On a cold day, in 1920, Captain Nicholas Vanshwa arrives at an asylum in Berlin.

Nurses swished down the hall in white dresses, leading him into a back room.

It's clean, cold, and more ways than one.

The nurse's whisper amongst themselves.

This captain was the personal guard of the Dowager Empress of Russia.

The mother of the murdered star Nicholas Romanov.

And he's here?

The asylum is far from any place nobility or royalty, or even the upper middle class would

ever visit.

And yet here they are, escorting the captain to the room of this strange girl, the one

who never says a word.

The Y is above their pay grade, so on they go into the asylum's parlor.

On the couch sits an emaciated, dark-haired young woman in her late teens.

The captain and his aides take turns walking around her, staring, can it be?

The hair seems right, the age too, height, close enough, facial features, maybe.

But who can tell on a girl who's been through this much trauma?

The captain tries to engage, offering some tea as one of the aides shuffle forward with

a try.

No response.

He tries again, speaking of his employer, the Empress, and the rest of the royal family

back in St. Petersburg, well now called Petrograd, but they can still call it by its original name.

Silence once again, but also something different, subtle, caught only by the trained captain.

...