Beneath the city walls where the double-headed eagle flag fluttered, four languages tangled together in the market square. Beside a merchant haggling in German, a coachman spat out curses in Czech, while a nun reciting prayers in Polish passed behind a wandering musician singing in Hungarian.

At a red-roofed café on the east side of the square, a man folded his newspaper. The paper carried yet another article about an ethnic group walking out of parliament. Yesterday it was the Czechs; the day before, the Croats. No one knew who it would be tomorrow, but someone was bound to kick back their chair and leave.

The inscription carved above the main entrance of the imperial office shimmered in the afternoon sun.

𝐀.𝐄.𝐈.𝐎.𝐔 (All the world is subject to Austria.) [Austriae est imperare orbi universo]

Some said it meant Austria was destined to rule the world. But the most certain thing in this empire was the fact that no one could agree on the exact meaning of those five letters.