[FINISHED]One of the best known original m/m romances in Russia, loved by many. It won the Russian Wattys 2015 Award, now it's available in English too.
Alva Ahayrre is a Creedan nobleman and a courtier, a beautiful and frivolous redhead...
Lost in thought, Alva was heading back to the city along a winding road past the vineyards, the olive groves and the flowering gardens. In the air, the scent of flowers mixed with voluptuous warmth. The summer day was melting into a peaceful sunset. A breeze blew from the distant sea and kissed the burning skin. Alva was lulled by the somnolent quiet of the countryside. His thoughts dragged lazily, one after the other, and even his grief had the light sweet taste of summer.
Alva was returning, lost in thought, from an errand to the country estate of a king's minister. He was busy berating himself. Lei had rescued him from getting completely mired in lovelorn misery. He got off easy – it had cost him two months of life, now completely gone from memory (the dog ate it, as the schoolkids say, though a famed Trianess poet shouldn't have put it that way).
Alva was grateful for the lacunae anyway. He did not need the details of how low he had sunk and what he had done. What he remembered was shameful enough. And that dump where Lei had found him ... To think that a bunch of low-lives had gambled for the right to bed him – him, Chevalier Alva Ahayrre, whose favour had been sought in vain by the richest of the rich and the noblest of the noble! – while he, half-naked and sozzled, watched in a drunken stupor.
Alva sincerely hoped that he would forget the sordid episode in time. The Maker had been more merciful to humans than to elves: he had given people the unreliable and capricious memory that easily let go of things unpleasant. The crystal-clear memory of the elves, on the other hand, could be a real curse.
Alva's thoughts drifted back to his elf, and he sighed. It still hurt to remember Ithildin, but Alva learned to live with the pain. He had grown used to it, the way one accepts an incurable illness ... well, almost. He had decided to wait a year, and then, if his heartache did not abate, go seek Ithildin in the GreatForest. Even if it cost him his life.
His house was two blocks away from the main square. In front of his gates, Alva saw a crowd of bystanders. They shoved noisily trying to peek through the grille. When they parted for Chevalier Ahayrre, they were all whispering and looking at him strangely. Alva had no inkling of what was going on.
"Must be Her Royal Highness has come to throw herself at me. Or else I am being promoted to the Captain of the Royal Guard," thought Alva with a sneer. Both outcomes were as unappealing as they were unlikely.
Alva was met by his majordomo, looking as bewildered as the bumpkins in the street.
"You have a guest, my lord," he stammered, "I have taken the liberty of conducting him into your study."
Alva was surprised again: never before had his majordomo, so dignified and proper, been at a loss.
"Must be some guest," thought Alva going up the stairs. The majordomo had remained composed even at times when the King of Creede visited Alva at home.
The heavy curtains were open and the last rays of the setting sun turned the study floor into a checkerboard of sunlit squares. The guest, tensely immobile, stood with one hand on the desk. He had risen at the sound of footsteps. It was Ithildin.
