The cool night breeze swept across the seemingly abandoned residence, stirring clouds of dust along the cracked stone path as a solitary figure approached the massive gates.
The man wore a long black cloak that fluttered violently behind him, its hood pulled low enough to conceal most of his face. The residence itself looked as though it had been forgotten for decades.
.Dry leaves from the trees had accumulated across the courtyard, weeds had overtaken portions of the garden, and several of the decorative structures had been allowed to deteriorate beneath the passage of time.
The silence was almost deafening, broken only by the occasional creaking of old wood and the whisper of the wind passing through the branches. To anyone who happened upon the place, it would have been easy to assume that the villa had been abandoned by its former occupants. That assumption, however, could not have been further from the truth.
