“…The stench of blood’s thick,” Sergei Dukhovsky remarked.
“The capital’s vibe feels way off from what I knew,” his aide, Felix, replied.
“I figured it’d changed some, per Beren’s letters, but this is more than I expected,” Sergei said.
“Something’s up,” Felix agreed.
Trials are now so common they’re plastered across street newsstands daily.
Sergei, the outgoing governor, had heard of the Tsar’s purges in the five reform provinces and the capital, but arriving here, he realized that wasn’t the whole story.
Shops buzzed more than years ago, streets teemed with people, and the city hummed into the late evening.
But the blood-scent tickling his nose wasn’t from common folk.
It was the blood of the powerful.
A terror that spared no rank or class.
That was the capital’s true atmosphere, Sergei sensed.
Proof? Nobles and Duma members were nowhere to be seen, despite roaming all day.
“Congressman Volkov said…
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