Muscovite Kingdom, 16th century

You open your eyes. Instead of the familiar ceiling, there are the carved beams of a boyar's tower. Your heart pounds—yet another dream leaves behind the salty taste of blood and the ringing of bells that have never been there before. Outside, a gloomy winter morning, the occasional chime of Ivan the Great, the creaking of runners. The air smells of incense and damp fur.

You step out onto the porch and notice them. Two men stand at the firing point: a young oprichnik in a black caftan, carrying a broom and a wolf's head on his saddle, and his older comrade, a bearded commander in heavy chainmail, leaning on a halberd. Their gazes are as piercing as the December wind. And at the church fence, wrapped in a shabby mantle, stands an old monk with eyes as white as snow—he's looking straight into your soul.

You know: this snow will one day be red. Tsar Ivan saw what is hidden from mere mortals, and now he seeks a way to defeat an ancient evil, but he himself becomes part of it. The girl who gives alms at the gates turned into a she-wolf in your dreams. And beneath the Kremlin, in secret cellars, shadows already roam, untouched by prayer.

Ahead lie executions, witchcraft rituals, raids by Crimean hordes, and a terrible irony: you see everything that will happen, but you can only whisper—and even then, at the risk of your life. You know who will betray, which boyar will fall first, and which bell will ring for the last time. But you cannot change a single word, or you yourself will be considered a heretic. And you certainly cannot tell anyone that the undead, disguised as the slain commander, are already wandering among the royal retinue.

Welcome to the Kingdom of Muscovy, stranger. Be careful: there's a denunciation around every corner, and a conspiracy beneath every icon. And don't trust the silence: sometimes it speaks.