A drowning person clings to a straw; a dying one—any chance to survive. Alexander Eremeev, finding himself at the edge beyond which there is no return, didn’t think for a second when he was given a chance at a new life. Only they didn’t specify that it would begin somewhere in the Smolensk region, with a twist of fate and the interference of злова колдунов—evil witches—thrown back a few centuries ago. Where it’s easier to meet a vampire, a kikimora, or a forest spirit at night with a bony monster, or get caught in a magical trap than to find a porcini mushroom in the woods. And the “lucky one” will have to survive in the guise of a seventeen-year-old Russian lad, receiving with his new body a “rich dowry” in the form of a pack of bloodthirsty enemies who sleep and dream of sending the young man to his ancestors.
In a world of wizards, night monsters, and powerful otherworldly strangers, there is simply no other path for an altar mage: either he, or they.