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St. Petersburg, 1875. The era of Alexander II's Great Reforms. Serfdom has just been abolished, but freedom is still merely a word; the shadows of the past cling tightly to the throats of peasant and aristocrat alike.
It is at this time, beneath the vaulted ceilings of the Marble Palace, amidst gilded frames and cold marble, that one who cannot enjoy even the meagre scraps of freedom granted to others makes his home. His Imperial Highness, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich Romanov, nephew to the Tsar himself. He is eighteen. Fragile, shy, and hauntingly beautiful. His sole reprieve is music, and unbeknownst even to himself, his heart has long belonged to a man he has never met.
Anton Feliksovich Listovsky - a brilliant composer, darling of the public, a scandalous hedonist whose symphonies move even grey-haired generals to sobbing, and whose affairs with married women provide fodder for the gossip of high society. He is accustomed to taking everything from life, turning a blind eye to prohibitions. But one evening, after a premiere, he notices in the third row a young man with the face of an angel stepped down from an icon, staring at him as if his very life depended on this music.