cringed at the thought. Bogatyr Ivan was Oblya’s most famous ballet, and it was a corrupted version of one of the stories in our father’s codex, transfigured by Rodinyan influence and otherwise eroded by time. The titular Ivan had gone from steppe warrior to saint, and his bride had gone from chieftain’s daughter to tsarevna, and any number of other small changes had turned the story into something else, something that was scarcely recognizable to me. But it pleased the Oblyans, and, more important, the Rodinyans. These newcomers arrived waving the tsar’s banners, talking of things like land
...more
