1918: Pretty, vivacious Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia, the nineteen-year-old daughter of the fallen Tsar Nicholas II, lives with her family in suffocating isolation, a far cry from their once-glittering royal household. Her days are a combination of endless boredom and paralyzing fear; her only respite are clandestine flirtations with a few of the guards imprisoning the family—and she never realizes her innocent actions could mean the difference between life and death.