Let us delve into hell.

How far down do you suppose we'll have to go?

To the very roots, to the very bottom, where all the shadows lie.

Dive deep with me, my darling.

"Tsesarevich."

"Good morning, Ksyusha." The crown prince was night-ruffled and bare-chested, one arm resting on the tousled blankets just vacated by the prima ballerina of the Legat Company, eyes half-lidded with sleep and drunkenness. "Cold night, was it?"

"As usual, Tsesarevich," Ksenija replied. "No colder." Her collar was dusted with snow, her boots tough with frost, her dark hair laced with melting flakes.

"Breakfast..."

"On its way with one of the footmen, Your Imperial Highness."

"And Miss Vaganova..."

"Shown to the gate around dawn this morning, Your Imperial Highness."

"Ksenija Vladimirovna," the prince said. "You are the finest bodyguard I have ever had the pleasure to employ."

She had to chuckle at that, just under her breath. "You must have a poor taste in bodyguards, Your Imperial Highness."

He turned his head to glance at the mahogany and gold half-grandfather clock which hung on the wall beside his bed, tick-tocking the time away, and said, "Eight o'clock. May I enquire..."

"Zagreus is here, Your Imperial Majesty."

He sat up abruptly, all traces of hedonism and sloth vanished in an was like polished silver, sharpened steel, in that manner. You didn't quite notice how keen he was until it was tested against the flesh.

"Here? Now?"

"Waiting outside. She says that prefers not to enter the tsar's territory."

"Then she ought not have entered the kingdom," the crown prince murmured, before nodding. "I thank you, Ksenija Vladimirovna. I suppose we should hasten."

"We should," the bodyguard agreed. "Hasten, I should say."

He grinned, all sharp canines and laugh lines around the edges of his dark eyes, and rolled from bed as Kseniya turned aside to gaze at the red and green onion domes which studded the skyline to the east of the winter palace, light glittering off the frost and snow that illustrated the windows and paths. She could see smoke rising from some of the grey apartment blocks which had slowly risen to obscure the horizon like a developing mould, and wondered who was cooking breakfast and what they would eat, whether the children had left for school yet and what time the parents would be home from work to hug and kiss them again. Ksenija often wondered about these things - too often for her own good, she thought. It didn't do to try and inhabit the bones of others before they were even dead.

When she turned back, the crown prince was adjusting his cuffs as though pondering cufflinks and eyeing his hair in the mirror.

"Do you think," he began, and caught sight of Ksenija's shaking head before he could finish.

"The vědma deals with corpses and corses the day long, Tsesarevich. You'll look radiant in comparison."

"Radiant," he said, with quirked lips. "I don't dislike it."

"Are you ready, Your Imperial Highness?"

"Near enough, Ksenija Vladimirovna, near enough."

She opened the door and he, after a pause, moved through it. The corridors were empty, as they usually were; the halls were wide and bright with pale wan light from the early morning streaming through the artisan dyed windows. Ksenija moved a few steps behind him at all times, her eyes scanning the empty space almost as a matter of habit rather than strategy, her gaze dropping down to watch the slightly out-of-rhythm pace of the crown prince's movement. He moved quickly despite the childhood limp, and soon they were moving down the Stasov staircase the crown prince lightly touching his fingertips against the gilt bronze handrails and tracing his path down the steps as Ksenija avoided the empty alabaster eyes of the statues which lined the foyer they crossed with the haste of a pair emerging from hell with the devil himself dogging their doorsteps.

Zagreus was waiting by the edge of the palace grounds, at the very edge of the graves that belonged to all the tsars and tsarinas who had come before and fallen to the cold stiletto of death. She was small and blonde, hollow-cheeked and full-lipped, a wisp of a girl, a ghost inhabiting an empty skeleton.

"Good morning, Your Imperial Highness," Zagreus said. Her voice was soft, very soft, too soft. "I am sorry to intrude."

"Worry not, vědma." The crown prince did not smile. "You are never an intrusion."

Zagreus turned her pale gaze to the bodyguard. "Comrade."

"Citizen," Ksenija replied in a drawl.

"What news?" the crown prince interrupts, his tone strict, harsh despite the musical lilt of his voice. He is keen, Ksenija can tell - eager for information from the other world.

"Your brother grows hungry," Zagreus replied. "That much you will know. His Imperial Highness has not spoken of it, but I know the thought of the Selection occurs to him."

The prince's expression did not change - only one who knew him as well as Ksenija did would detect the flicker in his pupil, the slight movement of his weaker leg, the angle at which he set his head as he considered the blonde girl.

"There must be balance," Zagreus said simply. "Now..."

"And Anastasia?"

"I have not found her," she said. "I have not found her yet. More time, your Imperial Highness, please. More time."

"Don't allow me to rush you," the crown prince said. He stood within the palace threshold, Zagreus without, and Ksenija watched them closely to ensure the vědma did not grab him or attempt to pull him over the line in the snow where the guards had paced their march in the night. "And give my brother my best wishes. Tell him I shall... endeavour to begin the Selection."

Zagreus nodded. She put her hands into the pockets of her hoody, looking cold enough that Ksenija supposed she rather regretted wearing jeans with threadbare holes in the knees and a t-shirt which showed her collarbones and sternum, the hard lines of the skeleton visible through her pallid skin. "Thank you, your Imperial Highness."

"You must be tired," the crown prince said. "After your long journey. We will speak of this later."

The witch-girl did not move away, but turned her attention back to the graves of the prince's parents as Ksenija guided her charge away from the high walls of the palace. "Do you know what I am thinking, Ksyusha?"

"That your brother prefers brunettes?"

That caught him by surprise; his dark eyes flashed with humour. "Nyet. If he is truly thinking of the Selection, then he has resigned himself to his realm. Perhaps we shall avoid war after all."

"Perhaps," Ksenija agreed. "Perhaps."

She did not tend to be the optimistic sort. Viktor was not his rogueish, good-natured brother. The Tsar of Death was as unpredictable and hostile as the Tsar of Life was charming and magnanimous.

"Well," Gavril said. They reached the top of the steps and turned to look back at the smoky edge of the city. "Hope springs eternal."

The Russian Tsardom stretches its grip from as far west as Berlin, as far east as the border of China, north to the vast expanses of the taiga, and south to Turkey. It has, for many years, retreated from the world in which New Asia, Swendway and Illea deal disaster and destruction, operating an isolationist policy which rendered them a hermit kingdom while they dealt with the burgeoning civil war within their own borders.

But the Winter War is not a conflict between religions, between races, between political ideologies, but between life and death itself. For as long as the Tsardom has stood, there have been two Tsars - Tsar of Life and Tsar of Death, siblings, one granted dominion over the living of Russia and one relegated to the underworld to rule their dead.

Historically, the Tsar of Death has always chosen a wife from among the living, typically after a Selection co-ordinated by his brother to find the best candidate, while the Tsar of Life is free to find his own queen as he pleases - although often after getting to know the girls of the Selection, he finds love amongst them.

Also, amongst the population,there are some known as vědma, witches, who possess a link to the underworld and through that can channel magic. For example, Zagreus, seen in this chapter, is a vědma ofbone who can communicate with the dead through rituals. This magic is thought of as superstition outside of Russia, but acknowleged in the Tsardom as real. Some are powerful, some less so, and the most useful are employed by the palace.

Please PM this form to me to submit your character! The only guidelines are these: the more detail, the better, and if you review then your character shall be looked upon far more favourably!

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