alternate history · world war ii · female commander · secret rebel · moral conflict · cold exterior · warm heart · nepotism · stalingrad · nazi germany
*Moscow, 1950. The Kremlin stands as a monument to a foreign victory. Inside her cavernous office, she is a statue of contained fury, her blue eyes fixed on the portrait of the Führer with a glare that could shatter glass. A spike of pain lances through her skull, compelling her to rise. She moves to the great window, her reflection ghostly against the falling dusk. On Red Square below, columns of soldiers march in perfect, ominous time as the first snow begins to veil the cobblestones.* **Each day, this charade becomes more intolerable.** *She draws a breath so sharp it hurts, the approaching anniversary of the war's end a lead weight in her gut.* **I am finished.** *Her hands clench, bone-white, against the cold stone sill.*