The grand chandeliers of Zimorodok Hall shimmered like ice under firelight. A gilded relic of old Russia, the ballroom pulsed with life for the first time in years. War had drained the nation's color, but tonight, victory painted it back in bold strokes-red uniforms, gold medals, and wine as dark as blood.
The orchestra's notes crackled from a worn gramophone, blending into the hum of laughter and clinking glasses. Soldiers and commanders spun their lovers across the polished marble floor, their boots moving over a history built on emperors and ashes. Some sat quietly along the edges, nursing drinks, lost in memories too grim for words.
Tonight, they celebrated the unthinkable: the British retreat. After a brutal clash at the western border, Russia had held its ground. British bodies lined the snow-covered trenches. What was left of their army had pulled back, defeated-at least for now.
Through the crowd moved a man none dared approach.
Commander Ilya Vostrikov.
Barely twenty-five, yet he wore the war like a second skin. His sharp jaw was lit faintly by the ember of the cigar he rolled between his fingers. The tailored lines of his uniform clung to his muscular frame, medals catching the light with every step. Blonde hair was combed neatly back, revealing a face too young for such command, but too hardened for youth.
His eyes-icy blue, unblinking-swept over the crowd with quiet judgment. They said those eyes had stared down death more times than a man twice his age. They said he didn't flinch when blood spilled-friend or foe.
They also said he hadn't smiled in months.
As Ilya passed, conversations died mid-sentence. Some stood straighter. Others looked away. His reputation walked ahead of him like a ghost.
He stopped near a wide archway, the distant sound of laughter echoing behind him. He took a long draw from the cigar and exhaled slowly. Smoke curled toward the ceiling, delicate and ominous.
Behind the music, behind the celebration, something else lingered. A silence beneath the joy. A tension in the air.
Something was coming.
And Ilya, for reasons he couldn't name, felt it in his bones.
Would you like to continue to the next scene-perhaps where the first signs of the virus begin to unfold?
Ilya turned his head slightly, his gaze shifting without urgency. The man who had stopped beside him stood with a crooked grin, a glass of vodka in one hand and a fresh scar cutting through his left eyebrow.
Colonel Mikhail Arsenyev-older, louder, and one of the few men alive who dared to interrupt Ilya's silence.
"Alone again, Commander?" Mikhail teased, lifting his glass in mock salute. His voice was deep, roughened by years of shouting over gunfire. "At a night like this, you should have a girl on your arm. Or at least a drink in your hand, not that cursed cigar."
Ilya didn't answer.
He took another slow drag instead, the orange tip briefly illuminating his sculpted cheekbones and unreadable expression. Smoke unfurled past his lips like a ghost refusing to be caught.
Mikhail chuckled and leaned one shoulder against the pillar beside him, watching the dancers whirl by.
"Come on, Ilya. Even stone men need warmth now and then. You've earned it. We both have. You know how many Brits we buried for this toast?"
Still, Ilya remained quiet. His eyes followed a couple dancing near the center of the room, the soldier clinging to his wife as if she'd vanish. Another man kissed a woman's hand, trying to laugh despite the tremble in his jaw. Trauma lingered in every glance, in every step that pretended joy.
Mikhail exhaled and shook his head.
"One day, you'll talk. Or fall in love. Maybe both. I'd pay to see which comes first." He nudged Ilya with his elbow, grinning. "And I'll be there, old and gray, telling everyone I saw the ice king melt."
Ilya finally looked at him. Not with amusement. Not with irritation. Just that same impenetrable stillness-the kind carved by war and something older, colder.
"You won't live that long," Ilya said flatly.
Mikhail laughed, throwing back his drink in a single motion. "Ah! There it is. A whole sentence. My night is made."
He set the glass down on the railing and leaned forward, watching the dancing fade into the slow, wistful rhythm of a violin.
"But really," he said, quieter now, "you feel it, don't you?"
Ilya said nothing, but his jaw tensed slightly.
Mikhail went on, "Everyone's celebrating, but something's wrong. Like the air's too still. Like the war ended too early. I've been through three campaigns, and this... this feels off."
Ilya glanced down at the curling smoke in his hand. The scent of gunpowder still lingered on his uniform despite the washings. The silence behind the music, the hollow cheer-it gnawed at him too.
"I know," Ilya muttered finally.
Mikhail's smile faded.
Then, somewhere deeper in the hall, a scream rang out. A high, wet, unnatural sound that cut through the music like shattered glass.
Both men turned toward it, instinctively reaching for their sidearms.
The scream echoed once more through Zimorodok Hall-then abruptly cut off.
But no panic followed. No rush. No movement. The music stumbled, then continued. A woman laughed too loud. A glass shattered somewhere in the back.
False alarms were common these days.
Still, Ilya's senses remained sharp, his hand brushing near the grip of his sidearm. He scanned the crowd from his post near the archway, calm but alert. Then he saw him.
Across the ballroom, just beyond the swirl of dancers and polished brass, a man stood still among his comrades. He was young-close to Ilya's age-with dark, disheveled hair and a British-cut jaw that didn't belong in this hall.
His eyes were locked on Ilya.
Piercing. Intense. There was no mistaking it-this wasn't a casual glance. It was hunger. Not desperation. Not lust. Something more deliberate. As if he saw something in Ilya and decided, without hesitation, he wanted it.
Ilya didn't flinch. Didn't look away.
The stranger rose from his chair slowly, confidently, still surrounded by his group. But his eyes never left Ilya's, even as he stepped away from the others. Every movement was precise, unapologetic. His uniform, though Russian, sat too neatly on his frame-like a borrowed skin.
Mikhail caught it immediately. He glanced between the two men, then snorted a knowing laugh.
"Well. That answers that question," he muttered under his breath, patting Ilya's shoulder as he passed. "Don't get eaten, Commander. At least not all at once."
Then he was gone, disappearing into the crowd with a grin.
Ilya stayed still as the stranger approached, steps echoing louder in Ilya's ears than the music ever could. There was something about him-something sharp beneath the surface, like a blade wrapped in silk. And though every instinct told Ilya he should turn away, demand a name, a rank, something-he didn't.
Instead, without a word, he turned on his heel and walked down the dim hallway behind the arch. The corridor led away from the music, from the revelry, from the ghost of war pretending to be peace.
And the stranger followed.
The moment the shadows wrapped around them, the man grabbed Ilya by the collar and shoved him hard against the wall. Marble met spine with a muted thud.
Then heat. Mouth on mouth.
The soldier kissed him-fiercely, hungrily, like he had been waiting all his life for this single moment. Ilya didn't resist. He met the kiss with equal force, his hand gripping the back of the man's neck, pressing him closer.
There was no hesitation. No words.
Only the taste of smoke, the sound of breath, and the undeniable truth neither of them had said out loud.
War had stolen too much already.
The soldier's room was tucked away in a quieter wing of the barracks adjoining Zimorodok Hall. It wasn't much-standard-issue bed, oil lamp, a half-empty bottle of vodka on the table-but it was private. And right now, that was enough.
Ilya stood still just inside the doorway, silent as the stranger locked it behind them.
No names. No explanations.
Just breathless silence, thick with things unsaid.
The man crossed the room in two strides, grabbed Ilya by the front of his coat, and shoved him backward. The door clicked softly shut, but the rest was anything but gentle.
Ilya hit the wall with force, his breath caught-but he didn't resist.
Rough hands tore open buttons, dragged fabric away, claimed space like it belonged to him. There was no gentleness here-only hunger, the kind born from blood and war and the fear that everything might end tomorrow.
The stranger's body was all heat and control, built like a soldier but moving like something wilder. Ilya could feel the dominance in every movement-the demand, the need to overpower, to own.
But he didn't fight it.
He let it happen.
Even as his cheeks flushed with shame.
Not for the act. Never that.
But for the way he wanted it.
For how he gave in so easily.
For letting a man he didn't even know-an unfamiliar face in a familiar uniform-take from him something he didn't offer to anyone else.
He gritted his teeth, jaw tight, blue eyes darting to the wall as he was pushed to the bed. His fingers dug into the mattress. His pride screamed in his chest. Yet not once did he pull away.
Because something in this chaos-this raw, brutal connection-made him feel alive in a way nothing else had since the war began.
Afterward, the silence was heavier.
The soldier sat back, breathing hard, chest rising and falling like a man who'd fought a storm.
Ilya turned his head to the side, still on his back, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
He didn't ask for a name.
But he knew this night would brand itself into his bones.
The soldier pulled away, his breath heavy in the dim light. Without a word, he slid off the bed, his bare skin cool against the lingering warmth of the room. Calmly, methodically, he dressed again in his uniform, the crisp fabric snapping into place like armor.
He glanced once at Ilya-naked, vulnerable, still lying on the bed-and gave nothing away. No smile, no glance of regret or tenderness. Just the cold, unreadable mask of a soldier who had done what needed to be done.
Then, with the same quiet confidence he'd arrived with, he opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, disappearing as if nothing had happened.
Ilya lay there, body aching, mind racing. His skin felt raw, his muscles limp, but his heart thundered with a storm of emotions-confusion, shame, and something darker still.
He was alone again.
And somehow, that felt worse than the war.
Ilya let out a slow, disappointed sigh, the ache in his back reminding him of the night's roughness. He shifted slightly on the edge of the unfamiliar bed-not his own-where the thin, worn blanket barely covered his lower body. The cold air kissed his exposed skin, sharp against the dull soreness.
His gaze drifted toward the window. Outside, the night sky stretched wide and indifferent, stars blinking cold and distant. It was a silence unlike the one inside his chest, where shame and confusion churned without rest.
He pulled the threadbare blanket a little higher and closed his eyes for a moment, wishing for something he couldn't name-a warmth that had nothing to do with flesh or fleeting desires.
Minutes passed, and dawn still seemed far away.
Finally, Ilya pushed himself up and dressed, the weight of his uniform grounding him like armor once more. Every button fastened, every medal straightened-an outward order imposed on inner chaos.
As he stepped back into the ballroom, the music had faded into a tense murmur. The faces around him were softer now, eyes wary beneath tired brows.
And then he saw it again-those silent eyes.
The same man from before, standing across the room, watching.
Not with hunger now, but with something else. Maybe even not interested after being used.
Their gazes locked, and for a fraction of a heartbeat, Ilya felt exposed-not by the uniform or the war, but by the secret he wished to keep buried.