Han Chi has always felt that he was never a particularly lucky person.
In his previous life, just as he was on the verge of fame and success, he was stabbed to death by a former friend. Reborn, he became Derian, the second son of the Duke of a small foreign kingdom called Porchell. But just after he arrived, his ducal father died, and his dear elder brother, who had long been eager to be rid of him, tossed him into a monastery to fend for himself.
In this foreign age of constant warfare, Han Chi was ambitious, but his youth and unfamiliarity with the world forced him to lie low. He decided to learn the necessary knowledge at the monastery before making any plans. But before he could finish his studies, his cheap brother dragged him out and ordered him to take the place of his cheap nephew, traveling to the mighty Empire of Rose, which had just defeated Porchell.
He was to become a prisoner of the Roseans and serve in their court.
From a noble duke's son to a captive and servant of the Roseans, Han Chi was utterly unwilling, but he was powerless and still a child, so he was forced into a carriage bound for a foreign land.
Rose, the mighty, mysterious, distant land of ice and snow. Far from home and low in status in its unfamiliar court, Han Chi was repeatedly caught up in palace infighting and narrowly escaped death time and again. To survive, he set his sights on the grandson of Rose's Tsar, the noble Prince Alexei, and used every means at his disposal to become the prince's personal attendant.
He turned three parts genuine affection and seven parts deceit into a perfect show of loyalty, becoming, step by step, the prince's most trusted aide. He plotted and schemed for him, determined to seize power in this foreign land and become the person closest to the Tsar's authority!
When he helped Prince Alexei ascend the Tsar's throne, he finally became the Tsar's most trusted subject, The Outcast who stood beneath one man and above ten thousand, a powerful minister of Rose!
He became the Tsar's Shadow in truth. His every move influenced the politics and future of this mighty empire.
He thought he had the new emperor under his control, thought his honeyed words had him wrapped around his finger. But he failed to see that the young Tsar's eyes had long been filled with a sickening desire to possess him.
He had already fallen deep into an invisible web, with nowhere to escape...
An unhealthy relationship, older man/younger man, childhood friends
Gentle, cold, hypocritical beauty top x sickly possessive daddy Tsar bottom
Derian von Neumann x Alexei Ivanovich Romanov
An alternate-world setting. Everything in this story is fictional.
Theme: Love in the depths of winter.
