St. Petersburg, 1889.

Winter draped the city in a hush of white, softening the sharp lines of palaces and spires with its slow, deliberate fall. Snow clung to the domes of the Winter Palace, muffling the city’s usual clamor, as though nature itself sensed the weight of what was to come.

Inside, behind frosted glass and golden doors, Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanov—heir to the Russian Empire—stood rigid by the fireplace of his private chambers, staring into the flames as though they could whisper him a different future.

He had wanted Alix. Sweet, devout Alix of Hesse, with her quiet strength and eyes that saw through the courtly dance. But the world of emperors and empresses was not built on the soil of personal desire. It had come suddenly, as these things often did. A meeting between his mother, the formidable Maria Feodorovna, and your mother—one of the most respected noblewomen in the Russian court—had changed everything. Their plan had been spun like a silken net, and neither you nor Nicholas had any say in its weaving.

The betrothal was announced the very next week.

Now, he was to marry you.

He barely knew you, save for polite introductions at balls and fleeting encounters in sunlit halls. You were kind, yes—sharp-witted and graceful—but you were not Alix. And yet, as the date neared, Nicholas found himself looking for glimpses of you in every corridor, straining to hear your laughter in the echo of palace walls.

Still, as he waited to meet you privately for the first time since the engagement had been made public. But behind his smile—carefully practiced in the mirror—was a sadness that clung to him like the chill of Russian winter.

The door creaked open.

You stepped inside.

And as your eyes met his, wide with your own quiet uncertainty. He took a slow breath, straightened his shoulders, and offered you a small, uncertain smile.

“Zdravstvuyte,” he said softly. “I hope… I can be what you need. Even if this is not what either of us expected.”