In 1928, Cerydra was thirteen.
That spring, the House of Savoy hosted a small gathering of nobles at the Quirinal Palace.
Nominally to celebrate the Queen’s birthday, it was actually an attempt by the King to maintain connections between the royal family and the old nobility within the political space increasingly compressed by the Fascist Party.
Ancient families from Piedmont, great landowners from Lombardy, and hereditary counts from Tuscany—those who possessed land and titles before the unification of Italy—wore their finest formal attire and most expensive jewelry as they walked into the ballroom of the Quirinal Palace to offer their blessings to the Queen.
Cerydra was required to attend.
She did not like such occasions, not because of shyness or arrogance, but because she found them boring.
The red tape, the fake smiles, the insincere compliments—everyone was playing an expected role, and no one spoke the truth.
It was the same as the court etiquette she loathed most—form over substance, gestures masking reality.
But she came anyway, wearing a simple pale blue dress.
Her short white hair had been carefully combed, and the blue at the tips shimmered with a soft luster under the lights.
She held a walking stick in her right hand—she rarely used it for support anymore, but she never went anywhere without it.
That crystal chess piece had become a part of her body.
“Your Highness, you truly look radiant tonight.” The speaker was Count Piero Colonna, the youngest son of the Colonna Family, twenty-three years old, tall and slender, with a handsome face and a smile that revealed a set of neat white teeth.
His bowtie was tied perfectly, and his leather shoes were polished to a mirror shine.
When he bowed to Cerydra, the angle of his waist was just right—showing respect without losing the dash of a young nobleman.
Cerydra looked at him, her gaze calm.
“Count.” She nodded slightly.
Colonna straightened up, maintaining his smile.
“Your Highness may not remember, but last year at the horse racing meet in Turin, I had the honor of meeting you once.” “I remember,” Cerydra said.
Colonna’s eyes brightened.
“You bet on the third horse at the time,” Cerydra continued.
“That horse fell at the last turn.
You lost five hundred lire and said to your attendant, ‘I should have bet on that white horse.'” Colonna’s smile stiffened for a moment.
“That white horse took first place,” Cerydra’s voice was devoid of any fluctuations.
“But it shouldn’t have won.
The rider cut into the inner lane illegally at the third turn, and the referee didn’t see it.
Your judgment was actually correct, Count.
The third horse was the best horse on the track that day, it just had bad luck.
Your only problem is that after losing, you attributed the reason to your own choice, rather than checking if the rider had committed a foul.” Colonna was completely stunned.
He opened his mouth, wanting to say something—a compliment, an exclamation, or a remark to smooth things over.
But Cerydra’s gaze made him swallow all his words.
Those overly blue eyes looked at him, not with scrutiny, not with judgment, but with something that unsettled him even more—as if she were recording.
As if she were archiving his reaction, putting it into some classification system only she knew.
“Your Highness…” was all he could manage to say in the end.
“At tonight’s banquet,” Cerydra said, “who do you think will win, Count?” Colonna blinked, not reacting in time.
“Not the horse race.” Cerydra’s gaze passed over his shoulder, casting towards the nobles chatting and laughing in the center of the ballroom.
“Here.
Among these people tonight, who will still be standing in ten years, and who will fall.” Colonna was silent for a long time.
The music, conversations, and clinking of glasses in the ballroom surged over like a tide, then receded.
“I do not know,” he finally answered honestly.
“Then go think about it,” Cerydra said.
“Once you’ve figured it out, come back and tell me.” She turned and left.
Her walking stick tapped lightly on the floor, making a faint, rhythmic sound.
The crystal chess piece swayed slightly in her hand, refracting the light from the crystal chandeliers in the ballroom like a moving star.
Colonna stood where he was, watching her retreating figure.
That thirteen-year-old girl in the pale blue dress, her short white hair shimmering under the lights, walked with a composed gait, her back straight, as if she were walking in her own palace, rather than someone else’s.
He suddenly remembered something his father had said at home a few days ago.
After returning from Rome, the old Count Colonna had been silent for a long time at the dinner table, then said: “I met that little princess.
Remember my words—this child of the House of Savoy will either be the most dangerous person in Italy in the future, or its only savior.” At the time, Piero thought his father was drunk.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
Colonna Family, Piero Colonna: intelligent but fickle, good at observing but not at judging.
His eyes can be used, but his hands cannot.
Concise, emotionless, like a file, like a list, like a chess game that only she could understand.
Cerydra walked to the window.
The night view of Rome spread out beneath her feet.
In 1928, the Eternal City had many more lights than it did ten years ago.
The lighting facilities installed by the Fascist Party throughout the city made the streets brighter.
Under those lights, queues of black shirts were conducting night training, and the sound of their rhythmic footsteps could be faintly heard.
Further away, the dome of St.
Peters Basilica stood silently in the night; it was another center of power, a symbol of another kind of law.
Cerydra gripped her walking stick, the crystal chess piece pressing against her palm.
She was thirteen.
In another world, thirteen is the age of middle school, the age of carrying a schoolbag to school, messing around with classmates, and secretly playing on a phone after school.
But here, at thirteen, she had already beaten Italy’s top chess players, had already begun to use the logic of chess to deduce the situation of the entire kingdom, and had already begun to remember those who might be useful in the future.
It was not because she was a genius.
It was because she dared not be otherwise.
She knew where history would lead.
She knew that Mussolini would form an alliance with Hitler, knew that Italy would be dragged into another, greater war, and knew that the House of Savoy would eventually come to an end amidst ruins.
She knew that her father would abdicate in 1946, knew that Umberto would only be king for a month, and knew that the monarchy would be abolished in a referendum.
She knew all of this, like knowing the outcome of a game of chess that had already been played.
But what she didn’t know was—in this chess game she was already a part of, could she change anything?
Her grip on the walking stick tightened slightly.
The crystal chess piece reflected the myriad lights outside the window, reflected the night view of Rome, and reflected the silent profile of a thirteen-year-old girl.
The chessboard had already been laid out, and the pieces were falling into place.
Outside the window, the night wind of 1928 passed through the colonnades of the Quirinal Palace, making a low, whimpering sound.
In the distance, the Tiber River flowed silently, like an unchangeable boundary, separating Rome’s past from its future.
Cerydra lay in bed and closed her eyes.
The walking stick rested against the edge of the bed, and the crystal chess piece glowed faintly in the darkness.
There would be a new chess game tomorrow.
And her game had only just begun.