Chapter 584: Threads of Iron
Berlin lay under a heavy cloak of early autumn, the air dense with the scent of coal smoke, iron shavings, and cold rain waiting to fall.
To lesser men, it might have seemed oppressive; a sprawling industrial colossus grinding its own bones.
But to Bruno, it was the living lung of an empire, breathing in raw ore and ambition, exhaling steel and soldiers.
The armored train from Innsbruck rolled into the Hauptbahnhof under the watchful eyes of security detachments and feldgendarmerie.
Eva and Prince Wilhelm disembarked just ahead of him, their own children fussing in the crisp air, tended by nurses and footmen draped in Hohenzollern liveries.
Eva moved with practiced elegance, her ivory-gloved hand resting lightly on Wilhelm’s arm, a sovereign calm in the set of her chin that no petty court intrigue could breach.
Wilhelm, grandson of the Kaiser, heir to a future that grew more complicated by the year, smiled politely, but his eyes were sharp, already calculating what Berlin’s mood might mean for their faction within the family.
Bruno took it all in with quiet satisfaction. Heidi had departed earlier with the younger children for Tyrol, to see to estates that needed the personal hand of their Princess.
Elsa and Alexei had returned directly to Saint Petersburg, swept east under the twin banners of the eagle and the Romanov bear.
His family sprawled across Europe now, tangled into half a dozen royal lines; a lattice of blood and treaty that was either the final safeguard of peace or the prelude to a cataclysm that would devour them all.
By the time his staff car reached the Kaiserhof, the sun was little more than a sullen copper coin sinking behind soot-streaked rooftops.
Berlin pulsed below with restless energy: columns of troops on exercise, convoys of new Panzers moving south on armored trains toward Alsace, throngs of civilians bustling with wary pride through streets draped in imperial banners.