#Chapter 26: The King’s Gambit

(Violet’s POV) The wind nearly flayed the skin from my face as I stepped out of the car, the kind of cold that came from altitude and absence. It whistled down from the jagged peaks above, cutting through wool like it had teeth. My coat billowed behind me as I closed the door, the slam swallowed by the silence of snow and stone. The villa loomed ahead—if it could even be called that. It wasn’t opulent. No domes or delicate balconies, no golden trim or flowering vines softening its edges. This place was carved straight into the mountain’s side, all granite and iron, more bastion than estate. There were no lit torches. No scent of hearth smoke. No guards stationed at the towering archway. It might have looked abandoned if not for the precise absence of decay. They were expecting me somehow, making everything feel worse. I paused at the first step, hand lifting out of instinct to adjust my collar, my fingertips grazing the scar at the base of my neck. Even beneath gloves and layers,