The Reich Chancellery loomed ahead like a temple carved for gods of iron. Its sheer walls of granite and marble reflected the light of the torches and searchlights that ringed its perimeter, casting long, knife-like shadows across the cobblestones. The parade in the streets had ended, but here at the heart of Berlin an even more solemn ritual was about to begin.
Christian Wolfe's boots clicked against the polished stone as he followed Admiral Canaris through the grand entrance. The air smelled of oil and disinfectant, scrubbed clean of humanity, as though nothing impure could be allowed to touch these walls. Guards in black SS uniforms stood at attention, their faces pale masks and their eyes unblinking.
The corridors seemed endless, vaulted ceilings, marble floors, chandeliers that dripped light like frozen fire. Every inch of the Chancellery radiated power, yet also imprisonment. It was not a place for men. It was a place for gods and monsters.
At last, they reached a tall set of doors. A secretary, stiff in his gray suit, looked them over with the precision of a man cataloging specimens. Then, with a shallow nod, he pushed the doors open.
Christian stepped into a chamber that felt less like an office and more like a sanctum. Long maps stretched across tables, marked with pins, arrows, and circles. Generals clustered around them, their uniforms weighed down by medals. At the head of the room, standing beneath the golden eagle of the Reich, was the man himself.
Adolf Hitler.
The Führer was smaller than Christian expected, his posture slightly bent, yet the air around him seemed to thrum with something unnamable. His eyes icy and fever-bright. They snapped to whoever spoke, dissecting them, commanding them. The generals, titans of the Wehrmacht, bent beneath that gaze like supplicants before an altar.
Christian felt his stomach knot. He had seen death, he had delivered it, but this was something different. This was death wearing flesh. "France will fall," Hitler declared, his voice rising like a whip crack. His finger stabbed at the map spread across the table. "The Maginot Line is their false god. We will bypass it, through the Ardennes, through Belgium, through Holland. A blow so fast, so devastating, the French will collapse before they can blink."
The room murmured in agreement, though Christian noticed the flicker of unease on a few faces. One general dared to ask about Britain, about the possibility of intervention. Hitler turned his eyes on him, and the man fell silent as though struck.
"They will not act swiftly enough," Hitler snapped. "We move like lightning, and lightning cannot be stopped." His words filled the chamber, saturating it with fervor. The generals drank it in like wine. Christian could almost hear their hearts racing, could almost see the intoxication in their eyes. Victory was not just promised it was demanded, inevitable, ordained.
Canaris stood to one side, hands folded behind his back. His face was carved from stone, but Christian saw the flicker of his eyes, the careful calculation in the silence he held. Then those fever-bright eyes turned.
"Wolfe."
The sound of his name in the Führer's voice froze Christian where he stood. "You were in Poland."
"Yes, mein Führer," Christian answered, his throat dry.
"You saw the weakness of the Slavs. You saw the triumph of the Reich." Hitler's voice pressed forward, demanding assent.
"Yes, mein Führer."
"Then you know France will be no different. Their spirit is brittle, their defenses a paper wall. It will take men like you to cut through them. Shadow-warriors. Silent blades." His gaze lingered, burning. "Are you willing?"
The room was still. Every eye turned to him, waiting. Christian's mind flashed with images; the burning radio station in Poland, Jansen's blood spilling in the mud, Kristina's whisper to flee, to run before the shadows devoured him whole.
But here, in this chamber, beneath those eyes, there was only one answer.
"Yes, mein Führer."
A smile ghosted across Hitler's lips, thin and brittle as glass. "Good. The Reich has need of wolves." The words lingered in the air like prophecy. When the meeting broke, the generals spilled out into the corridors, buzzing with the energy of conquest. Maps were rolled, orders signed, voices low but eager. France was already falling in their minds, its defeat inevitable, its ashes already claimed.
Christian walked beside Canaris, the older man silent until they reached the shadowed edge of the hall. "You answered well," Canaris murmured at last. "Perhaps too well." Christian glanced at him. "What do you mean?"
The Admiral's eyes flicked toward the doors behind them, then back. His voice lowered to a whisper.
"Men who give the Führer everything he wants…" His lips tightened. "… often discover he demands more than they can give." For a moment, Christian saw it, the cracks in the Admiral's façade, the weight of something unspoken pressing against him.
Then it was gone, shuttered behind gray eyes once more. "France will be the true test," Canaris said. "Not of the Reich. Of you."
They walked on, their boots echoing in the cavernous halls. Outside, Berlin still glowed with torches, drunk on victory, blind to the shadows lengthening at its heart.
And in Christian Wolfe's chest, a dread he could not name began to coil tighter, whispering of what was to come.