The sun rose behind a veil of pale mist, setting the domes and spires of Constantinople alight in shifting colors-gold bleeding into gray, a city caught between ages. The harbor echoed with the clang of cranes and the shouts of sailors. Smoke drifted in long ribbons above the foundries by the water, twisting in the morning air and settling on tiled roofs, as if every household was marked by the ash of progress.
Constantine stood at the edge of the imperial garden, surrounded by the scent of crushed mint and the faint trace of yesterday's rain. The city never slept now; it moved with his ambition, watched over by hundreds of eyes-servants, guards, priests, spies. In these rare moments of quiet, he felt the pulse of his creation, a heartbeat too vast for any one man, yet his alone to shape.
