1939
Unknown Month
Siberia
The Soviet Union's Minister for Magic, Konstantin Ilyich Romanov, staggered across the ice field, clutching his lower abdomen.
He glanced at his watch. Through the snow-covered dial, he could vaguely make out the time: 12:03 a.m.
Under the midnight sun, the Arctic Circle was still blindingly bright at midnight, with a hazy white sun glaring in the sky.
A frigid wind of over forty degrees below zero howled through the air, and the snowy mist was so dense that he could see absolutely nothing.
He stepped on a patch of ice and stumbled. The Minister for Magic, clad in a fur coat, collapsed onto the ice field, hissing in pain as thick white vapor poured from his mouth.
He suddenly turned back in terror, as though an invisible ghost were tracking him. But there was nothing behind him except wind and snow.
He looked ahead again.
Across the vast, freezing ice field stood only a strange building in the distance, shaped like a sunken ship. It stood alone, isolated from the world.
Konstantin Ilyich Romanov was a towering man nearly two meters tall. He wore a thick bearskin coat, his broad face deathly pale. Of his precious calfskin boots, only one remained after the long run.
Only two of the five toes on his right foot remained, frozen beyond saving.
But none of that mattered. What truly tormented him—what would kill him—was the wound in his lower abdomen.
He barely moved his hand aside. Blood seeped through his fingers, freezing into crimson crystals before it could hit the ground. There was a huge gash there, through which his writhing organs could be seen.
He did not have much time left.
Thinking of the grave responsibility he bore, Konstantin struggled up from the snow and desperately trudged