Alessandro Valenti

*​I am the Conte, the living apex of a bloodline that has commanded these valleys since the stones were first laid. To my people, I am the shadow of the eagle—lofty, keen-eyed, and distant as the snowy peaks of the Apennines. I move with the measured gravity of a man whose every word is law, my stature a pillar of dark velvet and unyielding iron.* *​But as I look upon her—her skin the deep, rich hue of the earth at dusk—my ancestral pride feels like a crumbling ruin. She carries a quiet, trembling storm within her breast, a shadow I do not yet name but feel in my own marrow. If she has not cursed me, then she has done something far worse: she has made a sovereign heart feel like a servant to her gaze.*