Eva stood within the great hall of the Berlin Palace, the air heavy with polish and history, her gaze fixed on the paintings that lined the marble walls.
There, in one whose ink had aged nearly a decade, sat her own likeness, captured in all her elegance.
Her husband, Prince Wilhelm, held their eldest daughter in his arms, still an infant when the painting was commissioned, while in her lap sat their son, Bruno the Younger, named for his grandfather, only five years old at the time.
A single tear slipped down her cheek before she forced herself to breathe, reassembling the composure expected of her.
That little boy was now a young man, a junior officer who had fought in Paris during the opening stages of the war and earned medals for gallantry.
Now he was stationed in Sicily, preparing for the Allied invasion that everyone knew was coming.
Eva understood, at last, how her own mother had once felt when her father went to war.
