiya to his father’s chambers and forced her to sit for dinner, though she protested the entire way that a merchant’s daughter shouldn’t be eating from the same table as the Tsar and that her father would positively kill her if he found out. Alexei had scoffed at her and told her to stop being silly. He would never, in his entire life, understand why people were always acting like that around his father.

Over dinner he had expressed his choice on what he wished to do for the rest of his life. He graciously agreed to let his father keep his throne, an announcement that had earned him a dry word of gratitude pared with an amused glance, and he would travel around dispensing justice, though he was still a little unclear on how telling farmers what to plant this year was dispensing justice.

His father had thought it over for a few minutes before giving him a half impressed look and the words “we shall see”. Words that translated to a definite affirmative in Alexei’s mind. After all, how could they see if he didn’t do it?

They reached the lone wooden door without any trouble and the two humans stood back while the wolf sniffed around the door. “Its not magicked!” The wolf replied, looking up at the prince with wide grey eyes.

“Not magicked? But its always magicked. Father never leaves undone.” Alexei frowned at his companion who shrugged. He reached out and hesitantly touched the door. Nothing happened. Frowning in suspicion he fit the key to the lock and jumped back but all that occurred was the door swinging open, giving them a view of the moonlit orchard.

Glancing at each other they followed the bushy tailed wolf into the orchard. Sofiya closed the door behind them and they slunk through the trees. The pale white blossoms perfumed the night air and soon they were running amongst the grey trees.

Alexei grunted as Sofiya jumped on him, driving him to the grass. He grinned and rolled over on top of her before he got to his feet and tried to escape. A small hand caught his ankle and he got a chance to use the curse he’d over heard his father use when he’d accidentally tipped over a bottle of ink onto the documents he was signing.

“Language, young prince! Hasn’t your father taught you that a prince should be well spoken at all times? After all, you never know who might be listening.”

Alexei’s head flew up and he struggled to his feet in surprise. A large form draped in red lounged in the tree branches above him and he collapsed back down, trying to still his rapidly beating heart.

“Uncle! You scared me!”

A satisfied smile crossed his uncle’s face as he peered down at them with knowing gold eyes. “And what are you doing out here, hmm? Shouldn’t you be out celebrating your father’s birthday?”

Alexei winced, caught. His mind ran circles for a few seconds before providing him with a perfectly good excuse. “We . . . we were looking for you! You always come visit around May Day and I,” he received a sharp elbow from the girl behind him, “. . . err. . . we thought that we’d come see if you were here. Why aren’t you at father’s celebration?” He asked suspiciously.

His uncle laughed and jumped down from the cradling branches, brushing the bits of bark and petals from his long flowing clothes. “I just got here and, unlike young princes, I can exercise my right to enjoy a quiet night away from the public eye.”

Alexei caught his uncle in a hug. “Welcome back. Have you seen mother?”

His uncle smiled softly. “Yes. She sends her love . . . and this.” He fished out a square of cloth that Alexei eagerly took from him. Sofiya peered over his shoulder as he spread it out and they both gasped at the landscape his mother had embroidered for him.

“Thank you.” He whispered, carefully folding it back up. Every year his mother sent him a new cloth and every year he looked forward to adding a new piece to his collection. Once she had sent him an entire cloak. His father had had it framed for him and hung on the wall. His father never asked where the presents came from and he never told.

When he had been six his mother had fled the kingdom with a shepherd who had captured her heart. His father had brought him to the palace to live and been forced to declare his mother a traitor to the kingdom. At the time he hadn’t understood and he’d been terribly angry with his father. When he was older his father had taken him aside and explained why his mother had had to leave and why his uncle only came to visit during the summer. Unlike his uncle, who visited every year, he had never seen his mother again. The only contact he had with her anymore was through his uncle, who was his mother’s brother.

It was his uncle that he took after, in both looks and temperament, if his father was to be believed about that last trait. They both had bright red hair and golden eyes, though Alexei’s hair was darker. He was shorter and much thinner than his uncle but he hoped that one day he would obtain his uncle’s form. There was also a second aspect he wished with all his might that he could emulate from his uncle.

His uncle Trey and his mother were firebirds.

It was a secret that his father had made him swear up and down that he would take to his grave. It was why his uncle could only visit during the summer months. Alexei longed to be one as well. He’d seen his uncle dance on the winds and he’d held those heavy yet fragile wings while his father had explained to him how a bird’s wings were formed and the proper way to bind it when he’d found a falcon with a broken wing. He’d run his fingers through the warm feathers and he’d spent countless hours wondering what it was like to soar in the sky.

He’d asked his father once if he’d even be able to change his form and his father had regretfully explained that it was not likely. But he had inherited a few things from his mother. Things that, like his uncle’s nature, he had sworn to keep secret. He’d always been able to speak with animals and two years ago he had begun to be able to sense magic. He could even control fire if he concentrated hard enough. His father, who was always burying his nose in some new book of spells or magic theory, had taught him how to use his powers with the stern warning that if he ever set fire to the palace he’d be sent off to marry one of Tsar Afron’s daughters.

He’d been exceedingly cautious with his magic after that warning.

“And Sofiya, aren’t you supposed to be keeping this rascal out of trouble?”

Sofiya curtsied with a smile. “Who is a merchant’s daughter to argue with the Tsar’s son?” She asked sweetly.

“Someone who would win the Tsar’s undying gratitude if you managed to keep his son out of trouble for even a minute.”

Alexei flushed. “Uncle.” He hissed, elbowing him.

His uncle laughed and drew him into a tight hug that had him gasping for breath.

“And what is going on in here?”

Alexei froze, peering under his uncle’s arm to the tall black haired man that was stalking towards him. He laughed weakly and tried to flee as soon as his uncle released him but a quick hand caught the back of his jacket and dragged him back to meet his father’s exasperated glare.

“Umm . . . happy birthday?” He tried.

His father only glared at him with sharp emerald eyes.

“I swear, that son of yours is going to put me in an early grave!”

Trey's laugh turned to a groan as Ivan pressed firmly on his back, working tight knots out of the muscle. “Oh, so now he’s my son?”

A snort sounded from above him. “Well he certainly didn’t get it from me. I never stole from my father.”

“No,” Trey admitted as Ivan rubbed lower, “but you did steal from every other Tsar in the area. How did it go? Princess, horse, me?”

Ivan grumbled under his breath and Trey laughed. “Face it, love. He’s your son.”

“Hush, slave.” Ivan growled, pressing firmly on a particularly sore spot.

Trey groaned as Ivan’s agile fingers manipulated the area, leaving him a pile of limp flesh. Ivan bent to nip at the exposed neck and Trey grinned. “What else would you like for me to do with mouth then, master?” He asked mischievously.

Ivan murmured happily and Trey rolled onto his back, capturing the pale face in his hands. “Shall I give you the standard options?” Trey offered.

Ivan smiled. “Please do.”

“Father!”

Ivan growled and glared at the locked door where a small fist was busily pounding away at it. Trey laughed softly and climbed off the side of the bed. Ivan snatched his robe from where he’d flung it earlier and stormed towards the door. He glanced back to where the red haired man was lounging in a chair, a closed robe arranged carefully over his lab. Sure that his son would find nothing out of the ordinary he flung the door open and glared down at the smiling young boy.

“Yes?” He asked.

Alexei gave him a radiant smile and slipped under his arm. “Will you tell me where you’ve been? Please?” He asked, batting wide golden eyes at his uncle.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Trey asked, smiling over the son’s head to the frustrated father.

Alexei sniffed and waved the thought away in a gesture that was so similar to his father’s Trey could barely contain his laughter. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not a child anymore, I can go to bed whenever I like.”

Ivan cleared his throat loudly and Alexei winced slightly. “Umm . . . it’s a special case?” He tried again, peering over his shoulder.

Ivan stalked over and snatched his son, shoving him through the open door. “Tomorrow.” He growled.

Trey laughed as father and son tried to stare each other down. Finally Alexei gave up and fell limp in Ivan’s arms, making the older man grunt as he tried to shove the dead weight out the door. He finally managed and Alexei stomped through the common rooms and into his own bedroom. Ivan watched him go until he heard the door to his son’s room slam shut. He closed and locked the door to their room and turned slowly on his laughing slave.

“And what are you laughing at?” He asked, stalking towards the man.

Trey forced his mirth down and tried to appear contrite. “Nothing?”

Ivan knelt over him and Trey felt his body tighten as it registered the predatory look in those emerald eyes. “This is all your fault you know.” Ivan whispered against his lips.

“Mine?”

“Mmm. Yes,” Ivan’s face dipped lower and Trey shuddered as a hot mouth closed about his shoulder, “I have nine months of frustration built up and I insist you make amends for it, slave.”

Hands slipped under his robe as Ivan sat fully on his lap. Trey’s head fell back as Ivan’s traced the collar around his neck. “Yes . . . master.” He breathed.

A sinister laugh rippled across his skin and he realized that he wasn’t going to get out of that night unscathed. Closing his eyes he resigned himself to three months of Ivan’s punishment.