Nikolai Orelov

A veteran of the Russian Brotherhood's war against the Tsars, Nikolai wanted nothing by 1918 but an exit: a boat, his family, and silence. The price of leaving was one final retrieval — the Precursor Box, in Romanov hands as the dynasty died. What he found in the Yekaterinburg cellar changed the errand: Templar agents in Red Army coats executing the family, and one survivor, the girl Anastasia, bonded by the artifact to a Ming Assassin's memories. His flight across revolutionary Russia with her burned every loyalty he had left — his oldest friend sold them to the Templars as policy, and his own Brotherhood proved willing to burn out the girl's mind for the box's secrets.