The days at the La Moraleja estate unfolded in a rhythm that balanced comfort with unease, like a symphony that alternated between soft notes and hidden dissonance. On the surface, life was ordinary. Family meals filled the long dining room with warmth. The laughter of grandparents echoed through high-ceilinged halls. Maids and footmen moved quietly, tending to flowers, polishing silver, ensuring the machinery of daily life never faltered.
But underneath it all was something else—a constant hum that Stefan, even at five, could hear. Guards patrolled the perimeter with sharpened vigilance, their boots crunching on gravel at dawn and dusk. Phone calls ended in silences too heavy to be natural. Meetings in Fabio's office emerged suddenly, the voices inside carrying urgency before dissolving into whispered tones.
For most children, none of this would register. For Stefan, each glance, each pause, each hurried stride was a signal. He had learned to read between the lines—not just words, but the shadows that clung to them.
The memory of the attack three years earlier had not faded. It lingered like a scar in the atmosphere, a reminder that calm could fracture in a heartbeat. Stefan's mind, layered with the echoes of a past life, refused to let go of that knowledge. His body was small, his hands still clumsy with youth, but his awareness was sharpened by experience few could imagine.
Mornings began with exercises in the garden. To the untrained eye, it looked like childish energy—running, jumping, tumbling across the grass. But Stefan imposed structure. Endurance races where he timed himself against shadows. Balancing games on low walls. Improvised strength challenges, carrying stones or competing in push-ups against cousins.
His mother, Lena, watched with affectionate pride from the veranda. "He has so much energy," she said to Anna one morning. "He'll grow strong, like his father."
But Fabio, sipping his coffee silently, saw more than energy. He saw rhythm, discipline, the careful molding of body and will. It reminded him less of children and more of men he had once known—men trained for a purpose. He never said it aloud, but the thought unsettled him.
Visitors came often—friends, relatives, the children of diplomats or businessmen. To them, the estate was a place of leisure. They ran across the lawns, played hide-and-seek behind tall hedges, and invented stories of knights and castles.
Yet Stefan subtly bent those games.
"Two teams," he would say, clapping his hands with a smile. "Each has a captain. We'll set rules so no one cheats. And at the end, we'll see who wins by strategy, not just speed."
The children followed. At first they hesitated—why should a boy their age decide everything? But soon they discovered his rules made the games smoother, fairer, more exciting.
"Why do you always get to make the rules?" asked a boy one afternoon, the grandson of a politician. His tone was half complaint, half curiosity.
Stefan tilted his head, his smile natural, almost innocent. "Because someone has to. If everyone talks at once, the game never starts."
The boy blinked, then nodded, as if the explanation was obvious. And so the game continued—under Stefan's quiet guidance.
To outsiders it looked like creativity. To Stefan, it was rehearsal. Every child was a piece on a board. Every argument was a test in persuasion. Every victory was a lesson.
Yet not all was laughter. Even in play, Stefan's ears tuned to the adult world. Words slipped into his consciousness like pebbles tossed into still water: "delegations," "treaties," "border disputes."
Jean Morel visited more frequently now. His measured presence was both calming and unsettling. Stefan often found him walking side by side with Fabio, their voices low, their expressions clouded with calculations. When Jean left, his father's eyes carried fatigue, a weight he tried to mask at dinner.
Stefan noticed. He always noticed.
One afternoon, Stefan retreated to the old library, the scent of leather and dust filling his lungs. He climbed onto a chair, dragging down a heavy atlas from the shelf. The maps inside fascinated him—the jagged borders, the patchwork of nations, the ghosts of empires.
Tracing the outline of Europe with a finger, he whispered, "So fragile. A line here, and millions live differently. A treaty there, and generations change."
He closed his eyes and remembered battlefields, conferences, and broken promises from another life. This time could be different. This time, I can be more than a witness.
A sound interrupted his thoughts. Vittorio entered, his presence filling the room like sunlight filtered through age.
"Maps again, Stefan?" he asked, his voice carrying warmth.
"Yes, grandfather," Stefan replied. "I like seeing what the world used to be."
"The world changes," Vittorio said, walking closer. His hand rested gently on Stefan's shoulder. "What matters isn't how it was—but how you decide it will be."
Stefan met his grandfather's gaze. For a heartbeat, the room felt heavier, as if the words were not just advice but prophecy.
The weeks passed in strange rhythm. By day, Stefan lived moments of innocence: spring evenings with cousins, barefoot races across warm stone, laughter echoing against walls too grand for children's games. By night, he returned to his private thoughts, tracing lines in his atlas, reading tales of empires and revolutions by the dim glow of his lamp.
He devoured books: Roman campaigns, the writings of generals, even American debates on unity. He compared systems, noted failures, wondered how ambition might be channeled into something greater.
Yet sometimes, when the laughter of family floated down the halls, he paused. I am five. Should I not simply play?
The answer never came. Only the burden of memory—and the quiet certainty that time was shorter than anyone imagined.
One afternoon in the garden, Stefan organized yet another mock assembly of children. He gave each one a role: speaker, listener, voter. Their laughter rang clear, but from the terrace, the adults observed with mixed emotions.
Fabio exchanged a long look with Jean. Heinrich whispered something under his breath, his eyes narrowed. Anna's smile carried both pride and worry. Vittorio laughed, clapping once as though delighted.
"That child isn't playing," Jean said at last, his voice low.
Fabio said nothing. But his silence confirmed Jean's words.
That night, the house felt different. The corridors seemed to echo with more than footsteps. Over dinner, conversations were light, almost frivolous—weather, gardening, anecdotes. But the warmth was absent. Each sentence felt like a veil, covering something sharper beneath.
After the meal, Fabio and Jean retreated to the office with two guards. Stefan, pretending to wander toward his room, slowed near the door. Voices filtered through the wood, fragmented yet unmistakable.
"…delegations in Brussels…""…potential attacks…""…expanding network…"
Pieces of a puzzle, too complex to grasp fully, yet already taking shape.
Stefan continued to his room, his heart quickening.
In the stillness of his chamber, he reopened the atlas. The borders of Europe stared back, jagged and disunited. To him, they seemed like cracks in glass, waiting for the slightest pressure to shatter.
"One day," he whispered, "these lines will mean something else. One day, they won't divide—they'll unite."
He pressed his palm flat against the map, as if to absorb its weight.
Through the window, he heard footsteps of guards circling, voices of men carrying secrets, the hum of a world shifting toward crisis.
That night, as Stefan lay in bed, the darkness did not bring peace. Shadows stretched across the ceiling, their silence heavy. His eyes remained open, fixed on the glow of the moon through the curtains.
From somewhere deep in the house, a door creaked. Voices murmured in hurried tones. A sound—metal against wood, like a drawer slammed shut.
The whispers faded, but the unease remained.
Stefan closed his eyes, not in surrender but in focus. He imagined again the map, the word he had begun to carve in his mind: Union.
But tonight, another thought took shape, darker, sharper: There are others moving their pieces too.
He exhaled slowly, his small fists tightening beneath the blanket. Childhood might still claim his days, but nights belonged to the currents of power swirling beyond him.
And for the first time, Stefan wondered—not if he would change the future, but whether the future was already coming for him.