The morning chill clung to Innsbruck like a patient ghost, not yet winter, but close enough that breath carried on the air in faint white wisps.
The mountains were draped in a soft blue haze, the last leaves twisting down along the wide boulevards with each passing gust.
The city had grown in the decades under his rule, yet the streets felt the same as they always had in those rare, quiet mornings before the day remembered what century it belonged to.
Bruno walked with a slow, unhurried rhythm, hands in the pockets of a simple workman's jacket.
Not princely attire, not military regalia, just canvas, wool, and comfort. The sort of clothes he used to wear as a boy in his past life, before everything else had ever happened.
Before empires. Before reincarnation. Before he embarked on a lifelong crusade to defend civilization from itself.
