The cell door slammed shut with a damp echo.
Footsteps followed.
The guards straightened before the man even came fully into view. They did not need to see his insignia to recognize him.
Black coat. Black gloves. Pale eyes that reflected nothing.
Heydrich stopped in front of the last cell.
"You again," the man inside said weakly, raising his arm to shield his eyes from the overly bright lantern Heydrich was holding into the space of near complete darkness.
Heydrich did not respond. He simply stared at Leon, who slowly lowered his arm. His body was ragged. Heydrich's anger burned, not directed at Leon alone but even more at himself. Leon was the embodiment of his greatest failure.
A failure the Führer had not punished him for at all. That fact that bothered Heydrich more than any reprimand ever could.
Slowly, he lowered the lantern in his hand. A pale shadow settled across his face. He remembered the words Paul had spoken to him only hours after his wife's death.
"You bear no responsibility for this, Heydrich. You were a true companion to me. Continue to be so."
The sentence still rang in his ears. It was something he could barely fathom. The normally vengeful Führer, the cold blooded dictator, had refrained from any punishment, from any wrath at all. He had simply patted Heydrich on the shoulder and walked past him.
"As for the man who killed my wife, let him rot for some time. One day I will meet him."
That day had come.
Slowly, Heydrich turned as he heard approaching footsteps.
"Mein Führer," Heydrich said, receiving only a subtle nod from Paul, whose gaze was fixed entirely on Leon.
"This…" Leon muttered as he recognized the man. Suddenly, he began laughing, loud, using what little strength he had left.
"Now? Now you come to visit me?" Leon laughed again, his shackles scraping against the stone floor.
Paul did not answer. He simply extended his hand toward Heydrich who, after the briefest hesitation, handed over the key.
Paul stepped into the cell, looking down at Leon, who was still leaning against the wall.
"A chair," Paul said without turning.
One of the guards hurried to bring a wooden chair into the dark cell, illuminated only by Heydrich's lantern standing between the two men. Paul sat down while Leon remained leaned against the wall.
"Leave us. All of you," Paul ordered.
"But—" Heydrich began.
"No backtalk," Paul said sternly.
Heydrich lowered his gaze and slowly retreated, the guards following him out of the cell. After a few steps, he stopped, letting them continue down the corridor while he remained behind. He leaned against the cold stone wall, head slightly lowered, listening past the corner. Leon's voice was still audible.
"Why are you so calm?" Leon asked, a smug smile tugging at his lips.
"Why aren't you beating me? Killing me, for God's sake?" His voice grew louder.
"Why—"
"Months ago, long before your attack in Prague, I spent an evening on the balcony of the Reichstag," Paul began suddenly, his eyes devoid of emotion.
Leon frowned, confusion flashing across his face.
"There, flying low against the sunset, I saw an eagle. And he told me another story."
Paul's voice was steady, almost distant.
"A peaceful family lived in a small town. The father worked tirelessly at a factory while the mother sold vegetables from the family's small garden. They had two children, a sister and a brother. The sister fell ill early and died only days before the father returned from the front.
"Three remained. But fate was cruel. Both parents were taken soon after. Only the brother was left. He was already of age, so he began working at the local train station, earning a decent wage. One day, he met a woman stepping off a train."
Leon's gaze darkened. His lips twitched.
"They fell in love quickly. The woman and her sister had fled the war, seeking refuge. For a while, there was peace. But eventually, the war reached even their small village. Destruction followed. Fire. Gunshots. Screams.
"And then, the Germans killed them both. The wife. The sister. Leaving the brother alone once again."
Paul paused briefly.
"In the ruins of his home, beside their fresh corpses, the brother sat and cried into the sky. He swore revenge. Revenge upon the Germans. Upon the man who had killed his wife and her sister."
"I contemplated long and deeply why the eagle would show me such a fate. Such an ordinary fate."
Paul looked at Leon, whose shackles were stretched to their limit as he tried to reach him, chains grinding harshly against the stone.
"Until I realized…"
Paul's voice remained calm.
"The name of the man he wished to kill was Heinrich Jaeger.
"And the brother's name… was Leon."
"You bastard!" Leon roared. "You son of a bitch, I will kill you! How do you know that?"
"Will you now?" Paul asked, a faint smile touching his lips as he slowly leaned forward and seized Leon's chin, forcing him to meet his gaze.
Leon struggled against the chains, metal shrieking against stone.
"No," Paul said quietly. The smile vanished in an instant.
"You will not."
He released Leon abruptly, letting his head snap back against the wall.
"Because the story told me something else."
Paul straightened.
"Beneath the rubble and debris of your home lay a fragment of the bomb that killed your wife."
Leon's breathing faltered.
"It was not German."
Silence pressed in from every corner of the cell.
"It was Polish," Paul continued evenly. "A misplaced drop. An error. Chaos."
Leon stared at him, disbelief and fury colliding in his expression.
"It was the Poles who killed your wife, Leon."
Paul watched as Leon sank deeper and deeper into despair. The fury in his eyes did not vanish, but it fractured, uncertainty creeping in where certainty had once burned.
Paul tilted his head ever so slightly, noticing movement in the corner of his vision. A faint smile touched his lips before he spoke again.
"You know, Leon, this world is only a construct. A facade. A wretched play performed on a stage that means nothing in the greater design."
Leon's breathing grew uneven.
"When I realized that," Paul continued calmly, "my sadness vanished. My anger followed. Because I understood something fundamental."
He stepped closer, his shadow swallowing Leon's trembling frame.
"That I remain a pawn… while also being the player."
Leon stared at him, shaken now not by violence, but by the absence of it.
"You wanted me to kill you," Paul said softly. "You wanted me to torture you. To rage. To prove that you had wounded me."
He crouched slightly so they were eye level.
"No."
Paul's voice dropped to almost a whisper.
"I will let you be free."
Leon's lips parted, confusion overtaking hatred.
"Join the rest of your family," Paul murmured. "Leave this wretched world. This place so far from reality… and yet reality itself."
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
"Why don't you?" Leon suddenly asked, his voice cracking. "Why don't you leave this world?!"
Paul looked at him in silence.
"The Eagle will not allow me," Paul replied at last. "I still have many things to accomplish."
His tone was calm, almost detached.
"I will unify this world under one banner. I will play the game to its end and hope that my moves make it a better place."
For the first time, something shifted in his expression.
"Elisabeth…" Paul paused, drawing a slow breath.
"She was like a queen's sacrifice."
Both Leon and Heydrich, still lingering behind the corner, looked at Paul in stunned silence.
Leon's gaze was filled with terror, with something inside him that had broken.
Heydrich, on the other hand, slowly balled his hand into a fist. A twisted smile crept across his face as he listened.
"This man… he is simply otherworldly," he muttered under his breath, watching fascinated as Paul stepped closer to the prisoner.
The metal key slid into the first shackle.
Click.
How right you are, Heydrich, Paul thought, tilting his head ever so slightly before unlocking the final restraint that bound Leon.
Click.
The last shackle dropped to the stone floor.
For a moment, Leon simply stared at his freed hands, as if expecting the chains to reappear. Then, slowly, painfully, he pushed himself to his feet.
He limped away down the corridor, each step uneven, passing Heydrich without even sparing him a glance. Heydrich remained behind the corner, watching him go.
"Why?" Heydrich finally asked, unable to hold himself back any longer. "Why are you letting him leave just like that?"
"Because I know the full story of Leon Vasily," he said coldly. "Including how it ends."
Berlin. Roof of an ordinary house
The wind swept across the rooftops.
Leon inhaled shakily.
"Huh."
The last of the air left his lungs in a trembling breath.
His eyes closed.
"I will join you now," he whispered.
For a brief second, there was stillness.
Then his body tipped forward.
His foot followed the trajectory.
And Leon fell, cutting silently through the air, his body dropping like a stone toward the street below.
-------------------------------------
Now back to the war
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