Oskar returned to the Royal Palace in Potsdam late on the ninth of July.
Not quietly.
He rode through Berlin and then through Potsdam with the Eternal Guard wrapped around him like iron ribs—black coats, fixed eyes, hooves striking stone in perfect, disciplined rhythm. The sound carried ahead of him like a drumbeat of warning.
He would ride east on the tenth.
And within two weeks—if the cables and calculations were correct—Russia would cross the frontier.
The east would burn.
Men stood with sons on their shoulders as he passed. Women pressed fists to their hearts. Shopkeepers stepped out of doorways and removed their caps. Children stared wide-eyed at the towering figure on the black stallion, a man who seemed less like a prince and more like a monument that had learned how to move.
He did not wave much.
He nodded.
That was enough.
Then he saw them.
Two blonde women standing on the sidewalk as if they were attending a parade instead of witnessing the eve of continental war.
Loose summer dresses. Twin tails tied high. One holding a camera, the other standing beside a painting easel propped boldly against the pavement like a stage prop. They did not look anxious. They looked excited.
The shorter one—Elise—he recognized instantly. Petite, restless, reckless as ever. A baby strapped to her back. Two more children gripping her skirts. All platinum-haired. All icy blue-eyed. Unmistakable.
Beside her stood Patricia.
Taller. Composed. Poised in a way that always made chaos seem theatrical rather than dangerous. Two toddlers tied close to her, another clinging to her knee. Fair-skinned. Clean. Beautiful.
A perfect little tableau.
Except for the absence.
The man they were all watching.
Oskar's stomach dropped.
Oh no.
Elise raised a newspaper above her head like a banner. The front page carried the painting—the painting—of Sarajevo. The over-dramatized rendering of him bare-chested and godlike atop Shadowmane, bullets frozen in flight, assassins beneath iron hooves.
Oskar's eyes widened despite himself.
"We did it for you, Oskar!" Elise shouted brightly in clear British English.
Heads snapped toward her.
The word you rang louder than it should have. The accent rang louder still.
Britain.
Now.
Patricia raised her voice as well.
"We love you, Oskar!"
The declaration cut clean across the street.
A ripple of confusion moved through the crowd like wind through tall grass. People stared. The Eternal Guard shifted subtly in formation. Hands lowered toward holsters without being told.
The children of the two women seemed to sense the shift. They grew shy under the sudden weight of attention, though their mothers stood unmoved.
Patricia lifted her toddler high, theatrical as ever.
"Say hello!"
The child blinked against the light and then waved.
"Hello," he said in a small voice. "I'm Arthur!"
The name hung in the air a fraction too long.
Behind Oskar, the Guard tightened.
Elise, emboldened, tried to throw the newspaper toward him.
It was a catastrophic throw.
The paper veered sideways, fluttering uselessly toward the horses.
Captain Carter spurred forward in one clean motion and caught it mid-air, his other hand already dropping halfway to his sidearm.
"It's fine," Oskar said, voice firm enough to cut through the tension.
Carter froze instantly.
The women behind him cheered like they had just scored a victory in some absurd personal contest. The children pumped their fists in imitation. A few younger women in the crowd—caught between scandal and admiration—awkwardly joined in.
"Oskar, we love you!" "Oskar, you're so handsome!"
The words sounded embarrassingly loud now.
Faces in the crowd tightened. Stares sharpened. The atmosphere turned brittle. The young women who had shouted flushed scarlet under the weight of it and fled down the street in embarrassed laughter, skirts gathered, giggling and whispering.
Oskar exhaled slowly.
Of all days.
Of all moments.
He extended his hand toward Carter without looking back.
"Give me that."
Carter placed the newspaper in his hand without hesitation.
The street had gone silent enough to hear the paper crackle.
Oskar unfolded the newspaper.
The page snapped open in his hands, the ink still sharp, the paper thick.
And he froze.
This was not a photograph.
It was not even a conventional painting.
It looked like something ripped from a future century — something closer to the cover of a war epic or a modern video game than a newspaper front page.
The painting dominated everything.
Sarajevo.
Shadowmane rearing into smoke and fire.
The assassin on his back, pistol flaring in panic, about to be crushed beneath iron hooves.
The Archduke reaching from the shattered car.
Sophie bleeding, shielding him with her body.
And at the center—
Him.
He stared.
One hand pressed to his bare chest where the bullets struck. White shirt torn to ribbons, hanging in dramatic strips from his shoulders. His torso rendered in impossible detail — muscle carved and shadowed like a classical statue dragged into gunfire.
Abs defined like marble.
Ribs visible under tension.
Blood streaking across skin as if painted deliberately for contrast.
His trousers torn and darkened with stains, fabric clinging, ripped high along the thigh.
And — absurdly, unmistakably — his lower body emphasized in a way that made him shift slightly in the saddle.
There was no subtlety to it.
The proportions were exaggerated.
The anatomy heroic.
The stance dominant.
He did not look wounded.
He looked mythic.
Light struck him from above as if heaven itself had chosen a focal point. Smoke curled away from him rather than around him. The Archduke and Sophie were present — yes — but smaller, pushed visually aside.
The composition made it clear:
This was not their moment.
This was his.
Even Shadowmane seemed sculpted larger than life — a war-horse from some underworld epic, eyes blazing, muscle straining, mid-rear in perfect controlled violence.
Oskar blinked.
"Oh God."
He leaned closer.
"They made me into some superhuman legend."
He squinted harder, brow furrowing.
"…Wait. I'm not that big, am I? The assassin looks child-sized compared to me. This is absurdly exaggerated."
Captain Carter leaned in slightly, glancing at the image with professional neutrality.
"With respect, Your Highness," he said evenly, "from what I witnessed that day… I would call it accurate."
Oskar turned his head slowly.
"Accurate?"
"Yes, sir."
Oskar looked back at the image.
Then at Carter.
"…Do I really look like that?"
Carter did not hesitate.
"Yes, sir."
Oskar frowned faintly.
He had only ever been himself.
In his own mind, he was simply a large man who trained hard, who healed fast, who moved decisively.
He knew he was strong. He knew he was tall. He knew people looked at him differently.
But this?
This was something else entirely.
This was not a man.
This was an icon.
He folded the newspaper slowly.
"…Is this everywhere?"
"Yes, sir. It spread a few days after the shooting. Then it went international. Rapidly."
Oskar exhaled through his nose.
"So that's why they look at me like that," he muttered. "Even those who weren't there."
Carter gave a slight shrug.
"Well, sir… the image of the assassin there at the side, that is impaled through the chest by a black metal rod tends to leave an impression."
Oskar slipped the newspaper into his jacket.
Carter lowered his voice.
"May I ask, sir… who were those women?"
Oskar did not look back toward the sidewalk.
"They are either the greatest mistake I have ever made," he said calmly, "or a gift."
A beat.
"Either way, we saw nothing."
"Yes, sir."
They rode on.
Hooves steady. Formation tightening. The sun lowering over Potsdam in warm gold light.
After a moment, Oskar allowed himself one glance over his shoulder.
Patricia still stood tall, waving as if she were at a garden party rather than the brink of war.
Elise laughed beside her, fearless as always.
And the children—
His children.
They watched him with open awe, the way children watch heroes in paintings.
The Guard shifted slightly, closing ranks as the distance widened.
Oskar faced forward again.
A faint regret brushed through him — not for the women. He had chosen his path long ago regarding them.
But for the children.
They deserved to know who their father was.
And one day — whether the world burned or survived — he would have to decide whether they would.
The sun dipped lower.
And Oskar rode on.