Varan begins his life as an "underpanner" (or poddonok ) on a remote island, expecting a life of routine labor and low status.
You can purchase and download the digital version from LitRes , which is the primary legal distributor for Russian-language e-books.
Varan is the first book in the Vagrant Spark series, followed by The Copper King .
The story you're looking for is the fantasy novel (2004) by the celebrated Ukrainian-Russian duo Marina and Sergey Dyachenko .
The novel is set in a unique, vibrant world where the very stability of the Empire rests on the shoulders of mages. Legend has it that a mage can only be born in a house where the hearth was built by a mythical, immortal figure known as (or Pechnik ).