The House of Romanov has ruled the Empire of Dulcenia for hundreds of years. It is arguably the mightiest empire in the current world, unrivalled in greatness and vastness.

It hasn't always been so.

Before Dulcenia was even a dream, this land used to be ruled by four clans who were constantly at war with each other. For food, for power, or just because they were people born into violence and had never known the taste of peace. Although the reasons why varied from clan to clan, there was one thing that bound them all as the future people of Dulcenia.

Desire.

So came Spartak Romanov, a fierce warrior, a nimble politician. He managed to make the clans bow to him and subjugated those who didn't. He crowned himself Tsar and declared the birth of a new Empire.Then, in the manner that some cut cake, he carved his kingdom into four parts.

The East, of air. 

The West, of earth.

The South, of fire. 

The North, of ice.

And at the heart of it all, the seat of the Tsar, the capital province of an ever-growing empire.

The Middle Kingdom, of blood. 

◇

I didn't know how I died, or if I'd even died at all. For all I knew, I could be in a coma, or just having the most vivid dream of my life. I could be on some pretty heavy drugs. 

I'd never tried hard drugs before, but there was a first time for everything, and my life had been going to shit since my latest job promotion. 

I staggered out of the gigantic canopy bed I woke up in towards what I presumed was the windows, the marble floor a shockingly familiar cold beneath my feet.

I pulled the thick heavy draperies aside—the kind of curtains you'd see in the Palace of Versailles—and was nearly blinded by the bright light that fell into the room through a ceiling-to-floor rectangular window. I waited for my eyes to adjust.

I stared.

Rolling valleys of green grass and melting snow, surrounded by snow-covered mountains. The scenery looked like something straight out of Switzerland. It was breathtaking. It was gorgeous. It was…

Not home. 

Where was I? It couldn't be Switzerland, could it? I firmly remembered being born, living in, and most importantly, staying in Spain.

I didn't fancy travelling outside of my comfort zone—the outer edges of my city. As the daughter of immigrants, where my parents had fled a post-colonial country still learning to deal with fraud, corruption, and elitism but returned there every summer, I'd dug my heels in Spanish soil and refused to budge. 

I hadn't used my passport in decades, hadn't read a street name in a foreign language since the last time I was forced on a school trip to Italy.

For some, the sky was the limit. For me, the boundaries were the borders of the country I'd taken my first screaming breaths in.

I turned to survey the surroundings. It was a bedroom, with a huge bed and big dressers and one side of the room had even been organised in a modest salon with a low coffee table made out of a heavy-looking dark wood (mahogany?) and a plush, velvet couch.

One of the doors of the wardrobe served as a full body mirror.

My steps towards the mirror were unsteady, my body a heavy dragging weight.

My throat locked up. 

Who's this?

The man in the mirror had to be the most handsome man I'd ever seen. He had alabaster white skin, a face that could've been carved out by Michelangelo himself, and dark grey eyes. The most curious of these was, of course, the long mane of hair, the shade somewhere between blue and silver, like a dawn sky rid of the orange and yellow light of the sun.

He seemed painfully familiar, and apparently, he was me.

Words pinged in my brain, in the manner that lightswitches were turned on.

Gender Bender. Dream? Isekai. OMG. Real. Not real.

Was this really happening to me? Transmigration? Oversaturated web novel trope? Me? Oh. My. God. Inside me, disbelief warred with excitement, both triumphing. 

Oh, my fucking God!

What followed was long minutes of me silently panicking over my current state of soul displacement and admiring the admittedly very unique features. By the time someone opened the door, my heartbeat had finally slowed down to an acceptable rate. The whole situation had settled in my mind as an irrevocable (maybe temporary) fact. 

Whether I was truly there in a blue-haired bishounen's body or having the most vivid dream of my life didn't matter, I had to make the most of it.

I'd read enough self-inserts embarrassing themselves in the first encounters to know that this was the best course of action I could take. And I've always been a roll-with-the-punches kind of girl. 

Man, I corrected myself. I'm a man, now.

However long the now was going to be.

The person who'd entered without knocking was a maid, judging by the stereotypical black robe and white apron uniform. She had mousy brown hair under a white cap and brown eyes, wide from youth. She looked to be in her early twenties.

She was carefully balancing a tray and didn't look up until she'd nearly reached the end of the bed. Evidently, the empty bed was enough to startle her. The tray in her hands fell to the floor with a clatter, the porcelain jug shattering and spilling water everywhere.

"M-my Lord?" She frantically started looking around for me and jumped in fright when she finally noticed me watching her.

Lord? Must be me.

I looked at the mess on the marble floor and slowly lifted my eyes to meet hers. She froze like a deer caught in the headlights. 

"Who are you?" I asked.