When he finally reached the palace grounds, he barely had time to swing down from Shadowmane before the courtyard erupted.
Children—an entire battalion of them—stormed him from every direction. They poured from staircases, from archways, from behind columns as if the palace itself had cracked open and released them. Twenty-one at a glance. Then more. A flood of small hands and sharp voices and silver-haired chaos.
They shouted his name.
They clawed at his boots.
They fought for space against his legs and belt and coat, desperate to be the first to touch him, to confirm he was not rumor, not smoke, not a casualty whispered about behind closed doors.
Some clung to him like vines.
Some simply stared, wide-eyed, as if he had returned from the dead.
And behind that storm—waiting in a line too deliberate to be accidental—stood his women.
Tanya.
Anna.
Princess Gunderlinde.
Cecilie.
Bertha Krupp.
Five of them.
Five pillars of the house he had built, standing beneath the long summer light like judges awaiting a sentence.
They had arranged themselves without meaning to—Gunderlinde and Anna small and tight with tension, Bertha broader and immovable, Cecilie tall and composed like an aristocratic spear.
But Tanya stood at the front.
She always stood at the front.
Their arms were folded.
Their jaws set.
Their eyes hard.
Not anger.
Something colder.
Fear, turned rigid.
In the past year alone—1913—they had borne him more children until the count had ceased to feel human and begun to feel dynastic. Add Bertha's and Cecilie's—publicly not his heirs, privately undeniably his—and the number swelled further. Four from Bertha. Three from Cecilie. Others who were not his by blood but were his by name and protection.
Nearly thirty children stood in that courtyard.
A whole schoolhouse worth of little feet.
They watched him—some fierce, some trembling, some only seeking certainty—while the women watched him like wolves who had waited too long beside a wounded leader.
Oskar stepped forward into the chaos.
His hands moved on instinct—lifting one child from his thigh, steadying another who tripped, ruffling hair, catching a small body mid-fall before it struck the ground.
He was smiling.
But it was not the smile of a man at peace.
It was the smile of a man holding a wall together.
When he reached the women, the mask lasted one second longer.
He gave them a smile.
And Tanya broke.
Her composure shattered like glass.
A sob tore from her throat—raw, unrestrained—and she surged forward and jumped into his embrace, colliding with him, arms locking around his body, face pressed against his chest as if she needed to hear his heart beating to believe he had not died.
Anna followed, shaking, clutching at him like someone who had already lost once and would not survive losing again.
Gunderlinde's strength evaporated. She swayed, caught herself, nearly fainting the way she had when the first news had struck the palace.
Cecilie did not rush. She stepped forward with rigid control—but her eyes were wet and furious, furious that she needed him alive this badly.
Bertha hesitated.
Only for a heartbeat.
Oskar extended his hand toward her as an invitation.
She stepped in, pressing close, jaw tight, relief and rage braided together behind her eyes.
Five women clung to the same man as if their grip alone could deny death.
They had been sick with worry.
When word had come that he had been shot, the palace had turned strange. Gunderlinde and Cecilie had collapsed. Bertha had gone to the royal palace to confirm the news and wept until her voice failed. Tanya and Anna had nearly taken rifles from the guards and ridden south themselves, ready to hunt down whoever had dared touch him.
Only the discipline of the Eternal Guard—and Karl having been given command had kept the palace from emptying in vengeance.
Karl had confined them.
Heddy had come to steady them.
They had raged at him. Demanded blood. Demanded action.
Now the fear poured out in one violent tide.
For hours, Oskar allowed himself to be only a man inside his own walls.
They ate together—no servants, no ceremony—just one man, five women, and too many children for the table to contain.
They served him themselves. Hovering. Refusing to leave his side. Filling his plate before he could lift a hand. Touching his shoulder, his arm, his back as if confirming he had not dissolved.
They fed him like he was one of the children.
The children laughed at that.
He endured the humiliation with quiet amusement.
It was absurd.
It was excessive.
It was love.
And as his wives hovered close, pressing desperate kisses to his face, as children climbed into his lap and tugged at his sleeves, as laughter rang across the courtyard and drifted into the warm evening air—
Oskar allowed himself to forget.
Just for a moment.
He let the noise of joy drown out the noise of war. He let small hands grip his fingers. Let tiny voices talk over one another. Let warmth replace strategy. Let life, loud and chaotic and stubborn, exist without calculation.
He did not think about the millions who would soon march.
He did not think about the war he was about to wage, or the losses he would suffer.
He simply sat there, surrounded by what he had built.
Later, when the light thinned and the first yawns began to steal the edges off the noise, the children were gathered.
Arguments dissolved into soft grumbling. Small hands rubbed tired eyes. The dining hall emptied of shrieks and became a murmur.
They were not sent to separate rooms.
Not tonight.
Tonight they moved together—like a small procession—down the long corridor toward the great shared chamber at the end.
One of Oskar's little ideas.
It was a wide-windowed room with heavy curtains drawn against the dark. Shelves lined with books far beyond their years—histories, epics, maps, tales of kings and monsters and explorers who had once believed the world stood upon a mighty turtles back.
He called it the bedtime room.
A place where they gathered as one.
Because if he tried to read to each child alone, the sun would rise before he reached even half of them.
So they went together.
A dynasty in miniature, padding down stone floors toward stories and candlelight.
That night, they all came. Even the older ones who were far past the age of bedtime stories, because children—no matter their age—still wanted their father when fear lived in the halls.
So Oskar sat with them and read.
A simple book.
Goodnight Moon.
And when he finished, he did not close it like a prince.
He closed it like a father.
"Though soon I must go," he told them quietly, voice low and steady, "and we will be far apart… we will share the same sky. The same moon. The same stars."
Small faces stared at him.
"So when you look at the moon," he said, "I will be looking at it too. In that sense… we will not be far away."
Some of the younger ones didn't understand. Of course they didn't.
They asked why.
Why did he have to go? Why couldn't someone else go? Why couldn't he stay home?
Oskar smiled at them—warm, real—and answered with the same simple truth he had given the nation.
"When you see your neighbor's home on fire," he said, "you don't wait. You don't debate. You move."
He looked from face to face.
"If you see your brother stumble and fall, you don't stand there watching. You help him stand again."
His voice didn't rise. It didn't need to.
"And the truth is—real virtue doesn't do this for reward. You don't help because you expect a gift back. You help because it is right."
He paused.
"And if someone asks how to repay you… you tell them: do good for another person. Carry it forward."
His hand rested on the book.
"If each person carried small acts of kindness from one to another… maybe one day the world would be calmer. Maybe one day peace would stop being a dream."
He smiled again—sadder this time, but still gentle.
"So I go," he said, "because when you see smoke… you don't wait for flames."
Even after that, the children still wanted more from him. Not philosophy—him.
So one by one he kissed them goodnight.
And when he reached Juniel and Lailael, his eldest daughters, both were in tears as if he was leaving forever. They clung to him with shaking arms, voices cracking, and he hugged them hard and promised them—quietly, firmly—that he would return.
Then came Imperiel.
As always, the boy tried to act all proper and proud. Tried to look like a young ruler instead of a child.
But he had come to hear the story.
And when Oskar knelt before him, Imperiel's mask faltered like it always did.
He hugged his father.
Not stiffly. Not as a prince.
As a child.
Oskar held him and felt the boy's grip tighten, and he understood with sudden clarity that for all Imperiel's hardness, the child was still terrified of a world without his father in it.
The room's lights dimmed.
Some children were already asleep. Others fought it stubbornly, blinking heavy eyes.
Oskar rose carefully, moving toward the door with slow steps so he wouldn't wake the ones already gone under.
And when he slipped out into the corridor—
He found all five women waiting for him.
Still.
Silent.
Unmoved.
As if they had decided together that he would not be allowed even one moment of rest tonight.
Because they knew—
they would not see him again soon.
For a long time.
Soon enough, slender hands claimed his larger ones, and with serious expressions his women led him toward the bath.
To that same room where, long ago, Tanya and Oskar had first crossed the invisible line between duty and desire. Where heat and steam had dissolved hesitation and something deeper had taken root between them.
The chamber was no longer small. It had been rebuilt in Roman fashion — wide, stone-lined, the bath large enough to hold them all. Steam curled upward in soft spirals, blurring edges, softening light, turning flesh to marble and shadow.
White towels slipped away from curving shoulders. Hair loosened and fell free. They stood before him — not as princesses or industrial heiresses or political alliances — but as women who loved him and refused to pretend otherwise.
And tonight, none of them held back.
Their hands found him in the rising steam — coat unbuttoned, belt unfastened, boots drawn aside. Fabric peeled away in layers until only his shirt remained.
Then they stopped.
The bandages.
Trembling fingers replaced playful ones. Carefully — reverently — they began to unwrap the stained cloth from his shoulders and ribs.
The sight beneath silenced them.
Blood, sweat, bruised muscle, old scars crossing new wounds. His body glistened in the steam like something carved from bronze and returned from battle.
Tears came quietly.
Not delicate tears — but the kind born from fear already survived.
As the last of the cloth fell away and he stood bare before them, none turned shy. They moved closer instead.
Not embarrassed.
Protective.
Kisses brushed over bruised skin. Fingers wiped away blood and dirt with slow care. The steam thickened around them as they guided him toward the bath.
The water parted for him.
His massive frame lowered into the warmth, muscles easing despite himself. Gunderlinde, gentle and precise despite her softness, knelt behind him with stitching tools in hand. Her fingers were steady as she worked to close the wound at his shoulder.
The others hovered close — tending, touching, whispering.
Oskar had written the medical manuals. He knew what proper treatment looked like.
He also knew that kissing away blood was not among the official steps.
Still, he did not protest.
He leaned back against the stone rim, arms resting wide along the edge of the bath, steam curling around his shoulders. Five women pressed close now — no towels between them, no distance left to maintain.
Tanya came to him first.
She seized his face in both hands, eyes blazing.
"How dare you scare us like that," she hissed, voice breaking between fury and relief. "Do you have any idea what we felt?"
Before he could answer, she kissed him — not gently, not carefully, but fiercely, as if punishing him for surviving.
The others closed in around him.
Soft bodies against hardened muscle. Heat against heat. He felt less like a prince and more like a man caught in a storm of affection and reprimand.
Tanya kept whispering sharp words into his mouth, accusing him of recklessness even as her fingers refused to let him go.
Anna pressed against him next, desperate in her devotion, murmuring love against his neck. Cecilie traced the scars on his chest with something like awe. Gunderlinde finished her stitching and leaned forward, breath warm at his ear.
They all knew why he did what he did.
They all knew he would do worse before he was finished.
And that knowledge terrified them more than the wounds themselves.
It was fortunate he was as large as he was, because otherwise five women would have overwhelmed him entirely.
Instead, he held them — one arm around Tanya, another brushing Anna's waist — kissing one, then the next, murmuring how beautiful they were even as they scolded him for risking himself again.
The bathwater rippled around them, steam thick and golden in the light.
It was not simply passion.
It was relief.
It was ownership.
It was love wrapped in anger and fear and desire all at once.
And in the warmth of that Roman bath, surrounded by five women who refused to let him bleed alone, Oskar allowed himself — just for a moment — to rest.