The Swiss AlpsInstitut Le Sommet
I've always believed that power isn't granted; it's taken. And at nineteen, I had taken everything this mountain had to offer.
The air at Le Sommet always tasted like expensive pine and ancient arrogance. It was a gilded cage perched 4,000 feet above the world, a place where the students' net worth could stabilize a small country's economy. To the outside world, we were the future. To me, they were all walking corpses.
I loathed them. Every "charming" conversation over tea was a performance that left a bitter taste in my mouth. I wanted to chop their heads off and serve them on a silver platter to the starving world they stepped on, but instead, I put on the mask. The "Ice Queen" mask was flawless, and they adored me for it, never realizing that my coldness wasn't class, it was a weapon.
I sat in the Great Library, the moonlight filtering through the arched windows. I wasn't studying for finals like the other sheep; I was redrafting a merger for my father's firm. I couldn't wait to leave this mountain. I wanted the grit of a London courtroom, the stench of real war, not this sanitized, velvet-lined hell.
"You're going to burn your eyes out, Ananya."
The voice was a low, gravelly vibration that seemed to hum right through the mahogany table. I didn't look up. I knew that voice.
Alessandro de Luca.
He was a freshman, and in the rigid caste system of Le Sommet, he should have been invisible to me. He was the scion of a fallen Italian royal house, a boy whose name was a shadow of a crown, yet he looked at me as if I were the one who should be honored.
He had "Savoy Grey" eyes, a color so cold it felt like being stared at by mountain slate. He was beautiful in a way that felt unfinished, all hard angles and simmering intensity. Unlike the other boys I despised, Alessandro didn't look at me with hunger. He looked at me with possession.
"And you're going to fail your European History exam, Alessandro," I said, my voice smooth as silk. "I can hear your breathing from across the room. It's distracting."
"I didn't come here to study history," he said, stepping into the circle of light from my desk lamp. "I came to make it."
I leaned back, crossing my legs slowly. The rustle of my skirt was the only sound in the cavernous room. "Bold words for a boy who still has a curfew. What do you want, Alessandro?"
"Dinner," he said. It wasn't a question. "Tomorrow night. Geneva. I've already arranged the car."
The sheer audacity of a seventeen-year-old trying to command me sent a strange, traitorous shiver down my spine. I stood up, relishing the fact that I was still an inch taller than him in my heels. I walked around the table, the air between us thickening until it felt like a physical weight. I stopped directly in front of him.
He stepped into my personal space, an act of defiance that should have earned him a sharp rebuke. Instead, I let him come. He was so close that the ambient chill of the library vanished, replaced by a wall of masculine heat. I could smell him, the crisp scent of Alpine rain mixed with the warm, spicy depth of cedarwood clinging to his wool blazer.
My eyes drifted down to the hollow of his throat. His pulse was thundering there, a frantic, rhythmic drumbeat that betrayed everything his stoic expression tried to hide. He was drowning in the tension, his gaze dipping to my lips for a fraction of a second, hungry, desperate, before snapping back to my eyes with a raw intensity that made my own breath hitch.
The "Ice Queen" should have pulled away. Instead, I leaned in, closing the final inch between us until I could feel the ghost of his breath on my skin.
"You're a sweet little prince, Alessandro," I purred, my voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial silkiness that was meant to provoke.
I reached up. It was a slow, agonizingly deliberate movement. My fingers didn't just touch him; they grazed the burning skin of his neck, my nails dragging lightly against the nape where his hair met his collar. I felt a shiver run through his entire frame: a tremor of pure, unadulterated reaction.
Then, I shifted my hand. I didn't cup his cheek or pull him closer. With a smirk that felt like a blade, I patted the top of his head. I ran my fingers through those dark, unruly curls, ruffling them with the careless affection one might show a particularly bold puppy.
It was a slow, lethal humiliation. I was reminding him of the gap between us: Senior and Freshman. Queen and Subject. Woman and Boy.
"Focus on your exams," I whispered, my lips brushing the sensitive shell of his ear, close enough that he could feel the moisture of my breath. "Maybe when you've actually built something of your own, something that isn't just a shadow of a dead throne, I'll let you buy me a drink. Until then..."
I pulled back just enough to look him in the eye, my thumb grazing his forehead one last time.
"...stay in your lane, little prince."
I didn't wait for his response. I didn't want to see the way his silver-grey eyes turned to ash or the way his fists were clenching at his sides. I gathered my papers with practiced poise and walked out of the library.
Every step I took was a rhythmic click against the marble, a countdown to my escape. I left him standing there in the shadows, vibrating with a silent, lethal rage, a boy I had just set on fire, never imagining that seven years later, I'd be the one begging him for air.
Graduation Day
The black Mercedes-Benz S-Class idled at the gates of the school, its engine a low hum against the crisp mountain air. The ceremony was over. The diplomas had been handed out like participation trophies for the elite.
I stood by the car, my "Ice Queen" mask firmly in place as I watched my classmates weep over their impending separations. I felt nothing but a savage, burning relief.
I caught sight of Alessandro standing on the stone steps of the Great Hall. He wasn't crying. He was watching me with those slate-grey eyes, his jaw set so tight I thought it might shatter. He was waiting for me to say something: a goodbye, a hint of where I was going, a crumb of the future.
I gave him nothing.
I didn't tell him about London. I didn't tell him about the flat I'd already leased or the law firm where I had bullied my way into an internship. As far as the world was concerned, Ananya Varma was vanishing into the ether.
I slid into the back seat of the car and rolled down the window just an inch. The scent of pine rushed in, one last reminder of the mountain that had tried to claim me.
"Drive," I told the chauffeur.
As the car pulled away, I looked in the rearview mirror. Alessandro was still standing there, a lone figure against the towering gothic architecture of Le Sommet. He looked small from this distance, but the intensity of his gaze followed me all the way down the winding mountain pass.
I leaned back against the leather, a ghost of a smirk playing on my lips.
Goodbye, little prince.
I was a ghost now. And ghosts don't leave forwarding addresses.