Published at 4th of May 2026 7:34 am

Chapter 945: A Solemn Farewell

This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl

Bruno and Claire switched trains upon reaching German Burgundy. There they hopped on a high-speed rail that took them straight to Paris. Throughout the journey, ever since their first meeting Claire had not said a word to Bruno.

And in the end, the two of them stepped off the train together. Where Bruno raised his hand.

"Farewell, Claire... I hope the rest of your days are filled with the happiness and love that I deprived of you. Truly I do... And should you ever need anything, or wish to call in the debt which I owe you, you know where I live, now don’t you?"

Claire nodded silently. She didn’t immediately walk away... Or say goodbye. She stood there staring at the man, almost as if trying to etch his personage into her memory.

"Your highness... May I have a moment longer of your time, and permission to speak plainly?"

Bruno nodded just once, and subtly so, but it was enough. Claire took a deep breath to gather her thoughts, and then for the first time since meeting Bruno she spoke clearly to him without the slightest formality or trace of fear.

"Until just a few years ago when I moved to your realm at my family’s behest to conclude my studies in a proper German Girl’s School. I was raised to hate you...."

The words did more damage than Bruno had thought they would, but he stood there stoically, taking everything in that the girl had to say to him.

"You were the enemy of my people. You were the cause of so much suffering. Death, war, pestilence, and famine. A living embodiment of the four horsemen who had come to my homeland not once, but twice in a single century. I lost brothers fighting in your wars. Cousins, and uncles, too. I hated you... truly I did."

Bruno nodded his head again, he understood, he was, after all, a man who had long since accepted the price of his sins. But Claire didn’t stop there, her next words were the most sharp, the most pointed, but were carried no ill intent.

"That was until I met you... and witnessed the world you had built. The family you raised and cherished like no man I have ever seen. You were a Grand Prince, your sons and daughters were princes and princesses. And yet, for the first time in my life I had seen a noble family that didn’t fight, didn’t squabble, and didn’t waste needlessly. I began to envy your granddaughters. Wishing that my family had been the same."

Claire took another deep breath and looked away. As if struggling to fight back the tears that began to re-emerge.

"I didn’t want to marry Karl just because I fell for him... We haven’t even begun the proper route of courtship. Although I did feel my heart drifting towards him this last year in particular... I wanted to marry your grandson, because I wanted to be your granddaughter... I wanted to be a part of the family you built. And the world you have all built together. But I guess I wasn’t important enough, after all, huh?"

She masked her pain with a smile, and the tears glistening beneath the sun as they carved their way down her shut eyes, and crashed onto the floor around them, betrayed the facade of strength she had tried her best to maintain.

Bruno sighed and shook his head. Not dismissively, but with mourning.

"Truly, you would have made an excellent bride for my grandson, Claire.... And I grieve for the loss of such a future that could have been. But, unfortunately, as cruel as it may be. It is precisely as you have said. You are not the Princess of France, no matter how much I may wish you were."

Claire’s eyes opened wide with shock as she heard these words, and she saw the same pain that haunted Bruno earlier in the day when he spoke of the Grand Duchess of Luxemburg.

She was about to say something, but Bruno gently raised his hand and cut her off.

"I am sure you have heard the words before... You have been in my house long enough to at least know the sentiment. We do not exist in this world for the sake of our own individual happiness or hedonistic pleasure.... We exist to ensure the world we leave behind is slightly better than the one we left behind, for the sake of our children, our grandchildren, and their children...."

Bruno looked away at the City of Paris, which had been rebuilt after the disaster of Two World Wars and a civil war between them.

Children walked the streets safely, their mothers running after them and hollering to ensure that they did not wander too far.

Stores were no longer boarded up and shuttered, but open for business, with long lines waiting for their moment to become a customer.

And neither graffiti nor a homeless encampment could be witnessed as far as the eye could see.

Bruno looked at it all and nodded his head before turning his attention back to Claire. Staring her directly in the eye.

"None of us are exempt from that grave responsibility, especially not when burdened with the authority I wield, and my house shares. I would have wished to watch Karl take your hand at the altar if I were not the King of Alemannia. But I am, and Karl must marry Princess Isabelle, not because she is more worthy than you, or kinder, or fairer, but solely because of her position, and that of my grandson."

Bruno took a moment to breathe before continuing.

"France must never again be allowed to challenge the German Reich, and the marriage between my grandson and Princess Isabelle will seal that fate. Our happiness is a small price to pay for lasting peace between our two realms, wouldn’t you say, Claire?"

It struck her like a bombshell. When she first met Bruno, he had terrified her. The gravity of his words, the way he smiled with his family. It was the image of a family man, happy, not the dreadful glare of a butcher.

But as he stood before her, explaining why her dreams must die, she could see it. The ghost of a man who had once struck fear into the hearts of all those who heard his name and were unfortunate enough to be on the opposing side.

He stood there in a finely tailored three-piece suit. Not a medal or order of merit to speak of. He was just another old man in the crowd, one who seemed almost gentle at first glance.

But all Claire saw was the ghost of the trenches, pistol in hand, and a uniform muddied and tattered from the fighting. A younger man, whose heavy and tired eyes revealed the unfathomable weight that he carried on his shoulders.

She took a deep breath and nodded once. She finally understood... the years of lectures she had heard while sitting at his table. The smile on his face, the gentleness of his words.

It had all been a shadow. A failed attempt to live a life stained by oceans of blood, and mountains of Earth moved towards a singular purpose.

And in that moment she grieved again, not for the loss of her marriage to Karl, but for the loss of the man Bruno would have been, or could have been, if he hadn’t died in the trenches all those years ago.

She sighed once more and shook her head. Her words faint, but gentle in a way that even she didn’t expect.

"I’m sorry... For all the years you spoke of duty, honor, and sacrifice. I never understood the depth to which you have personally suffered for the sake of your family, your people, and your realm. I think I understand a bit more now why you were feared by my country. There are few men who have the fortitude to do what you have done."

Bruno could tell that the girl had seen far beyond the lesson he was trying to teach her. He didn’t preach, he didn’t recoil. He simply scoffed.

"Do you pity me?"

But Claire surprised him, shaking her head, there wasn’t a hint of malice, shame, sympathy or scorn upon her features, or concealed beneath her eyes. Instead, it was something Bruno had seldom seen from a foreigner."

"No... I respect you. More now than ever before. You have given everything but your own family in pursuit of a better world for them. Or what you believe to be a better world. And even now, when a lesser man would crumble, would slip into addiction, or lose his mind at the thoughts that haunt him. You keep it together for their sake."

Claire sighed exaggeratedly and scratched the back of her head.

"God damn it... I just had to come to that epiphany now? Because now I really wish I was your granddaughter more than ever, you know that? Maria and Theresa have no idea, do they?"

Bruno broke out into laughter, this was the first time he had ever heard Claire curse in the years since she had begun to visit his family. He sighed and shook his head.

"No... they don’t. And they never will, isn’t that the point?"

Claire nodded her head along and struck a pose that Bruno thought he would never see from her. A look of genuine respect and gratitude in her eyes while she raised her hand to her forehead in a proper salute, while holding her bag in the other.

"Thank you for everything, Reichsmarschall!"

Bruno raised his own hand in salute, an almost comical smile on his lips.

"You are dismissed, Claire."

She giggled before walking off, not saying another word to Bruno as he stood there in silence. Gazing off at the Versailles Palace with a wistful smirk on his face. He shook his head before stepping forward and towards the car that awaited him.

His own Leibgarde opening the door without ceremony. Where Bruno took a look back at where Claire had walked off to and disappeared among the crowd.

"Have someone look after her, will you?"

The Leibgarde nodded his head.

"Yes, sir...."

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