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The Stone Flower (Lesbian Russian Romance)

The Stone Flower (Lesbian Russian Romance)

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5 Chapters
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Katya is in love with Azovka, the Malachite Maid. Katya's husband Danilo dares carve Azovka an impossible flower of stone. They witness the fall of the Romanovs and clutches of the Soviets deep in the Ural Mountains, where Azovka's Copper Men have ruled since they were first mined out of Mount Azov. But when Azovka's father, the last Copper King, turns to stone, Katya fears a similar fate awaits Azovka, and that Danilo will follow Azovka to a Hell of malachite shadow. Katya must save them all!

Chapter 1 Prologue: A Hell of Malachite Shadows

My lover and rood, Azovka, once lived in the Copper Mountain, where dead stone flowers grew with impenetrable beauty. The Mistress of Copper Mountain, Azovka Popova, was an immortal vision of hemlock tresses and jade green eyes. Once, she was my treasure, my enemy – my soul. Now, we were just green ghosts, trapped in malachite shadows.

Some said I had lost my lover the shepherd and stonemason Danilo to Azovka – some whispered that I, Katya, had pledged my own heart to the Malachite Maid. Who knew which one of us, Danilo or I, was down under the dead woods of the snow-clad Urals first, and who had followed after? We were caught below Hell in a pit of copper, carving stone like ice. Or perhaps the three of us were a casket of malachite, with our hand-painted Soviet likenesses imported to exiled nobles. My husband Danilo and I were trinkets, regaled to the dead.

Azovka had been the envy of my town, the royal daughter of the immortal Popovas, half-stone, half-flesh, who were the noble patrons of miners. The Copper Men had white flesh, red cheeks, green eyes, dark hair, and scales on their legs. Azovka was my dearest friend.

Her father had turned to stone one day when Azovka was sixteen – oft times, the Popova’s malachite bones swelled with sorrow, and the Copper Men would fade into the tsarina’s malachite walls that old Prokovitch had mined, finding deep green oxidized roots in the soil, to be dead elements far from home.

But Azovka had kissed me first, and then I had kissed Danilo. I, Katya, had always vowed to protect the three of us, ever since we were little children. I wanted to stop Azovka from becoming emotionless stone, to fade into the Slavic wilderness, and save Danilo from love’s sorrow over a Malachite Maid.

How it had all went wrong. Now, I spend my days carving copper ten leagues under, eating Yakutian diamonds, feasting on ore – and Azovka visits upon the hour to inspect my stone flower – and the pink one wet below. Azovka’s emotions – they are long gone as the copper curse takes hold. She is rock, chiseled like the Theotokos at St. Basil’s Cathedral.

I hear Danilo cry out in pangs of pleasure from her bedroom each day, and our wedded moans join as my husband and I cut ourselves with Azovka’s pickaxe, separated by a glacial sheet of galena. We are pure shadow, Danilo and I. And Azovka – she walks in between – her heart as hard as rock.

Father, a copper miner in the Ural Mountains, in our bustling town of Podentsky, oft warned me of the Ladies of Lizards. Dressed in a gown of green malachite, Azovka’s mother had been a Tartar maiden who was goddess of these peaks and wailed at stolen treasure. No girl was welcome in her halls. After all, Copper Women stole the hearts of men that plunged the depths with pickaxes for ore, and had no use for girls, or so the story goes.

But I had dared confront Azovka’s growing madness, and now, I was here. Tending stone, my bones of sorrow. Maybe, as I etch my tale on this malachite casket, I will get out of this hell, save Azovka, save Danilo, save myself, and turn this cursed stone to flowers. Prokovitch taught me as much. I want to live in spring.

Green, green copper – verdigris leaves. Father always said the Popovas were their own worst enemy. But I think, if this copper flower blooms with another year’s work, that I can breathe life into the Lady of the Urals again. I can save Podentsky from the Cheka, and kiss Danilo back from the dead.

After all, Pushkin said gold made Koschei blind. Well, patina corrupted Azovka. Green envy, clover thumbs. Ivy twines around us, but it is cold as emerald. Jade. Azovka is not the first Popova, and I will not let the line of Copper Men die. No, I will bear us a child carved of copper. Tanyushka. A girl to delight Azovka’s heart into living again, and awaken Danilo from his stony spell. No carved green thornapple is worth Danilo’s tears, and the Landlord can bite my silver chisel. I’ll chase the Cheka to Hell!

I will forge a new path, dear malachite casket I etch. I’m carving a bridal gift – to myself for the Copper Queen. And that is all I may say. For now, malachite casket, I’ll start from the beginning. Look at how you shine, my casket, showing all that was. If you are a marriage trove or my coffin, I am never sure.

It began with the fall of the Romanovs, the night we met Rasputin, and he whispered words of strangeness to Azovka and I, on the run from the Cheka. Rasputin was Koschei’s son, and he could not die – though the Soviets had tried. In a seedy bar in Podentsky, where a vodyanoy poured us drinks, Rasputin told us that Azovka would flower come twenty-first birthday, and I would turn hard as stone.

Casket, please, remember. My gold hair is turning gray; my skin is becoming soil. Malachite, verdigris’d, write this down: The Mistress of Copper Mountain lives a lie. And I will lose my daughter to stone.

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