It was the late evening of June 26, and the summer sun still refused to die.
Light poured through the tall windows of Oskar's study, painting the palace walls in warm gold as if nothing in the world could ever truly go wrong. Outside, the gardens breathed softly in the heat. Somewhere far off, birds kept singing as if they had not heard that the century was standing on a knife.
Inside, the letter lay on the floor where it had fallen.
Oskar sat in his chair and stared at it as if it were a verdict.
He wore a clean white shirt, Prussian-blue trousers, black leather boots—every detail the perfect image of the Crown Prince as the Empire wanted him: disciplined, immaculate, made of strength. The sort of figure his father liked to parade before cameras and crowds to tell the world: Germany is not soft. Germany is not tired. Germany is built of iron.
But sitting there in that quiet room, Oskar did not feel like iron.
He felt… lost.
The clock in his head wouldn't stop. Routes, schedules, trains, telegraphs. The distance to Bosnia. The math of hours. The ugly question of whether he could arrive in time—whether he could arrive at all. His thoughts ran in circles so fast they blurred: Send a telegram. Send two. Have Father send one. Demand the visit be cancelled. Threaten. Beg. Offer a reward. Offer troops. Offer secrecy.
And then the darker thought came—uninvited, poisonous, rational in the way only evil rationality could be.
What if he lets it happen?
If Ferdinand and Sophie died… did it truly have to become war? Was the world really so fragile that one death—however significant—must ignite an inferno? He could still pressure Vienna to restrain itself. He could still press Germany to refuse the blank cheque. He could still hold Russia back through other channels. He could still—surely—keep the catastrophe contained.
He hated himself for thinking it.
But rulers did not have the luxury of thinking like ordinary men. Ordinary men could mourn and call it virtue. Rulers had to count the dead before they existed. Rulers had to decide whose life mattered more when the equation became impossible.
And if the price of peace was one life—two lives—
Then perhaps… perhaps it was simply another sacrifice on the road to a better world.
He sat with that thought, staring at the letter on the floor, and felt something cold and heavy coil inside his chest.
Then the door burst open.
Small feet slapped across the floorboards, fast and reckless, and two voices screamed with bright, happy violence.
"Father!"
They crashed into his legs like cannonballs—two little bodies, three years old, laughing so hard they could barely breathe. Grel and Gael clung to him with small hands, begging at once, talking over each other.
"Come play!" "Outside!" "Sun is still up!" "Ice cream!" "Before it goes away!"
Oskar looked down at them—and something in him twisted.
Two boys growing too quickly, silver-haired like winter sunlight, eyes wide and untouched by anything the world hid behind treaties and uniforms. They had no idea what stood waiting in Sarajevo. No idea what men would do in the name of pride and revenge. No idea what a single bullet could open.
His mouth pulled into a bitter smile that tried to be warm.
Then another figure appeared in the doorway—taller, controlled, already wearing responsibility like a coat.
"Grel. Gael." The voice was sharp with practiced authority. "You know the rules. This is Father's study. You don't disturb him when he's working."
The twins groaned and whined and half-hid behind Oskar's legs, but they listened—because the one speaking was their eldest brother, and he carried weight even at nine.
Imperiel stepped in properly then—nearly a young man already in posture if not in years—and his eyes went immediately to the letter on the floor.
He crossed the room, knelt, picked it up, and placed it into Oskar's hands with the solemn care of someone returning a fallen weapon.
"Father…" Imperiel's voice dropped. The boy's eyes had already caught the signature, the name written like a seal at the bottom. "Are you alright? It's from Ferdinand—what did he say? Did something happen?"
Oskar's mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Behind him the twins were still bright with summer and ignorance, still living in a world where names meant only warmth.
"Uncle Ferdinand!" one of them squealed the instant he heard it, grinning as if the word itself was a promise. "Is Uncle Ferdinand coming too? To Norway? Like last time!"
The other gasped, eyes wide. "Yes! Uncle Ferdinand! Uncle Ferdinand!"
Uncle.
The word hit Oskar harder than the letter ever could.
For a heartbeat his earlier thought—the cold, monstrous thought that perhaps Ferdinand could be sacrificed for the greater good—flashed through him again.
And died.
Because this wasn't a headline. It wasn't a diplomat. It wasn't a chess piece.
It was family.
A man his children loved. A man whose laughter lived in their memories. A man whose death would not be "contained" inside politics, but would tear straight through a household—straight through many small hearts that trusted the world to be safe.
Imperiel glanced down at the letter again, then back up at his father, confusion tightening into real fear.
"Is he coming?" he asked quietly. "Is that what this says?"
Oskar felt something in him fracture—and in the same moment, something else hardened.
For a second he nearly told them everything. Nearly let the dread spill out into the room like smoke.
But he swallowed it down like blood.
"No," he said. His voice was steady only because he forced it to be. "Ferdinand isn't coming this time."
A pause—just long enough for the twins' faces to fall.
"…Maybe next time," Oskar added, and hated how thin it sounded.
Imperiel's brows knit. "Then why are you— Father, what's wrong? What's happening?"
The twins had gone quiet now too, sensing the shift without understanding it, their small smiles fading as if the air itself had turned colder.
Oskar looked at all three of them—at the oldest trying to be brave, at the youngest suddenly uncertain—and the decision finished forming inside him like iron cooling in a mold.
He realized that this was his moment of action.
Not tomorrow.
Not after another telegram.
Not after another calculation.
Now.
Oskar rose.
He pulled Imperiel close, one firm hand at the back of the boy's neck, steady and grounding. A transfer of strength. A silent inheritance.
"I'll be back soon," he said quietly. "You're in charge until I return."
Imperiel nodded, trying to stand taller than his nine years allowed.
Oskar knelt before the twins. They threw themselves into his arms without understanding why the embrace felt tighter than usual.
"Ice cream later," he told them, forcing a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Father has important work."
They believed him. Children always did.
"I'm going to make sure your Uncle Ferdinand is alright," he said.
As if that were all.
As if it were not the hinge upon which a century turned.
He stood.
And this time, he did not hesitate.
He stepped out of the study and into the corridor like a man walking into a storm he had already survived in another life.
Karl was there, exactly where he always was when fate tried to get clever.
Leaning against the wall.
Revolver at his hip.
Eyes sharp, awake, already measuring the angle of the coming disaster.
"So," Karl said quietly. No drama. No questions that didn't need asking. "It's about that time."
Oskar stopped.
Karl tilted his head, studying Oskar's face the way a banker studies a signature.
"You're going to Sarajevo," he said. Not a question. "To make sure history doesn't repeat itself."
"Yes."
It came out flat, final, like a door locking.
Karl pushed off the wall at once. "Then let's go."
Oskar almost smiled—almost.
"Not this time."
Karl blinked. "What?"
"You stay," Oskar said. "You hold things together here."
Karl's jaw tightened as if those words physically offended him.
"You cannot be serious." He took a step closer. "What would you do without me? We built an empire together. We survived an assassination together. Africa—everything. We're partners, Oskar. You and me against the world."
Oskar's expression softened—but only in the way a lion might soften when it looks at the cub that insists it's old enough to hunt.
"I know," he said. "And that's why you're staying."
Karl's brows twitched. "Because you think I can't handle it?"
"Because you're precious to me," Oskar replied simply. "And because Heddy and the children would never forgive me if something happened."
Karl's throat worked once. He didn't like how personal that sounded. He didn't like how final it sounded.
He jabbed a finger toward Oskar's chest. "And what about you? You still have scars. Your right hand—your body—don't act like you're invincible. What happens if you fall?"
For the first time, Oskar's eyes sharpened into something colder.
Not fear.
Calculation.
"If I fall," Oskar said softly, "then Germany cannot afford a second of confusion."
Karl stared.
Oskar stepped in close enough that only Karl could hear the next words clearly.
"I've already instructed the Eternal Guard to answer to you if something happens to me." His voice didn't tremble. It didn't plead. It stated a procedure. "You will take full control of the Oskar Industrial Group, you will protect my family and the nation. You become the wall."
Silence hit like a slap.
Karl's face drained. His eyes went glassy, the stubborn anger in him suddenly robbed of oxygen.
"What are you saying?" he whispered. "Oskar… it's just one assassin, right? So why are you speaking like—like you'll die?"
Oskar exhaled through his nose, and for a moment there was something almost gentle in him—something human.
"I don't intend to fall," he said. "But I'm not a boy anymore. I'm responsible for more lives than my own. So I prepare for the worst."
He let the words settle, then added, quieter:
"Promise me."
Karl swallowed. Then nodded once—sharp, forced, final.
"I promise."
Oskar held his gaze.
"Good."
Karl's voice cracked slightly despite his best efforts. "Then be careful."
Oskar's eyes didn't flinch.
"I will."
They both knew that was a lie.
And as Oskar turned, small figures watched from behind the half-open door. He knew they were there.
He did not look back.
He moved.
A sudden, controlled burst, as if his body had flipped a switch from prince to weapon. He ran past guards who snapped upright too late, past servants whose mouths opened in confusion.
A maid was cleaning a window—wide open to the summer air.
Oskar didn't slow.
He vaulted.
The maid screamed.
For a heartbeat, the Crown Prince of Germany was nothing but a white shirt and black boots cutting through sunlight—falling from the third floor like a man who didn't believe gravity had authority over him.
He hit the courtyard stones and rolled once—clean, practiced, violent—coming up on one knee with only a smear of dust on his sleeve.
Not even winded.
The Eternal Guard shouted in alarm. Steel and boots and hands reaching for rifles—
But Oskar was already moving.
He did not whistle.
He did not call out.
And yet Shadowmane came.
The stallion emerged from the courtyard mist as if the air itself had parted for him—too large for an ordinary horse, too black to belong fully to daylight. His coat swallowed light rather than reflected it, muscle shifting beneath it like something carved from living stone. No saddle weighed his back. No reins bound his neck.
He came because he knew.
Shadowmane stopped only a heartbeat before Oskar, hooves striking stone once, sharp and final. His nostrils flared, breath steaming, ears angled forward as if listening to something far beyond human hearing.
Oskar did not hesitate.
He seized a fistful of mane and vaulted up in one clean motion, landing bare-backed against the stallion's spine like he had done it a thousand times before.
Shadowmane did not need guiding.
The moment Oskar settled, the stallion surged forward.
Captain Carter of Third Company burst out through the main entrance, eyes wide.
"Your Highness—where are you going? What is happening?!"
Oskar didn't look at him long.
"No time," he said. "I must go."
Carter's mouth tightened. Then he nodded like a man receiving an order from God himself.
"Third Company!" he roared. "Mount up!"
Oskar wheeled Shadowmane.
And only then—only then—did he glance back.
Women flooded into the courtyard, dresses gathered in their hands, faces pale and frantic. Maids followed, carrying bundles of baby joy like fragile treasure. Children ran behind them, silver hair flashing, confusion on their small faces as they watched their father become something too fast to catch.
Higher up, in the palace windows, stood Wilhelm and the Empress.
Watching.
Oskar met his father's eyes for one heartbeat.
No apology.
No request.
Just a single nod—I am doing what must be done.
Then he turned away.
Because if he hesitated, even for a moment, the century would win.
Shadowmane exploded out of the gates.
Not a gallop.
A charge.
Hooves struck the street with a sound like drums—hard enough that heads turned down entire blocks. The Eternal Guard thundered behind him, a line of disciplined violence flowing through the city like a blade drawn from its sheath.
Berlin was alive even in the evening.
Motorcars rolled. Motorcycles snarled. Double-decker buses clattered past. Children ran in parks while mothers watched. Men poured from factories. Lovers leaned on railings. A city breathing, laughing, believing in tomorrow.
And then they saw him.
The Crown Prince, riding like a man chasing judgement.
People stepped aside without being told. Vehicles slowed. Conversations died. Faces lifted, eyes widening with something older than politics.
Hope.
Not the soft kind.
The desperate kind that appears when ordinary people sense the dark coming and look for someone larger than themselves to stand between them and the storm.
Oskar felt it like heat on his back—the weight of their gaze, the silent demand:
Do something.
And he did.
Shadowmane leapt a stopped motorcar in one brutal bound—metal and rubber beneath him like toys. Gasps erupted. Hooves landed on asphalt with a crack that sounded like the world breaking.
No normal horse moved like that.
No normal man rode like that.
Oskar didn't care.
He rode because he had to.
He rode because for whatever reason, he was the only one in this world who truly knew what was coming, and only he could stop it.
He rode because he could feel it now—the whole beautiful life he'd built here, the warmth and family and laughter and fragile peace—
balanced on the tip of a bullet in a foreign city.
Berlin blurred into streaks of brick and smoke.
Ahead, the station rose from the city like a cathedral of iron and steam — arches breathing fire, rails glinting like drawn blades.
Oskar leaned low over Shadowmane's neck.
This was not a ride.
It was a reckoning.
He rode as a man rides toward his final judgment — toward the test that would decide whether the century turned toward light… or plunged headlong into hell.
Steam swallowed the platform. Iron screamed. Time narrowed to a single line of rail.
Whatever waited at the end of it, he would not stop.
Not until the end.
---
That night, the German railways shook.
Signals flashed red across stations from Berlin to Dresden. Dispatch offices filled with shouts and confusion. Telegraph lines sparked with a single impossible message:
The Crown Prince has taken a locomotive.
No royal carriage.
No escort train.
No protocol.
Just an engine.
Steam and iron and a coal car.
Oskar stood in the cab like a man possessed, sleeves rolled, feeding coal with his own hands, pushing the machine harder than any regulation would ever allow. The firebox glowed like a furnace from hell. The boiler screamed under pressure.
Behind him, in the coal car, Shadowmane stood steady and silent — black upon black, the stallion's coat blending into the mound of coal as if he had risen from it. Eyes forward. Watching the night blur past.
They were flying south.
Railway masters across Germany stepped aside in disbelief. Passenger trains were halted mid-route. Freight convoys shunted onto sidings. Entire timetables torn apart in seconds.
No one dared interfere.
Not when it was him.
Not when word spread fast enough to outpace the train itself.
He rides to Austria.
He rides to Sarajevo.
He rides to stop something.
Behind him, another locomotive tore loose from Berlin — Third Company aboard, scrambling to keep pace. But they were chasing a storm. Oskar's engine was already a ghost ahead of them.
And soon enough the night of the 26th burned away into the 27th.
Steam against moonlight.
Steel against distance.
Telegraph poles flashing past like seconds being torn from a clock.
Time was running out.
Even as the engine ran faster.
Through Saxony.
Through Bohemia.
Through Vienna's great arteries.
The locomotive ran too hot.
Steel complained in a language only engineers understood—groans in the frame, a tremor in the rods, a high thin scream in the boiler that meant this machine was never meant to live like this.
Oskar didn't care.
He fed the fire until the cab smelled like burning metal. Pistons hammered like war drums. The wheels sang on the rails, a bright, desperate sound that carried through the Austrian night.
Villages woke to it.
People stepped onto balconies in their nightshirts and watched a glowing engine tear through the darkness—sparks spraying, smoke trailing, speed obscene for an old-world line. A comet of iron and coal, roaring south as if the devil himself were driving.
The 27th bled toward its end.
Midnight approached.
And Oskar—exhausted, filthy with soot, eyes burning—kept shoveling. Kept pushing. Kept forcing that machine to do what it was never built to do.
He was close.
Too close to slow now.
The track entered hills. Curves tightened. The line wrapped around a slope and narrowed onto a bridge—stone supports, black water, a drop that swallowed sound.
The warning signs were there.
He didn't see them.
Or he did—and ignored them.
Because the calendar was chasing him.
Then the rails bent hard around the hill.
And the world tipped.
The locomotive lifted—just slightly at first, like a ship catching the wrong wave—then the weight shifted and the wheels tore free with a scream of torn steel.
Shadowmane roared from the tender, a sound too deep to be an animal sound.
Oskar grabbed for the brake—too late.
The engine hit the bridge support like a fist hitting bone.
Fire erupted.
The whole machine cartwheeled—iron and coal and screaming steam—spinning once, twice, before it vanished off the edge and slammed into the ravine below.
Then… nothing.
No whistle.
No pounding pistons.
No roar.
Only a distant crackle of flame and a column of smoke rising into the night like a signal to God.
June 28th arrived.
And somewhere in the Austrian hills, the Crown Prince's train lay broken and still—its iron scattered like the bones of a fallen beast.
The date he had feared since 1903 was here at last.
A day sacred in Serbian memory. A day soaked in old defeat and old vengeance. A day that bred men willing to die for symbols older than reason.
Dawn crept over Austria-Hungary like something inevitable.
Somewhere ahead, in Sarajevo, Franz Ferdinand would step into a car.
Somewhere in that city, young men waited with pistols and bombs.
And the century held its breath.