The carriage rolled through the snow-dusted avenues of Saint Petersburg, each clatter of wheels echoing like a warning. Maria pressed her hands to the window, watching the sprawling Dragunov Estate grow larger, more menacing with each turn. The towers reached high into the gray sky, walls shimmered like ice in the faint winter sun.
Her reflection stared back at her: pale, composed, but burning inside. The fire she had felt at the registry hall yesterday hadn't dimmed. It had only grown.
A faint shiver raced through her as the massive iron gates swung open, revealing rows of guards standing like statues. Frost covered their shoulders. Even in winter, they exuded an air of cold discipline.
The carriage stopped.
"Step out, Miss Romanova," a voice ordered. Low. Controlled. Measured.
Maria's boots crunched against the snow. She first felt it — not literal magic, but an undeniable presence. Ice seeped through the air around the estate, carrying the weight of Mikhail Dragun, the man who had claimed her life.
The doors opened silently behind her, and he was there. Standing on the marble steps, black coat draped over his shoulders like a shadow. He didn't move, didn't blink, but she felt the air tighten.
He spoke once: "Inside."
No warmth. No invitation. Just a command.
Maria followed, noting every subtle shift — the glare of frost in his aura, the way servants flinched when he entered a room. Every inch of this house whispered control.
Inside, the estate was as grand as it was cold. Chandeliers shimmered like frozen stars; tapestries told stories of victories that had nothing to do with her. Servants moved like ghosts, eyes down, careful not to breathe too loudly.
Mikhail gestured toward a room. "Yours."
Maria's heart sank. Separate. Her private chambers, pristine and silent, felt like a cell.
"I have rules," he said flatly. "You will follow them."
She didn't flinch. "And if I don't?"
His gaze met hers fully for the first time. Ice blue, unreadable, but she saw it flick — just a fraction — a fissure in his calm. "You will," he said.
That night, Maria explored her room. Heavy curtains blocked the outside world, but her mind was alive and restless. She touched the edges of her furniture, her firestorm aura barely restrained and simmering under her skin.
She was not broken. She was plotting.
Downstairs, unseen, someone else was watching. Nikolai. Shadowed and calculating. Every step she would take, every word she would speak, he had already placed on his mental board. And across the estate, somewhere else, Aurélie Delacroix felt it too — the subtle threat Maria carried, her firestorm aura sparking against the ice.
Mikhail remained in the study, doors closed and maps spread across the table. He didn't sleep. Not yet. Not fully. Because he felt it—the imperceptible warmth that Maria radiated, daring him to falter. He tightened the mask of frost across his expression, but inside… fissures threatened to spread.
Maria lay awake, listening to the distant echo of the estate's frozen corridors, heart beating steadily. Every movement of guards, every whispered protocol, every distant footstep was a puzzle piece. And she would find a way.
She would turn the chessboard.
And tomorrow, the game begins.