Published at 25th of February 2026 7:07 am

Chapter 879: Cloistered

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The bells rang softly across the Palace in Constantinople. It was not a call to prayer or a formal gathering, but a reminder that time was still moving, whether one acknowledged it or not.

Bruno sat alone in the library, the hour late enough that the lamps burned low and the staff had long since withdrawn.

Outside, the wind moved gently through the bare branches of winter-bound trees, carrying with it the faint scent of snow that had just begun to fall.

The world felt suspended, balanced between seasons, between moments. He had always preferred these hours.

The surrounding shelves were lined with volumes accumulated across millennia. The grand accumulation of Constantine’s lineage hoarded in the personal library of the current King of Greece.

There were duty-old tomes of every variety. Some ancient, some modern, some written in languages no longer spoken aloud. Philosophy, theology, engineering, history.

Treatises on warfare sat beside poetry. Dog-eared field manuals shared space with illuminated manuscripts rescued from ruins that no longer existed.

The libraries in Constantinople were truly a treasure trove of knowledge. Some of these manuscripts were so ancient that they predated the birth of Christ.

A single book lay open on the desk before him, though he had not turned the page in some time.

It was not that the words failed to hold his attention. Rather, they invited memories that refused to stay confined to ink.

The fire crackled softly in the hearth. Bruno reached for his tea, now lukewarm, and took a measured sip.

He had learned long ago that impatience served no purpose in reflection. The mind went where it wished, and resistance only prolonged the journey.

He leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled, and allowed himself to simply exist for a moment without command, without expectation.

In war, there was always a next decision. In governance, there is always a next compromise. In a family, there was always another duty, another responsibility that demanded presence. Silence was rare. Stillness even rarer.

And yet, here it was. He could count on one hand the number of times in his life where he truly had nothing to do with himself on any given day.

It was a rarity that he could hide himself away from the world and its demands. And read about the legacies of greater men than himself from eras far more grand than the current age.

The door to the library opened quietly, and Heidi stepped inside, wrapped in a shawl against the cold that never quite left old stone halls.

She paused for a moment, watching him as if deciding whether to interrupt or simply join the silence.

"You disappeared," she said gently.

"Disappeared?" Bruno said looking over at his watch. Realizing that time itself had slipped him by. He had been in the library for hours. Nearly half the day in fact.

The gesture alone told Heidi all she needed to know. She smiled faintly at that and crossed the room, settling into the chair opposite him.

For a moment, neither spoke. The fire filled the space between them, its warmth steady and unassuming.

"To think we’ve only been in Constantinople for two whole days, and already you’ve found the nearest hole to seclude yourself in. Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that you were fated to challenge the world, I almost would have believed you to be better suited as a librarian than a general, and a prince."

Bruno considered the statement before chuckling and shaking his head. Imaging a life not spent in the trenches, but instead cloistered away doing nothing but preserving old tomes and mastering the secrets that lay dormant within them.

"Perhaps in my next life I shall be a monk?"

The joke did not attract an amused expression from his wife; instead Heidi flicked Bruno between the eyes. Grabbing hold of his collar and dragging his face close to her own.

"Don’t think you can escape me in the next life simply by hiding yourself away in a monastery. I will find you no matter how far you try to run, and we will be wed again!"

Bruno knowing that his wife was only half joking at this point, dragged her into his lap, and pat her head, causing the woman to lose all of her fire, and instead bury her head into his chest as if she were a frightened kitten.

’Yes, yes, I know...." He glanced toward the window, toward the falling snow.

"I wonder what our lives could be like in a world that did not demand so much from the two of us."

Heidi continued to cling to Bruno in silence. She practically could not even conceive of such a life. Not with all the sacrifices the two of them had made in this life. Not with the burdens they carried together.

For decades, Bruno’s presence had been synonymous with action, with inevitability, and with decisions that shaped borders and ended wars.

For all the monuments that bore his name, for all the maps that had been redrawn by his hand, Bruno had learned that history was remarkably selective in what it remembered.

It remembered victories. Dates. Lines of advance and points of surrender. It did not remember the nights without sleep. The decisions made with incomplete information.

The orders given knowing that obedience would mean death for men who trusted him.

There were moments he could still recall with perfect clarity. A village spared because he hesitated. Another erased because he did not. A letter written to a widow that he rewrote four times before realizing no version of it could be honest without being cruel.

He had buried friends who died believing in him. He had outlived enemies who had never understood him at all.

And through it all, the world had come to expect certainty. That expectation had become its own prison.

Even now, in retirement, silence felt like negligence. Stillness felt like abandonment. He found himself listening for alarms that would never come, waiting for reports that no longer existed.

His mind reached instinctively for problems to solve, as if peace itself were a temporary malfunction.

He had once believed that rest would feel like absolution.

Instead, it felt like exposure.

There was no uniform here. No staff to defer judgment. No war to justify excess, nor necessity to excuse brutality. Only memory; unfiltered, unchallenged, and unrelenting.

Bruno had carried the world for so long that setting it down left his hands aching, phantom weight pressing against fingers that no longer grasped anything at all.

And perhaps that was the final irony.

That after everything he had endured, everything he had built, the hardest discipline to master was not command, but permission. Permission to stop. Permission to exist without consequences.

It was a lesson no academy had ever taught.

Now, even in retirement, the world seemed content to continue spinning without waiting for his approval.

It was unsettling in a way he had not anticipated.

"You built something that can survive without you," she said. "That was always the goal. Even after we are gone, what you have forged will remain strong."

"Yes," Bruno agreed. "But knowing that and feeling it are two very different things."

She over and took his hand, her touch grounding in a way nothing else could be.

"You have spent a lifetime preparing for the future... And now that you have finally found the means to live in the present, you have chosen to bury your head in the past. I think it’s time, you see some proper sunlight, what do you think?"

He smiled faintly.

"I’m not even sure I know what the present is anymore...."

The fire shifted, sending a small cascade of sparks upward. Bruno watched them fade before reaching the chimney, brief lives extinguished without ceremony.

Heidi chuckled softly.

"Then how about we find out together?"

Bruno huffed a quiet laugh at that, conceding the point.

They sat together in silence for a while longer, the sort that did not demand filling. Eventually, Bruno closed the book before him, marking the page without looking.

"Do you regret it?" Heidi asked suddenly.

He turned to her, expression unreadable.

"Regret what?"

She met his gaze without hesitation.

"Stopping."

The question lingered in the air, heavy but not accusatory.

Bruno exhaled slowly.

"No," he said. "I regret many things. Decisions. People I failed. Lines I crossed too easily. But stepping away? No."

He paused.

"If anything, I regret not learning how to do it sooner."

That surprised her, though she hid it well.

Outside, the snow fell more steadily now, blanketing the world in white. By morning, footprints would be erased. Sharp edges softened. Imperfections hidden, if only briefly.

Bruno rose from his chair and crossed to the window, resting a hand against the cool glass. They stood together, watching the snow accumulate, neither feeling the need to speak further.

The world outside was quiet. Not empty. Not fragile.

Just... at rest.

And for the first time in longer than he could remember, Bruno allowed himself to rest with it.

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