Trumpets cut through the ballroom like a blade.
Prince Oskar was still on the dancefloor with Princess Patricia, their final turn barely finished, their hands only just separating, when the sound came again—sharper this time, not part of the orchestra, not part of the planned rhythm of the evening.
Real trumpets.
A signal.
Every head turned toward the great double doors.
For a heartbeat, even the chandeliers seemed to hold their breath.
Then the announcer's voice rang out, louder than etiquette, and—oddly—urgent, as if he had been handed a script he did not fully trust.
"By the grace of God and the authority of His Imperial Majesty—" he began, and his voice wavered as the doors continued opening behind him, "—I announce the arrival of Her Imperial Highness from the Grand Empire of Russia—Grand Duchess Tatiana—"
He did not finish.
The doors were pushed wide.
Not with smooth ceremony, but with confusion—half by startled guards, half by a small white figure moving too quickly for protocol to catch.
A ripple ran through the crowd.
People parted instinctively, because the name Romanov still carried the old magic: fear, prestige, distance.
And through the opening path came a child.
Dark brown hair, neatly arranged but already shifting loose from movement. Pale silk catching chandelier light. Gray-blue eyes wide with wonder, not the practiced calm of court women but the honest awe of someone seeing a legend in the flesh and deciding rules could wait.
She moved too fast.
Too eager.
Guards reacted a fraction late, hands lifting as if to stop her—then hesitating, uncertain whether one stopped a Romanov princess at all.
Behind her, order struggled to catch up: a stern Romanov escort, ladies-in-waiting, a governess already going pale with panic, and uniformed men trying desperately to reassemble dignity that had been broken by enthusiasm.
But Tatiana Nikolaevna did not slow.
She was eleven—small as a doll compared to the world of uniforms and jewels around her—yet she walked as if she had decided she belonged at the center of it.
And she was walking straight toward Oskar.
The hall went silent.
Not polite silence.
Real silence—the kind that happened when thousands of people sensed something unplanned, something alive, something that could become history.
Tatiana reached the center of the dancefloor and stopped directly in front of him.
Oskar was still half-turned toward Patricia. His hand had not quite released hers.
For a moment—just a moment—his body reacted before his mind did.
A tightening in the chest.
A cold, sharp recognition.
Because he knew her.
Not personally.
Historically.
He knew where this child's story ended.
A cellar.
A firing squad.
A dynasty extinguished because it threatened the men who wanted the throne.
And the knowledge hit him like a physical blow.
Not tonight, he thought, fierce and immediate.
Not in my world.
Tatiana curtsied.
Perfectly.
Then she looked up at him—up, up, up—because she barely reached his midsection, and he was a mountain.
She spoke in Russian, voice clear and ringing in the stillness.
"Ваше Высочество," she said, "я прибыла, чтобы поздравить вас от имени моей семьи."
A few people blinked.
Most understood nothing.
The room began to lean toward the translators like a crowd leaning toward a stage.
Oskar, however, felt something else—an old scar inside his mind pulled open.
Russian syllables. Military slang. Cold nights. Voices of men who had laughed with him and died later. The taste of cigarettes. The smell of fuel. The high, distant buzz of drones.
Then the flash.
Then the silence.
He blinked hard, forcing the memories back into their box.
Tatiana, suddenly remembering herself, hurried to correct—switching into French with the determination of a child who wanted to be impressive.
"Je veux dire—je vous présente—"
A translator rushed forward, already opening his mouth.
Oskar raised his scarred right hand.
Stop.
The gesture alone was enough.
The translator froze mid-step.
So did the court.
Even at the imperial table, the Kaiser leaned forward slightly, frowning—not understanding Russian, not understanding why his son looked… so calm.
Oskar hesitated—not from uncertainty, but from distance.
Five years since he had spoken the language out loud.
Five years since the last time it had been necessary.
Then he spoke.
"Добро пожаловать, Великая Княжна," Oskar said quietly.
Welcome, Grand Duchess.
The effect was immediate.
Not gasps. Not whispers.
Shock.
Princess Patricia's fingers tightened faintly in his, then released. The translator stared, as if the floor had shifted beneath him. Diplomats blinked as if the room itself had tilted.
Tatiana's eyes widened.
"You… you speak Russian," she whispered, in Russian now, awe overtaking discipline.
Oskar inclined his head, faintly amused.
"I do," he said. "Or I hope I still do. It has been some time."
For a heartbeat, the palace forgot how to breathe.
And then Oskar felt the danger of the moment—felt it like imbalance in an engine. A Romanov child had rushed protocol. Enthusiasm could become scandal if not handled cleanly.
So he did what he always did in crisis:
He made it look like he had planned it.
He turned slightly and released Princess Patricia with a respectful bow.
"My thanks for the dance, Your Highness," he said, warm and flawless.
She recovered instantly—she was trained for rooms like this—but her eyes remained sharp with surprise.
"The pleasure was mine," she replied smoothly, stepping back, the court exhaling with her.
Oskar turned back to Tatiana.
He spoke softly, in Russian.
"Formalities can wait," he said. "You arrived on the dancefloor. That means you want to honor me properly."
Tatiana froze.
Then smiled—wide, unguarded, radiant.
"Yes," she said at once. "Very much so."
Oskar glanced toward the dais.
Wilhelm II was watching.
For a long moment, the Kaiser studied the scene: his towering son, the Romanov child, the entire hall held between them.
Then Wilhelm smiled.
And nodded.
The Empress inclined her head in approval.
Princess Luise, seated elsewhere, did not approve at all.
Oskar felt it anyway—the unease crawling up his spine as he took Tatiana's hands.
They were so small they disappeared inside his.
The contrast was almost absurd: a mountain dancing with a sparrow. Tatiana's steps were quick as she tried to match his stride, her posture perfect—trained, drilled—yet her eyes never left him, bright with fascination.
"You're… shorter than I expected," she said seriously, still in Russian.
Oskar let out a genuine laugh.
"Two hundred and two centimeters," he answered. "Approximately. Isn't that enough? Or what have they been telling you in Russia?"
Tatiana narrowed her eyes as if interrogating a criminal.
"And how much do you weigh?"
"Nearly two hundred kilograms."
Her mouth fell open.
"That's impossible!" she hissed. "You weigh more than the brown bear that visits us at the palace sometimes."
Oskar's shoulders shook with quiet laughter.
"I see," he said. "So that's the rumor. What else do you wish to know, Grand Duchess?"
Tatiana did not hesitate.
"They call you the Iron Prince," she said, intensely. "Is it true your bones are made of iron? How else can you weigh so much?"
Oskar's mouth twitched.
He leaned closer, conspiratorial.
"Well," he said, "a normal man cannot crush iron with a single step."
Tatiana blinked.
"So," Oskar continued, "if you step on my foot… and fail to crush me… then perhaps I am iron."
He said it sarcastically.
Tatiana, however, was a Romanov child.
She took it as a scientific experiment.
She stepped on his toe—harder than necessary—and then immediately looked down in disappointment.
It did not hurt him.
But now she was standing on his shoe as they turned, pouting fiercely as if offended by physics itself.
Then she brightened suddenly, as if she had proven something important.
"You are iron," she declared.
Oskar laughed again, unable to help himself.
And then the questions poured out—rapid Russian, tumbling over one another like a flood that had been held back too long.
"Is it true you wrote the book that saved my brother's life?"
"Is it true you made helmets so he doesn't die when he falls?"
"Is it true you are stronger than ten men?"
"And—" she hesitated for half a breath, suddenly remembering why she was here at all, "—I came to congratulate you… for your birthday… and your children."
The last words came awkwardly, stiff with unfamiliar gratitude.
"My mother and father are… very grateful," she added, stubbornly, as if forcing herself to say it properly. "Because your inventions have helped Alexei. He gets hurt less. He is… less afraid."
Oskar's chest tightened.
He kept his face calm.
He answered her patiently, gently, grateful—unexpectedly grateful—to hear Russian again spoken without hate behind it.
But beneath the conversation, something colder stirred.
He looked down at her—at the bright eyes, the trust, the complete innocence of someone who did not yet understand what history had planned for her.
And for the first time that evening, the weight of his knowledge pressed hard against his ribs.
You shouldn't die, he thought fiercely.
None of you should.
The music carried them on, and the entire hall watched—wondering what, exactly, they had just witnessed.
A diplomatic incident.
A miracle.
Or the first crack in the future.
But as always, not everyone was pleased by what they were seeing.
Up on the elevated table of the imperial family—high enough to look down on the ballroom like gods judging mortals—Oskar's brothers watched the dance with tight faces and tighter hands.
Not all of them.
But most.
Prince Eitel Friedrich sat stiff as a sword in its scabbard, smile frozen, fingers clenched so hard his nails bit into skin.
Why is he the one receiving blessings? he seethed. If anyone should be standing in that light, it should be me.
Prince Albert and Prince August Wilhelm wore the same expression in different masks: polite on the outside, sour behind the eyes. Even after Crown Prince Wilhelm's collapse, even after Babelsberg, even after the court had begun quietly shifting its weight toward Oskar… they could not swallow it.
By law of succession they had once had steps. Now they had none.
And watching their least-favored younger brother rise past them like a knife through silk felt… impossible.
Humiliation made them blind. Ambition made them stupid.
Wilhelm II had warned them—once, clearly, with the cold authority of a father who did not want to repeat himself.
But jealousy did not listen.
Once the flame of hunger ignited, it did not go out politely. It only waited for oxygen.
And worst of all, their eldest brother's paranoia had infected them. In their minds, Oskar's genius could not be natural. No man simply became that—wealth, strength, inventions, public love—without a cause beyond human.
So their thoughts narrowed to two answers.
Heaven… or hell.
Down below, none of it touched Oskar.
He was too busy being the evening's gravity.
The undisputed star of his own banquet.
Eyes clung to him from every corner of the hall—some hungry, some calculating, some simply fascinated. Young noblewomen watched him like a prize animal. Older women watched him like a problem that needed solving.
Princess Patricia, still near the edge of the dancefloor, looked almost offended by the sight of Tatiana at his side—as if the Russian child had stolen something that belonged to the "proper" level of Europe.
But Tatiana did not know she was shielding him.
She simply existed near him, bright and fearless, and the rest of the women—sensibly—hesitated to pounce while a Romanov grand duchess stood within arm's reach.
Oskar, meanwhile, was enjoying himself.
Tatiana's questions came like arrows, and for once, they were not poisoned. For once, someone's curiosity was innocent.
The music slowed. The final notes softened.
Oskar guided Tatiana through the last steps and she followed perfectly, chin lifted, posture precise—concentrating so fiercely you would have thought the fate of Russia depended on her footwork.
When the dance ended, she curtsied with a neatness that earned approving murmurs.
"That was wonderful," Tatiana said brightly, still holding his hand. "You move like a… like a mountain that learned to be polite."
Oskar laughed, genuinely.
"I'll take that as praise."
Her gaze slipped past him then—toward the long household table crowded with children, women, and the strange new power around him.
Her eyes widened.
"Oh!" she breathed. "Your children—are those them? They really are like the paintings. They look… special."
"They are," Oskar said, warmth slipping into his voice before he could stop it. "Would you like to meet them?"
Tatiana nodded at once.
"Yes, please!"
And with that she released his hand and practically skipped away, slipping through the parting crowd with single-minded determination, already bowing and greeting on instinct as she went.
Oskar watched her go with something like relief.
Good, he thought. Now I can return to my table, breathe, eat something, and pretend I'm a normal man for five minutes.
He turned.
And immediately discovered what happened when Tatiana was no longer at his side.
The crowd didn't part for him.
The crowd came for him.
"Your Highness!"
A man with too many medals and too much enthusiasm caught him first, bowing deeply while already speaking. Another diplomat flanked him. Then another. Compliments poured in like artillery fire.
"Remarkable dance—"
"Historic evening—"
"Germany is fortunate indeed—"
Oskar smiled, nodded, deflected, edging sideways like a man trying to escape a room that was slowly filling with water.
He was nearly free—nearly—
when a hand, soft and decisive, closed around his wrist.
"Well then," a woman's voice said cheerfully, "since you are clearly not busy anymore…"
Oskar looked down.
Young. Confident. Dangerous.
Dark hair, sharp eyes, and a gown cut boldly enough to announce she was not here to lose politely.
"May I?" she asked—already pulling him toward the floor.
Oskar hesitated.
Just a second.
His gaze flicked—traitorously—to her neckline, where the dress made its arguments in clear, undeniable language.
His defenses collapsed.
Damn it.
The orchestra rose again.
And somehow, despite every intention he had formed, he found himself dancing.
Up at the royal table, the Empress watched with lips pressed thin.
"That one is bold," she murmured.
Wilhelm II leaned back, amused. "Boldness is not a crime."
"But he doesn't look… pleased," Auguste Viktoria replied. "He looks trapped."
And indeed he did. His movements were precise and flawless, his smile polite, his posture perfect—yet his eyes kept sliding toward escape like a man watching for an opening in a siege.
He guided the woman through one full dance, disengaged at the first natural break—
—and was immediately claimed by another set of hands.
This time, unexpectedly:
Cecilie.
"Oh, Your Highness," she laughed softly, stepping in before anyone else could. "Before you vanish…"
She was close—tall and elegant, moving with a confidence she hadn't worn a year ago. The training showed: her posture firmer, her hips controlled, her presence steadier. She danced like someone who had decided fear would not own her anymore.
Then—before Oskar could even exhale—another voice cut in.
"Big brother."
Louise.
Not asking.
Claiming.
She stepped into his path like a small commander and smiled sweetly as she took his hands.
And then she leaned up and whispered, quiet enough that only he could hear:
"If you refuse, I will tell everyone who took my first kiss."
Oskar's soul left his body for half a second.
"…You're evil," he muttered.
Louise smiled wider. "I'm your sister."
He danced.
Then Bertha.
Then—somehow—Tanya and Anna, heavily pregnant and furious about it, each insisting on at least one slow dance as if staking a claim in front of the entire empire.
Then another woman he didn't know.
Then another.
And another.
A pack of duke's daughters moved like coordinated wolves, refusing "no" with cheerful smiles, dragging him back onto the floor as if he were a public resource the empire had decided to share.
Oskar danced.
And danced.
And danced.
Hours blurred.
At one point he glanced desperately toward his family's table—only to find Tatiana hugging the children, utterly enchanted, while Anna and Tanya watched with expressions that blended amusement, pride… and something sharp enough to cut.
From farther away, Princess Patricia watched, jaw tightening—not because she wanted him now, but because she wanted him to choose, and he was refusing to play the game correctly.
Around her, other noblewomen watched too—some with envy, some with irritation, some with wounded pride.
Why not me?
Why doesn't he linger?
Why does he keep slipping away?
Because that was the strangest part.
He danced with everyone—
and chose no one.
Up at the royal table, the Empress exhaled slowly.
"This is not courtship," she said quietly. "This is avoidance."
Wilhelm chuckled. "Or exhaustion."
She gave him a look sharp enough to shave steel.
"This is his coming-of-age celebration," she murmured. "And he behaves like a man trying to survive a flood."
Wilhelm watched his son navigate yet another dance, shoulders tense, smile fixed, eyes searching for escape.
"Let him be," he said. "He will choose when he is ready."
Auguste Viktoria was not convinced.
Down on the floor, the music slowed again, strings easing into something gentler—an invitation, not a command.
For the first time that evening, Oskar thought he might escape.
He had danced enough. Smiled enough. Offered the court its due. If he moved carefully, he could reach his table, sit, breathe, eat something substantial, and spend a few precious minutes with his family before the next wave crashed.
Then a man in black stepped into his path.
Middle-aged. Impeccably dressed. Smile practiced to the point of artificiality. The kind of man whose warmth had been measured, approved, and deployed by committee.
"Your Highness," the man said smoothly, inclining his head. "Allow me to congratulate you."
Oskar recognized him at once.
Ambassador Vincent—Britain's representative in Berlin. A man who spoke of the British Empire as if it were a law of nature rather than a political arrangement held together by ships and habit.
"Your Excellency," Oskar replied, returning the bow with polite precision. "Thank you for attending my coming-of-age ceremony."
Vincent's smile widened, just enough to show confidence rather than courtesy.
"As heir to the throne of a great power," the ambassador said, lowering his voice as if offering wisdom rather than pressure, "your views on the world naturally carry weight. The British Empire hopes that Your Highness will continue to contribute to peace between nations."
He paused—then added, lightly:
"Perhaps another dance with Princess Patricia would be a fine symbol of that friendship. We believe such bonds are… worth strengthening. After all, should war ever come, it would be something no one could bear."
Oskar's smile did not reach his eyes.
So this was it.
Not advice.
Not goodwill.
A test. A nudge. A polite threat wrapped in silk.
Was Britain warning him? Or attempting to anchor him—to influence German policy through proximity and charm? Or both?
Neither pleased him.
"Your Excellency," Oskar said evenly, "you misunderstand me."
Vincent's brows lifted, ever so slightly.
"The German Empire is a peace-loving nation," Oskar continued. "We have no desire to invade others or provoke conflict. If war ever comes, it will be because necessity left no alternative."
He let the words settle, then added, without apology:
"And I do not wish to dance again tonight."
The air between them tightened.
Vincent's smile faltered.
"Your Highness," the ambassador said, his voice cooling, "the British Empire does not seek enmity with Germany. But if your empire continues its current course, the consequences may be… severe. Britain has dominated the world for centuries. We are not unfamiliar with challenges."
Oskar felt his patience thin.
"As a sovereign nation," he replied, "does Germany not have the right to develop its own defenses? We build ships to protect our interests—not to threaten others. Or is power now reserved only for those who had it first?"
Vincent's tone sharpened.
"Is the construction of fleets on this scale truly defensive? Or is it provocation under another name?"
Oskar's voice hardened in response.
"We will not be bullied," he said. "Not by implication, not by legacy, and not by those who mistake habit for destiny."
Several nearby guests had begun to notice.
The conversation, though quiet, carried weight.
Vincent's expression closed.
"Very well, Your Highness," he said stiffly. "I hope you do not come to regret this independence."
He turned and left the hall without another word.
Princess Patricia remained.
Oskar exhaled slowly.
For a heartbeat, anger flickered—then cooled. Arrogance never impressed him. Empires that believed themselves eternal irritated him deeply.
Patricia approached, concern written plainly across her face.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't know he would speak to you like that."
Oskar smiled, softer now.
"It's only words," he replied. "Words are harmless—until someone decides to turn them into action."
She touched his arm lightly, then glanced toward the other women watching from the edges of the hall—eyes sharp, calculating, restless.
Above them, at the royal table, Oskar's brothers watched with darkening expressions.
Prince Eitel Friedrich clenched his jaw.
If I had the army's support, he thought bitterly, Father would have chosen me. The women would be watching me.
Prince Adalbert and Prince August Wilhelm exchanged brief glances of their own.
If power could be taken… it could be redirected.
If the military favored Oskar now, perhaps that loyalty could be reshaped.
Down on the floor, Oskar led Patricia aside, speaking idly about English athletics—weightlifting clubs, training halls, the slow spread of physical culture.
To his surprise, she barely listened.
After a moment she excused herself, murmuring something about checking on the ambassador.
She left the hall.
Oskar watched her go, genuinely surprised.
Was that… rejection?
He hadn't expected it to sting.
Around him, the atmosphere shifted. Some of the women who had watched him earlier now looked away—pride bruised, interest cooled, assumptions rewritten.
Except his household.
Tatiana still clung happily to the children. Anna and Tanya watched from their table with expressions that blended amusement, possession, and warning.
From across the room, Princess Luise observed everything with narrowed eyes.
So that's how it is, she thought.
They take him when he hesitates.
The music slowed again.
Oskar stood alone for the first time all evening, with a glass of apple juice untouched, thoughts circling.
Politics demanded a wife.
Status demanded a match.
But the room felt suddenly… empty.
And then—his gaze drifted toward the far corner of the hall.