Morning seeped into the chamber through the tall windows of Buckingham Palace, pale and silver beneath heavy curtains embroidered with the royal arms.
Oskar woke reluctantly.
His body felt heavy, and his thoughts were sour and uncooperative, as though he had spent the night trapped in an argument rather than asleep. He remained still for a time, staring at the ceiling and feeling an exhaustion that went beyond the physical. Something inside him seemed depleted, as though rest had been taken from him rather than given.
He despised nights like this.
He despised conversations that led nowhere, drama disguised as etiquette and politics wrapped in courtesy with a knife hidden beneath it. More than anything, he wanted to return home—to a place where words usually meant what they appeared to mean, where no one studied every gesture for weakness and where he did not have to police his own restraint every waking moment.
He wanted Tanya's sharp honesty, Anna's quiet warmth and Gundelinde's gentle steadiness. He wanted the familiar disorder of his children and the certainty of people he trusted standing beyond his door.
Memory stirred, but refused to settle into any clear sequence.
Only fragments came.
The argument with Patricia. Throwing her into the corridor. Locking the door. Returning to bed.
Then darkness.
Oskar shifted beneath the sheets.
He was naked. That, at least, was normal. He was alone, which was good.
Then his gaze moved toward the double doors. They stood slightly ajar.
Oskar went completely still.
The key he had deliberately left upon the sideboard the night before was gone.
He sat upright in a single motion.
Someone had entered his room.
The realization irritated him more than it frightened him. Annoyance came first, sharp and immediate. He instinctively took stock of himself—and then hissed softly through his teeth.
A familiar soreness lingered between his legs, unmistakable, unwelcome.
The sort that followed a night in which his body had been worked to exhaustion and left with nothing but a dull, satisfied ache.
His jaw tightened.
Princess Patricia.
The name came to him at once, along with several memories that might have been dreams.
Something light upon the mattress. A small body moving beside him. Soft hands touching him through the haze of sleep.
Warm lips. An uncertain mouth. Clumsy, inexperienced movements performed with determined hunger.
At the time, he had half imagined that Tanya was beside him. Yet the person in those broken recollections had been smaller, softer and far less familiar with his body.
His sleeping mind had accepted the sensation without question.
His waking mind did not.
Whatever had happened had left him physically relieved, drained and ready for another day. That did not make the possibility any less disturbing. Dream or intrusion, he could not tell.
Oskar dragged one hand down his face.
"Damn it," he muttered. "Did that woman actually come back?"
Irritation flared within him, but he forced it down. Whatever had occurred was already over, and he had neither the evidence nor the patience to confront Patricia over fragments of uncertain memory.
He rose and crossed into the adjoining bathing room. Steam had already clouded the mirrors.
The great copper tub stood filled with hot water, flower petals scattered across its surface with deliberate care. Fresh towels had been arranged nearby, along with soap, brushes and everything else he might require.
Someone had prepared the room before he woke.
Oskar stopped and stared at it.
Then he exhaled through his nose.
Of course.
He stepped into the bath without ceremony. Heat closed around his body and slowly loosened the tension that sleep had failed to touch.
If servants entered and saw him naked, it hardly mattered. He had abandoned most forms of modesty years ago. He was the Iron Prince, and his body was not something he felt compelled to hide simply because others could not look at it without becoming distracted.
More importantly, he could not allow the previous night to occupy his thoughts.
The remaining days in London would be relentless. There were ceremonies, formal appearances, dinners, meetings and a funeral procession beneath the eyes of half the world. Rest would be scarce, and privacy scarcer still.
He could not afford to let one reckless British princess ruin his concentration.
When the bath was finished, Oskar shaved and began dressing.
To his surprise, the three older maids previously assigned to him were nowhere to be seen. In their place stood the tiny blonde maid he had noticed in the corridor the night before.
She introduced herself as Elise.
Beside Oskar, she seemed almost impossibly small, barely reaching his chest. Her figure was slight and carefully contained within an immaculate palace uniform. Honey-blonde hair had been drawn into a neat braid, though several fine strands had slipped loose at her temple. Pale blue-grey eyes watched her work with excessive concentration, as though discipline alone might keep her hands from trembling.
There was nothing extravagant about her appearance.
She was simply neat, delicate and strangely appealing, with a face that combined diligence, curiosity and the nervous innocence of someone who had found herself standing far too close to something overwhelming.
Elise did not retreat from her duties.
Her hands were quick and well trained as she straightened his collar, smoothed the seams of his uniform and fastened the clasps across his chest. Yet a soft flush remained upon her cheeks, and her gaze repeatedly lingered for a heartbeat too long before she remembered herself and looked away.
Oskar noticed, he always noticed. And a low, brief laugh escaped him.
"Elise."
She stiffened immediately.
"You are doing your work very well," he said. "But try not to stare quite so intensely. I am only a man, however much the uniform may encourage people to forget it."
A small smile touched his mouth.
"Admittedly, I am also a crown prince."
Colour rushed across her face.
"I—Your Imperial Highness, forgive me."
She lowered her head, mortified, though her fingers continued their work without faltering.
Oskar said nothing more.
He treated servants as people before anything else. He remembered names, acknowledged effort and tried to preserve their dignity whenever possible. He also understood how easily ordinary kindness could be mistaken for invitation when it came from someone who filled a room as completely as he did.
But he was married.
He had children.
He had no intention of creating another complication inside a foreign palace where every glance already carried political weight.
Elise finished fastening his coat and stepped back with a proper curtsey.
Oskar nodded his thanks and turned his attention toward the day ahead.
Fully dressed in his severe Prussian uniform, he left the suite—and nearly walked directly into Princess Patricia.
She stood outside with her head lowered and her posture carefully subdued. Contrition had been arranged across her face with the precision of a court portrait.
Her dress, however, was as daring as ever, cut just low enough to attract attention even while its wearer pretended humility.
Oskar regarded her with open suspicion.
Patricia began apologizing at once. Her voice wavered, and her eyes shone as though tears might appear at any moment. She spoke of the previous night, her improper behaviour and the embarrassment she had caused him.
Oskar did not possess the energy to determine how much of it was genuine.
"It is fine," he said curtly.
The effect was immediate.
Her expression brightened, and the remorse vanished so quickly that it might never have existed.
Patricia straightened and offered to act as his guide during the remainder of his stay. She spoke eagerly of London's museums, galleries, monuments and theatres, adding that her family had scolded her severely after the banquet.
There had been words, she admitted, many words.
Nevertheless, after considerable pleading, she had received permission to accompany him—provided he accepted and they remained in respectable company.
Oskar hesitated.
Agreeing seemed unwise.
On the other hand, the part of him that remained fascinated by history could not entirely resist the opportunity to explore London through the eyes of someone who had grown up within its royal world.
Doing so beside an undeniably beautiful woman, even an unsettling one, did not make the idea less attractive. Thus against his better judgment, he agreed.
The following days blurred together.
Between official ceremonies and formal obligations, Oskar travelled through London with Patricia beside him. They visited museums, galleries and ancient halls burdened with centuries of memory. She took him to the theatre, which he found considerably more tolerable than expected.
Patricia surprised him.
Away from the palace and the pressure of watching eyes, she became less frivolous and far more perceptive than her reputation suggested. She understood art, remembered strange fragments of history and possessed strong opinions about nearly everything.
She preferred the outdoors.
Horses, animals, parks and open spaces interested her more than drawing rooms. Riding together was impossible—no ordinary horse in Britain could reasonably carry Oskar—so she suggested golf instead.
Oskar had never played.
With Patricia, Franz Ferdinand and Kiderlen-Waechter accompanying him, however, he found himself enjoying the absurd little game. They played beneath shifting English skies while rain appeared and disappeared without warning, leaving the grass bright and wet beneath their shoes.
London, when carefully presented, could be beautiful.
It was monumental, ordered and utterly certain of its own importance.
So long as one avoided the poorer districts and the protests simmering along the city's edges, it was easy to believe in the image Britain presented to the world.
Patricia herself proved surprisingly pleasant company when she was not pressing against him, provoking him or attempting to transform every conversation into a test of his restraint.
She was intelligent, curious, capable of discussing something other than marriage, scandal or ambition. And yet, whenever they returned to Buckingham Palace, something felt wrong.
The maids watched him.
Their gazes followed him through the corridors, lingering too long upon his shoulders, his waist and, with considerably less subtlety, the front of his trousers. Soft laughter drifted from rooms that fell suspiciously quiet whenever he approached. Some women looked away the instant he noticed them; others continued staring until embarrassment finally overcame curiosity.
Once, Elise froze as he passed. Her pale eyes widened, her lips parted, and for a moment she appeared to be remembering something she had no business having seen.
Oskar also encountered the three maids originally assigned to his rooms, despite being told they had been relieved from duty. The mature blonde flushed at once and could barely meet his eyes. The redhead turned crimson behind her spectacles, while the younger blonde attempted to glare at him with her former hostility, though the colour burning across her face ruined the effect.
Oskar did not need to question them. He understood what had happened.
The women had seen him naked during his first evening at the palace, and although servants were not supposed to discuss the private bodies of their royal guests, restraint had evidently collapsed the moment they left his rooms. The dimensions of the Iron Prince's royal sceptre and large jewels had become common knowledge throughout the servants' quarters, passed from maid to maid in shocked whispers until women who had never entered his chamber were staring at him as though they already knew precisely what lay beneath his uniform.
The palace staff had been unable to keep their mouths shut.
Oskar ignored the looks, for there was little else he could do and he didn't honestly care.
At night, however, he took precautions.
He locked his doors and barricaded them. A heavy chair was wedged beneath the handle, and the wardrobe was shifted just far enough to block the entrance.
It was absurd.
A man of Oskar's size should not have needed to construct a fortress against palace maids and a British princess.
But Buckingham Palace was not his territory, and he trusted very little within it.
Sleep came in fragments. The noises always returned. A faint scrape against the lock. Metal whispering against metal.
The handle turning carefully—never boldly, never enough to attract attention. Pressure would come, withdraw and then return again.
Sometimes the silence lasted so long that Oskar nearly convinced himself he had imagined it.
Then the door would move once more.
On one occasion, he heard the unmistakable click of a key entering the lock, only for the barricade to resist when the handle was pressed. The doors shuddered faintly and then became still.
No footsteps retreated, no voice followed. Only the suggestion of breathing remained beyond the wood.
Perhaps it was only his imagination, perhaps not.
Oskar lay awake with his eyes open, counting the seconds and listening to the palace breathe around him. He did not rise and did not speak. Whoever remained outside wanted acknowledgment, and he refused to provide it.
By morning, the corridor would be empty. By nightfall, the ritual would begin again.
Sometimes the testing of the door was followed by hushed female voices and the faint sound of suppressed laughter.
For the first time since arriving in England, Oskar found himself missing his Eternal Guard—not merely for protection, but for certainty.
With them, a locked door remained locked.
Here, there was no certainty.
Only shifting shadows, stolen keys and the persistent knowledge that someone wanted entry.
Then the twentieth of May, 1910, dawned cold and clear.
It was meant to be Oskar's final full day in Britain. The following morning, he would return across the Channel to Germany and the life that felt increasingly distant with every hour he remained on English soil. But this day would not release him easily.
He had always known it was coming.
As a student of history—of one timeline remembered and another now unfolding around him—Oskar understood the significance of the morning better than almost anyone present.
In the world he remembered, it would become famous as the gathering of the Nine Kings of Europe: a moment frozen in photographs and textbooks, the last great assembly of crowned heads before the continent destroyed itself.
But history had shifted.
Kaiser Wilhelm II was not present.
Oskar stood in his place, too large for the arrangements prepared for ordinary men and perpetually awkward within the rigid framing of official photographs.
So there were not nine kings.
There were eight monarchs and heirs, bound together by blood, rivalry, marriage and centuries of accumulated pride, gathering unknowingly at the edge of an abyss.
This was the final great procession of Europe's old order.
The last time crowns would walk openly through cheering streets before artillery, trenches and mass death made such pageantry seem obscene.
At precisely nine forty-five in the morning, the bells of London fell silent.
King Edward VII's coffin was drawn from Westminster Hall and placed upon a gun carriage draped in royal regalia, the weight of empire carried upon iron wheels.
Oskar stood among the crown princes of Europe, positioned directly behind the kings who walked before the dead monarch.
Because of his size, no one had been paired with him.
Where the others moved two abreast, Oskar walked alone.
He towered among the princes even in mourning black, his presence impossible to ignore despite the solemnity of the occasion. His Prussian uniform was severe and immaculate, its decorations restrained, his posture unyielding.
After a long period of waiting, the procession began.
Red-coated guards marched in seemingly endless ranks, their boots striking the stone in perfect rhythm. Military bands played funeral marches that rolled through the streets like slow thunder, the sound vibrating through Oskar's ribs and into the bones of the city itself.
The crowds were immense. They were not rowdy or restless. They were devoted.
People stood shoulder to shoulder along the entire route, hats removed and heads bowed. Some wept openly. Others watched in rigid silence, their faces pale with grief.
To them, the monarchy was not an abstraction.
It was Britain made flesh.
Parliament might be debated, governments replaced and ministers cursed, but the Crown remained above such things. The British people did not apologize for their empire. They wore it like armour—proud, unapologetic and certain of their rightful place in the world.
Oskar saw the truth of it clearly. This was not yet the Britain of doubt, retreat and self-examination. This was Britain at the height of its confidence.
Mourning, certainly, but not broken.
The procession wound through London toward Paddington Station. Tens of thousands of soldiers lined the streets, forming living walls of red cloth and polished steel. Cameras flashed. Photographers climbed lampposts and balanced upon rooftops, desperate to capture the passing faces of kings and princes.
History was being preserved even as it moved.
At Paddington, the coffin was transferred to the Royal Train.
The journey to Windsor followed, the countryside passing in quiet contrast to the immense weight of the city. Even there, crowds gathered beside the tracks, hats raised as the train travelled past.
At St George's Chapel, the final rites were conducted.
The service followed the ancient form used for Queen Victoria herself. Prayers echoed beneath the stone arches. The air carried the mingled scents of incense, candle wax and cold marble.
The Dean of Windsor read the lesson. The Archbishop of Canterbury pronounced the benediction.
Then King George V stepped forward.
Without speaking, he placed the Company Colour of the King's Company of the Grenadier Guards upon his father's coffin.
The last gesture had been made. The coffin descended into the royal vault.
Edward VII—king, father, uncle and symbol of an empire—was gone.
Oskar remained motionless as the ceremony came to its end.
Around him, the crowned heads of Europe seemed to turn inward, each man quietly measuring the world that would follow Edward VII into history. Yet only Oskar understood how close that world already stood to disaster.
This had not merely been a funeral. It had been the farewell of an age.
With a certainty that chilled him to the bone, Oskar knew that no gathering like this would ever happen again. Not with such confidence, such splendour or such unquestioned belief in the permanence of crowns.
Never like this.
And yet, having witnessed it with his own eyes, he could not deny its beauty—the precision of the ceremony, the dignity of every movement and the overwhelming weight of history passing before him in ordered steps.
An unexpected swell of respect settled within his chest, almost approaching pride. Not pride as a German, but as a man standing before what Britain had built: its monuments, its rituals and the disciplined machinery of an empire that had once bent half the world to its will.
Edward VII had never been close to him, but he had been family all the same. Blood crossed borders more easily than flags ever could.
Despite himself, a tear travelled down Oskar's cheek.
It was not only for the dead king.
It was for the world Oskar knew might soon be lost—the future he still hoped, perhaps foolishly, to rescue from artillery, trenches and mass graves.
Beside him, Archduke Franz Ferdinand noticed.
Without ceremony, the older man placed a broad hand against Oskar's back and gave him one steady, grounding pat.
"There, there, my man," Ferdinand murmured. "All things pass in time. That is life."
Oskar released a slow breath.
The words helped.
According to the history he remembered, this should have been the end. The rites were complete, the burial finished and the photographers were already repositioning themselves while officials drafted statements for the press. The solemn weight of the day had begun to ease.
Then history veered.
At George V's insistence, the assembled monarchs, princes and foreign envoys were carried south to Portsmouth Naval Base, as though grief alone were not enough—as though Britain intended every departing guest to leave with something heavier than mourning lodged within his ribs.
No one objected openly. When the new king gave an instruction, the machinery of the Empire simply moved.
A stage had been erected upon the waterfront, timber and canvas transformed into ceremony beneath snapping flags. Union Jacks, naval ensigns, regimental colours and foreign banners cracked sharply in the coastal wind. Officers and dignitaries assembled before it in immaculate ranks, orderly because disorder was not permitted this close to the Crown.
Thousands of civilians had gathered behind barriers, perched upon rooftops, wagons and railings as they strained for a view. Pressmen fought for clear sightlines while camera crews adjusted their tripods, hoping their film would capture whatever Britain intended to show the world.
At first, it appeared to be another ritual.
Another speech. Another carefully arranged performance of national unity.
Then the horizon darkened, not with clouds, but with smoke.
Far out at sea, black columns rose and rolled across the sky—thick, oily and relentless. This was not the soft haze of factories or London's familiar soot. It was coal smoke forced from dozens upon dozens of immense boilers, fed like furnaces and exhaled like anger.
The declining sun struggled through it, breaking into fractured shafts of light as though the sky itself were choking. Salt and soot mingled upon the tongue, and the air grew dense and oppressive.
Then the horns sounded.
Their notes were deep and immense, carrying across land and water with such force that they felt less like sound than pressure. The vibrations passed through ribs, teeth and the thin bones behind the eyes.
Conversation died.
Even the restless civilians fell silent, instinctively understanding that what approached was not theirs to interrupt.
Out of the smoke, cutting through the Channel in a long and serpentine formation, came the Royal Navy.
Not a handful of ceremonial vessels, not a token squadron. It was a fleet, a moving city of steel.
Battlecruisers came first, their long, predatory silhouettes slicing across the dark water, masts and funnels sharp against the smoke. Behind them steamed the dreadnoughts, broader and heavier, their turrets resting upon armoured hulls like clenched fists.
Beyond those came the older battleships and armoured cruisers, stretching farther across the horizon than the eye wished to believe. They had not been brought because every one of them was needed.
They had been brought because Britain wanted the world to see how many it possessed.
Dozens of capital ships. Hundreds of guns. Thousands of sailors. All arranged around a single intention.
The might of Britain, revealed in motion.
Gasps passed through the crowd. Murmurs followed. Even veteran officers stared as though they were watching some old maritime legend rise bodily from the sea.
Oskar stood transfixed.
He barely noticed Princess Patricia moving closer until her hand closed around his arm and her body pressed against his side. The sight appeared to have awakened something primal within her—a mixture of awe, fear and the hungry thrill of standing close to power.
Then George V stepped onto the stage.
Silence fell again, not merely the silence of politeness but the instinctive quiet that descended when prey realized a predator had chosen to speak.
The new king's gaze passed across soldiers, nobles, foreign princes and journalists. Then it found Oskar.
For one brief moment, George smiled. It was neither warm nor friendly. It seemed to say: Look carefully. Remember this. Measure yourself against it.
Then he turned toward the assembled thousands.
"Today," George declared, his voice carrying easily across the waterfront, "marks the end of the Edwardian age."
He paused, allowing the words to settle.
"An age of elegance, optimism and invention. An age whose influence has reached across continents and oceans and touched the lives of millions."
Behind him, the fleet continued its slow passage, the smoke forming a dark and deliberate backdrop.
"And now," the king continued, his voice growing stronger, "this nation—this engine of industry and sea power—stands ready to begin anew."
He opened his arms slightly, as though embracing not merely Portsmouth but the whole British Empire.
"A greater era. My era. The era of George the Fifth."
Steel entered his voice.
"Let all bear witness. Today is the first day of a new age."
For a heartbeat, the world seemed to hold its breath.
George turned and gave a single, precise nod to the signal officer waiting at the edge of the platform.
Flags dropped.
Out upon the water, the fleet had already begun changing shape. What had been a procession became an arrangement: lines and curves forming a geometry of dominance. The Channel had been cleared hours earlier, swept, signalled and held empty by patrol craft like a table prepared for a blade.
The battlecruisers aligned first, long and lean as drawn swords.
The new dreadnoughts followed, broader, heavier and unmistakably modern, their turrets angled toward the open throat of the Channel.
Farther behind them, the older battleships gathered in depth, squat and stubborn, their numbers alone enough to bend the horizon beneath their weight.
Steel pointed toward the sea. Silence pressed down until it felt imposed.
George raised his voice, hurling the command across the water like a challenge.
"For a new age—signal the fleet. Three volleys. Prepare... and fire!"
Nothing happened, not at first. A shouted command upon land could not leap directly into steel. It had to become movement: signal flags snapping, repeaters relaying, bells and horns carrying the order from man to man and ship to ship until the entire formation possessed the same intent.
The pause lasted long enough for uncertainty to spread through the crowd. A few nervous laughs began and died almost at once.
Then the horizon ignited.
Not with one flash, but hundreds.
A jagged wall of white-orange fire tore across the Channel. Muzzle blasts and burning cordite joined into one continuous line so immense that it appeared less as though ships were firing and more as though the sea itself had split open.
For an instant, the smoke burned thin and revealed the fleet in savage clarity—turrets recoiling, decks swallowed by flame and funnels vomiting darker clouds as though the ships themselves were exhaling violence.
The light reached the shore first.
A hard white glare punched through the haze and forced eyes shut, sunlight transformed into a weapon for a single heartbeat. People flinched, hands rising too late to shield faces from something already gone.
Then came the delay.
That sickening pause which reminded everyone how far away the guns truly were.
The sound arrived not as a crack, but as force.
A crushing wall of pressure struck the shore, slamming into chests, ribs and teeth. Windows screamed within their frames. Glass trembled. Loose stones skittered across the ground. Horses reared against their reins, and men staggered as though struck by an invisible hand.
Only then came the roar—layer upon layer of thunder folding over itself and echoing between land, cloud and water until it ceased to be noise and became an environment that had to be endured.
Several seconds later came the final proof of distance.
The shells struck the sea.
Enormous columns of white water erupted along the horizon, climbing like towers before collapsing into boiling scars across the surface.
The Channel did not merely splash.
It seemed wounded.
The echoes rolled outward across England and over the water toward the distant French coast, where villages and farms would hear the impossible thunder and look toward the sky as though the heavens themselves had spoken.
Birds rose in frantic black clouds from cliffs and marshland.
Even animals that had never seen a battleship understood the language of the guns.
Silence returned slowly, imperfectly, accompanied by ringing ears, pounding hearts and people blinking as though forcing the world back into its proper shape.
The fleet did not move on. It prepared to fire again.
Horns sounded across the water, longer this time, carrying the warning down the line. Even from the shore, one could almost imagine the machinery working within the ships: hoists lifting shells through steel shafts, breeches opening, charges being rammed into place and turrets correcting their aim by measured degrees.
Great guns did not hurry, they simply returned their aim, and then the horizon flashed again.
The second volley arrived as its own distinct event, another wall of fire blooming across the Channel, bright enough to bleach the smoke and reveal the fleet as a mountain range of iron spitting flame.
The light struck first, blinding and sharp. Then the delay. Then the sound.
The second concussion seemed even heavier, as though the air had known what was coming and still failed to brace itself. More glass shattered. Somewhere inland, a church bell rang once from the vibration and then fell silent.
After another long beat, the shells struck.
The sea erupted once more in towering columns. Heavy swells rolled outward from the impacts and hammered against piers and seawalls, the Channel heaving as though struck by the fist of a giant.
A colder emotion passed through the crowd then. Not panic, but understanding. This was not a celebration, it was instruction.
Smoke drifted inland, carrying the bitter taste of powder. The descending sun bled through it in broken red fragments, like an omen struggling to shine.
The horns sounded a third time, short, final.
Across the water, the formation corrected by minute degrees. Barrels elevated, turrets settled and crews braced for the last firing cycle. Charges were rammed home with such practised precision that the operation became almost ritualistic.
George stood motionless upon the platform.
Oskar remained among the assembled princes and officers, Patricia's hand locked around his arm while Franz Ferdinand stood silent at his other side.
Then, after the final pause, the third volley fired. It did not feel like repetition, it felt like a verdict.
The horizon became a single brutal line of flame, so bright that the world appeared to have been photographed by lightning. For one instant, the Channel shone beneath a second sun.
Then came the delay.
The final concussion arrived as something absolute, flattening breath and thought alike. It drove through stomachs, bones and the roots of teeth, leaving nothing untouched.
After one final beat of distance, the sea vanished beneath walls of white and grey.
For several moments, the Channel became nothing but eruption and falling water, as though its surface had been torn apart and was desperately attempting to close again.
The last echoes began their long retreat. Smoke rolled across the water, swallowing the ships until they became dark silhouettes once more.
The third volley was complete, no one applauded, no one cheered. For one suspended moment, thousands of people simply remembered how to breathe.
Then the world returned in fragments.
A child began to cry, high and confused. Somewhere behind the barriers, a woman forced a prayer through clenched teeth. A man laughed once, too loudly and too sharply, then stopped when no one joined him.
Officers spoke in subdued voices, unwilling to admit that their hands had trembled. Several royals blinked hard, their faces controlled by lifelong discipline even as their eyes betrayed them.
"My God," someone whispered from within the crowd.
Another English voice answered just as quietly.
"And that was not even the whole Royal Navy."
A nervous murmur spread through the gathered uniforms, black coats and mourning veils. People searched for comparisons—thunder, earthquake, the end of the world—but none seemed sufficient.
Oskar remained motionless, the echoes still hammering through his bones.
For several seconds, he could not quite convince himself that what had struck him had been sound alone. It had been too heavy, too physical and too absolute. The volleys had not announced Britain's power so much as imposed it.
When enough force gathered in one place, it did not need subtlety to become terrifying.
Upon the platform, George V turned.
Not fully and not theatrically.
Only enough for his gaze to find Oskar's once more.
The king smiled. The expression was not warm, friendly or triumphant. It was precise.
Look carefully. Measure this. Remember it.
The message required no speech.
You may be clever. You may be modern. But this is what centuries of sea power look like when they move together.
Oskar did not dispute it.
Germany's warships were more advanced than those of the timeline he remembered. They possessed better machinery, stronger layouts and superior doctrine, their quality pressed toward the limits of what contemporary steel could endure.
But steel had limits.
No battleship, however advanced, could simply ignore a wall of guns. No port, coastline or city could look upon this fleet and pretend it was merely a collection of ships.
It was force upon the scale of a natural disaster—something one did not duel so much as endure or avoid entirely.
Oskar understood what the display had truly been. It was not celebration, not mourning, but a warning delivered in thunder.
Standing beneath the drifting smoke while the Channel slowly calmed beneath scars of white foam, Oskar felt no anger.
Only clarity.
If war came, it would not be neat or clever. It would not be won through innovation alone.
It would be slaughter measured in ships, cities and generations.
The British Navy could destroy anything it struck.
Germany's fleet could do the same.
If those two truths ever collided without restraint, the sea would drown the world long before either empire admitted responsibility.
Oskar released a slow breath.
George V's warning had landed—not as fear, but as proof.
War could not be treated lightly, not now. Perhaps not ever.
As the smoke thickened once more and the fleet began its gradual withdrawal, Oskar accepted one final truth without protest:
Britain's navy was formidable.
For the first time since arriving upon English soil, he allowed himself to be genuinely—and unwillingly—impressed.