Hofburg Palace, Vienna, Austrian Empire.
March 6th, 1836.
The meeting room inside the Hofburg Palace felt heavier than usual that morning.
The fire along the wall burned steadily, but it did little to ease the atmosphere. The air was warm, almost too warm, yet no one moved to open the windows. Outside, Vienna remained quiet under the cold of early March, but inside the chamber, tension had already settled before a single word had been spoken.
Maps covered most of the central table. It is a marked, revised, layered with updates that had been arriving through the night. Lombardy was no longer the focus. The markings had shifted east. The lines drawn across the parchment no longer represented defense. They showed retreat paths, fallback positions, and uncertain attempts at forming new lines deeper within Austrian territory.
Emperor Ferdinand I sat at the head of the table.
