The Kaiser's voice carried through the room with quiet authority, not raised, not rushed, but heavy enough that it seemed to settle into the walls themselves. Oskar had already been standing there for some time, listening, or at least trying to. The words came in proper, measured German—too fast, too formal, layered in ways his mind struggled to follow. He caught fragments here and there, familiar sounds that surfaced just long enough to give him a vague sense of meaning before the rest slipped past him entirely. It was like trying to drink from a river with his hands. Most of it simply ran through his fingers.
Still, he understood the tone.
That was enough.
This was not a discussion.
He stood before the Kaiser's desk in the private office, shoulders squared, posture rigid, holding himself together through effort alone. The room itself felt dense, almost oppressive, as if everything inside it carried weight beyond what it appeared to be. Polished wood gleamed under warm light, every surface immaculate, every object placed with intention. Maps covered the walls and tables—Europe carved into borders and colors that looked far too orderly for what he knew the future held. Miniature warships lined the shelves and mantelpiece, arranged in careful formations, little fleets frozen in anticipation of wars not yet fought. The air was thick with cigar smoke and something sharper beneath it, something expensive that clung to the throat and made each breath feel slightly heavier than the last.
Paintings of storm-torn seas and ironclads filled the walls, dramatic and deliberate, less decoration and more declaration.
And above it all, Queen Victoria watched.
Her portrait hung high, stern and unmoving, her gaze fixed downward with the quiet severity of someone accustomed to judging kings and finding them lacking. The grandmother of the man in this room, the matriarch behind empires, and in that moment, it felt as if her eyes had settled on Oskar specifically, weighing him against something he could never hope to understand.
He kept his face blank.
That part, at least, he had learned.
A neutral expression, steady eyes, just unfocused enough to pass for calm instead of confusion. From the outside, he might have looked composed, even cold. Inside, his thoughts were anything but.
What is he saying… is this already decided… am I supposed to respond… don't speak too soon… don't say something stupid…
Near the tall windows stood the Kaiser.
Wilhelm II did not turn as he spoke. He didn't need to. The room seemed to organize itself around him regardless. His hands were clasped behind his back, posture rigid, gaze fixed out into the night as if the world beyond the glass required constant supervision. He was exactly as Oskar remembered from books and documentaries—imposing, controlled, undeniably authoritative, yet with that subtle imperfection that broke the illusion if you looked closely enough. The stiffness in his arm, the unnatural angle that hinted at something beneath the surface. A man who projected strength so completely that any flaw became impossible to ignore once seen.
Majestic, until you noticed.
Measured, until he wasn't.
Ambitious, always.
And to Oskar, he looked like a man moving forward with absolute certainty, even if that path led somewhere irreversible.
At the side of the room, the Crown Prince watched.
Wilhelm Crown Prince of Germany leaned casually against the wall, arms folded, a faint smile resting on his face as if he had already seen how this moment would end and found it mildly amusing. The resemblance between father and son was there, but where the Kaiser carried tension like a coiled spring, the Crown Prince seemed almost relaxed, content to observe rather than intervene.
Oskar did not look at him for long.
One Wilhelm was enough.
Two felt excessive.
He kept his mouth shut.
If this were a game, he thought distantly, the Kaiser would be the kind of opponent you feared early—loud, overwhelming, impossible to challenge directly—only to realize much later that he had never truly understood the battlefield he stood on.
The Kaiser spoke again.
"Oskar."
The name cut cleanly through the room, sharp enough that Oskar felt his spine tighten on instinct.
"Have you understood your assignment," Wilhelm continued, his voice steady, controlled, "or must I repeat it again?"
Oskar caught enough of that to know exactly what was being asked.
Not the details.
But the expectation.
"In one week, you will report to the Kiel Naval Academy."
That word he understood perfectly.
Kiel.
It landed with weight.
"It will shape your future," the Kaiser went on, his tone cooling slightly, "and perhaps teach you to conduct yourself as a proper son of this house."
Oskar didn't catch every word, but he didn't need to. The meaning came through clearly enough. This had already been decided. This was not something he was being asked to consider. It was something he was being told.
His throat tightened slightly.
Four years.
That was what it meant.
Four years of study, drills, discipline, etiquette, and expectations he was in no way prepared to meet. Four years lost while the world moved closer to a war he already knew was coming. Four years he needed—for money, for influence, for connections, for anything that might give him even the smallest chance to change what he already knew was coming.
He couldn't afford to lose that time.
Not just for the sake of himself, but also possibly all of humanities, he couldn't accept it.
He had to refuse, even if this was the worst possible place to do it.
He drew in a slow breath, then another, forcing himself to stay still as he tried to assemble the words in his head.
Don't mess this up, just say it simple and clean.
He opened his mouth.
"My man, I mean—"
He stopped himself immediately, heat rising to his face.
"Father…" he corrected, forcing the word out properly this time.
Another breath.
Another attempt.
"I… not go."
The room went still.
Not a theatrical stillness. A court stillness. The kind that meant everyone had heard him… and everyone was deciding what he had just made happen.
Wilhelm II turned his head by a fraction.
Not much. Just enough to aim the weight of the empire at one overgrown boy who didn't know the rules.
"What," the Kaiser said, very slowly, "did you say?"
Oskar's ears burned. He understood what and say. The rest might as well have been the growl of something in a cave.
He straightened anyway—tall, broad-shouldered, boots planted—forcing himself into the posture of a prince even when his brain was panicking like a cornered animal.
He had prepared a line. A hard line. A simple line. Something masculine and final.
His mouth betrayed him.
"I… will not… sail."
For half a heartbeat the world didn't move.
Then Crown Prince Wilhelm made a sound—half choke, half laugh—and smothered it behind his hand like a polite man hiding a sin.
The Kaiser's expression darkened, slow and heavy, like weather rolling in from the North Sea.
"Oskar!" the Crown Prince snapped, stepping forward with theatrical outrage, as if offended on behalf of every dead ancestor in every portrait. "This is Father's will—the will of the Emperor! You refuse your duty? You would shame the House of Hohenzollern?"
He spoke loudly, cleanly, in perfect German.
Just enough elegance to make Oskar's crude sentence sound even worse.
Oskar stared at him, blank-faced.
He didn't understand most of it, but he understood the shape of it.
This was, utter humiliation.
And he understood, suddenly, why the Crown Prince was smiling.
Wilhelm II lifted a hand.
The Crown Prince stopped at once.
The Kaiser crossed to the desk in two measured strides and planted both hands on the wood.
The sound wasn't loud.
It didn't need to be.
"Oskar," Wilhelm II said, each syllable precise, voice low with control that felt more dangerous than shouting, "explain yourself."
Oskar realized, instantly, that this was bad.
No—worse than bad.
He needed a reason. A reason that wasn't the truth.
Not I know the future and you're all doomed.
Not I need money for ships that don't exist yet.
Not please don't let Germany collapse like melted ice cream.
His mind sprinted through German words and found only potholes. His vocabulary was a broken fence, anything important or just too complicated to spell had already leaked out.
So he did the one thing you never did with a man like Wilhelm II.
He tried honesty.
"Father…" Oskar began, and even saying the word felt wrong in his mouth—like wearing someone else's underwear. But he pushed forward anyway, because there was nowhere else to go.
"You see, I have big dreams," he said slowly. "Like… Alexander the Big."
He tapped his chest once, as if his ribcage could translate for him.
"My destiny is too big, and school is too small."
He swallowed, tried to build another sentence.
"Yes, you see. I want to make big things. For small men. Make monkeys, so debt go flying away for nation. Then we make… boom-boom. You will like, happy day's ahead."
He heard it as he said it.
It sounded like a caveman explaining philosophy.
For a heartbeat, both the Kaiser and the Crown Prince simply stared—like they'd been handed a letter written in mud.
Then Wilhelm II's face began to change.
Red.
Darker.
Then a color that belonged on warning flags and battlefield maps.
"Enough!" Wilhelm II said, voice trembling—not with confusion, but with contained rage, "Oskar you are a prince of the German Empire. Your future is service. Duty. Honor. Your brothers accepted theirs without question—and so will you!"
He slammed his fist onto the desk.
Ink jumped. A glass trembled.
"Or do you intend to dishonor our name?" the Kaiser snapped. "Do you even understand what you are doing? I warn you Oskar, if you do not go to the Academy and learn to behave like a normal prince again, then I will have no choice but to place you under house arrest until you stop humiliating us!"
Oskar's stomach tried to climb out of his body.
Abort. Abort. Abort.
His face stayed still—too still. The blank princely mask he used whenever he didn't understand half the room and hoped nobody noticed.
Beside him, Crown Prince Wilhelm looked like he was about to die from laughter.
"This," the Crown Prince murmured, almost kindly, "is the point where you apologize, little brother."
Oskar knew he should fold. He knew he should nod and say yes and pretend obedience.
But he looked at the two men—both shorter than him, both so confident in a world he knew would burn—and something stubborn in him refused to bend.
So he doubled down.
And his mouth—traitorous, suicidal—reached for the only "strong" line it could find.
"I will not kneel," Oskar said, slow and firm. "Real men build their own bridges."
It landed in the room like a dropped plate.
The Crown Prince's shoulders shook. He had to cover his mouth.
The Kaiser went very still.
When Wilhelm II spoke again, his voice was quieter—and somehow that was worse.
"Oskar," he said, "you have disappointed me. Deeply."
He stepped closer, gaze hard.
"I had hoped you were practicing to become a proper prince again. But it seems you have spent your time accumulating muscle instead of intellect."
There it was.
Not just an imperial judgment—something heavier. The cold weight of a father's disgust, wrapped neatly in the language of duty.
Oskar felt it hit his chest like a physical blow.
He had expected this moment.
He just hadn't expected to detonate it with a badly translated action-movie quote.
The Kaiser straightened, every inch the man in portraits.
"Prince Oskar of Prussia," he declared, "you will report to the Kiel Naval Academy in one week. You will remain there for four years. You will return only with my permission."
His eyes pinned Oskar like a nailed insect.
"And until the day you leave, you will be confined to this palace. Do you understand?"
Oskar dipped his head.
He wanted to scream: I'm trying to save this empire.
But he didn't trust his German not to turn that into something stupid.
So he said nothing.
Silence was safer for now.
Wilhelm II dismissed him with a sharp wave, as if swatting away a fly that had learned to speak.
"Oskar. OUT."
Oskar turned stiffly and walked toward the door.
Two steps.
Then—because the universe hated him—one last line slipped out on instinct, in the same stupid tone he used on servants and soldiers and anyone he wanted to reassure.
"…I'll be back."
The Crown Prince made a strangled sound.
The Kaiser's eye twitched.
Oskar didn't wait to see whether the room decided to laugh or execute him. He left.
And, on the way out, he hit his head on the doorframe.
Hard enough that the sound echoed.
Perfect.
Outside the study, the corridor was quiet—guards standing like statues, faces politely blank, pretending they hadn't heard the entire imperial meltdown.
Karl stood against the wall with his arms folded, wearing the expression of a man watching a carriage roll directly toward a cliff.
One look at Oskar's face told him everything.
"So," Karl said dryly, "how many centuries of Hohenzollern heritage did you insult this time?"
Oskar exhaled, long and hollow.
"All of them."
Karl patted his arm with the solemnity of a priest.
"Well. Good news: you have a week before they ship you off to sailor-school. Bad news: you'll be locked in here until then."
Oskar groaned.
Karl nodded as if confirming a medical diagnosis.
"Don't worry," he said. "I'll smuggle you snacks from the world beyond these walls. And perhaps a book titled How Not To Speak Like a Cursed Statue."
Oskar stared into the middle distance, eyes empty, voice grave.
"Failure… is not an option."
Karl blinked once.
"Oh, excellent," he said. "Another one-liner."
He sighed.
"We're all doomed."