Russian kingdom of the mid-16th century. The initial successes of the reign of Ivan the Terrible are replaced by failures. The country is cut off from the Western world, exhausted by the protracted Livonian War and annual Tatar raids. The unity of the Russian lands is under threat as long as the boyar power is strong and the state is ruled by bribe-takers. How to keep something that has been collected with such difficulty for centuries? The oprichnina, created in the name of saving the state, will become a symbol of one of the darkest and bloodiest periods of Russian history. Where is the line between the execution of “divine justice” and madness? This book is a continuation of the novel “The Bloody Scepter”, previously published in the same series.