Across Potsdam, the gunfire had not stopped.
More than half an hour had passed since the first shots shattered the morning, yet the battle around the Royal Palace continued without pause. Rifles, carbines, and machine guns merged into one endless tearing sound, broken only by the heavier concussion of grenades and tank guns. Dark columns of smoke climbed above the royal district, spreading beneath the pale morning sky while flames flickered behind the rooftops.
In that direction, it no longer sounded like a coup. It sounded like war.
But the Royal Palace was not the only place where Germans were killing Germans that morning.
Farther east, in the heart of Berlin, gunfire echoed beneath the immense iron-and-glass roof of the central railway station. A detachment of Prittwitz's Seventh Army, marked by white armbands, had seized the platforms, signal rooms, and administrative offices before dawn. Railway workers and passengers had been driven into storage rooms and waiting halls at gunpoint, while armed men took control of the tracks and switching systems.
Their purpose was simple.
Princess Tanya's royal train was approaching Berlin. The Resurrectionists meant to stop it, take Tanya and her entourage into custody, and close the capital's railways until the restoration had been secured.
But their plan was already coming apart.
Police had surrounded the station, closing nearby streets and forcing civilians away from the entrances. Officers fought from behind ticket counters, luggage carts, stone pillars, and overturned benches while frightened passengers crawled beneath seats or hid inside shops and offices.
Among the police moved seven soot-blackened figures who had been fighting inside the station since before the alarm became public.
The Suicide Squad and the Tolkien brothers.
What had begun as a quiet infiltration had become a close-quarters battle across platforms, coal yards, signal rooms, and service passages. Gunshots cracked beneath the glass roof. Grenades burst in enclosed halls. Smoke drifted between the platforms as police and Eternal Guards fought to break the Resurrectionists' hold before Tanya's train reached the station.
And the train was still coming.
With two battles raging at once, the imperial heartland seemed to stop breathing.
Rail traffic froze across Berlin. Trains were held outside the city or redirected onto secondary lines. Roads near the station filled with abandoned carriages, delivery wagons, motorcars, and crowds forced back by police barricades. Around the royal district, civilians stared toward the smoke rising over Potsdam while sirens screamed through the streets.
Men stood outside homes and shops with anger and confusion written across their faces. Women watched the dark clouds above the palace with hands pressed over their mouths. Children clung to their parents and were hurried indoors whenever another explosion rolled across the city and rattled the windows.
Trams halted.
Double-decker buses stood motionless in the road.
Motorcars, delivery trucks, and wagons pulled aside without waiting to be ordered, their drivers clearing a path for the growing procession of emergency vehicles racing toward the royal district.
No one mistook it for an exercise anymore. There was too much smoke. Too much fire. And the shooting had gone on far too long.
Police cars and motorcycles streamed through the opened streets, followed by ambulances, troop wagons, and ammunition vehicles. Among the watching crowds, armed men pushed steadily in the same direction—Eternal Guards recalled from leave, Black Legion soldiers recovering in the capital, and veterans who had heard the distant fighting and begun moving before any formal order could reach them.
Some wore uniform coats thrown hastily over underclothes. Others carried only pistols, service badges, or the black markings of Oskar's formations. A few had no weapons at all.
Still they ran.
Ahead of them, the dark armored carriers of the SEK thundered toward Potsdam.
The six-wheeled vehicles were painted deep Prussian blue, almost black beneath the smoke and morning haze. Shielded machine guns rested upon their roofs, barrels pointed forward as engines roared and sirens screamed. They moved in a hard column toward the greater battle, while civilian traffic pressed itself against pavements and building fronts to let them pass.
Inside the lead carrier, the outside world disappeared behind steel.
A low red lamp illuminated twelve men seated along the walls of the armored compartment. Their bodies swayed with every turn, knees nearly touching across the narrow aisle as they prepared in silence.
Hands tightened straps and checked armored vests. Reinforced knee guards were secured over dark trousers. Helmets were fastened. Goggles were lowered. Black cloths were drawn over mouths and noses against smoke, dust, and splintered stone.
Riflemen checked magazines and chambers. Two men loaded shotguns and rested the weapons across their thighs. A marksman sat beside the rear doors with a long rifle braced between his knees. Gas masks hung at their sides beside grenades, tourniquets, ammunition, and holstered pistols.
No one needed to be reminded what waited ahead.
The officer nearest the doors raised two fingers.
"Two minutes."
The men answered with silent nods. A bolt was pulled. A shotgun slide worked once. A final strap was tightened.
Then bullets began striking the armored hull.
Metal rang along the carrier's side. One round flattened against a plate with a hard clang. Another struck close to the rear hinge, leaving a bright scar in the dark steel.
The roof-mounted machine gun answered immediately.
Its roar shook the compartment as the carrier accelerated toward the outer gates of the royal district.
The palace proper was not the first barrier.
The Royal Palace of Potsdam stood at the center of a much larger royal quarter—a broad district of gardens, athletic grounds, administrative buildings, servants' homes, guest houses, guard posts, and private residences belonging to officials and members of the imperial household. Decorative iron fences and spear-topped gates enclosed that outer district, separating it from the ordinary streets of the capital.
Those gates were already under attack.
Small groups of Resurrectionist Royal Guards had established firing positions behind the ironwork, within gate lodges, and among nearby buildings. They were holding back the first police units to arrive: ordinary officers armed mainly with pistols, rifles, and shotguns, fighting from behind patrol cars, stone posts, and garden walls.
The police had secured the surrounding streets and prevented the Resurrectionists from spreading outward, but they had not yet broken through.
Then the SEK column arrived.
The lead carrier did not slow. Its roof gun hammered the gate lodges while the driver aimed directly at the iron entrance. Royal Guards fired back, bullets striking the front plate and snapping through the air around the gunner.
The carrier hit the gates with the full weight of steel and speed.
Iron screamed.
The two halves bowed inward, tore from their fastenings, and collapsed beneath the wheels. The armored vehicle burst through in a spray of twisted bars and broken masonry, with the rest of the column following close behind.
Machine guns swept the outer positions. Police officers rose from cover and advanced behind them. Resurrectionists abandoned the gate lodges or were cut down where they stood, and within moments the first defensive layer had been cracked.
The SEK did not remain there.
Regular police spread through the royal district behind them, securing roads, searching buildings, guarding intersections, and sealing every route by which an enemy might escape or circle behind the assault. Ambulances and ammunition vehicles moved into the protected area as officers cleared servants' homes, guest residences, gardens, and administrative structures one by one.
The armored carriers continued toward the palace proper.
The road ahead was broad and elegant, lined with carefully trimmed hedges, tall trees, ornamental lamps, and the scattered manor houses of men important enough to live within sight of the imperial residence. It had been built for royal carriages, parades, and peaceful morning traffic.
Now it carried a column of armored vehicles toward battle.
Smoke thickened as they advanced. The gunfire grew louder. Then the buildings opened out, and the palace walls came into view.
The heavier battle lay there.
Karl's manor stood across the street from the fortified palace grounds, its upper floors burning and its gardens torn apart by shellfire. Eternal Guards fired from shattered windows, broken walls, hedges, cellar vents, and ruined gateposts. Across from them rose the medieval-looking outer wall surrounding the palace proper, reinforced and altered over the years beneath Oskar's direction. Towers divided the wall into separate fighting sections, while the main gates opened onto the long ceremonial driveway leading toward the palace itself.
Before those gates sat the tank Karl had crippled, and the Eternal Guards had finished off.
Its turret remained locked at an awkward angle. Smoke and flame pushed from the rear deck, while the open hatches breathed black fumes from the men burning inside. Eternal Guards moved around the wreck, firing toward the battlements and throwing grenades over the walls wherever defenders showed themselves.
The SEK carriers entered that chaos at speed.
Bullets struck their armor almost immediately. Roof-mounted machine guns answered, hammering the palace battlements, towers, and firing slits as the vehicles braked hard along the street. Their rear doors opened before the wheels had fully stopped.
The men dismounted in practiced order.
Riflemen dropped beside each carrier and returned fire. Assault teams moved toward the walls with carbines, shotguns, grenades, and ammunition for the Eternal Guard. Medics broke away toward the ruins of Karl's manor, where they began applying tourniquets, binding wounds, and preparing the badly injured for evacuation.
Captain Dieter met the arriving officers beside the destroyed tank at the palace gate.
His black armor was streaked with soot, blood, and dust. A deep silver scar crossed the side of his helmet where shrapnel had nearly split his skull.
"Regular police will continue securing the outer royal quarter," Dieter ordered. "Clear every residence, service building, road, and garden. Nothing reaches us from behind."
The SEK commander struck a fist against his chest.
"Your assault teams will spread east and west along the palace walls. Seal every exit. No one enters or leaves without our knowledge."
Dieter pointed toward the southern gate and the battlements rising above it.
"The main force comes with us. We take the walls first. Until those towers and parapets are ours, no one advances on the palace itself."
The orders went out at once.
Police spread through the surrounding royal district, establishing roadblocks and clearing buildings one by one. SEK carriers and assault teams divided along the eastern and western roads, tightening the encirclement around the fortified palace grounds.
The southern force prepared to attack.
No one charged blindly. Every movement was covered. Machine guns suppressed the towers while riflemen shifted between walls, wrecked vehicles, hedges, and broken gatehouses.
But discipline did not make the defenders any less dangerous.
The Resurrectionists were Royal Guards and experienced soldiers of the Seventh Army, armed with the same modern weapons Oskar had introduced into Germany's forces. Snipers watched from towers and upper windows. Machine guns covered the gates and the open ground beyond them. Grenade launchers sent explosive rounds into vehicles, gardens, walls, and every position the attackers tried to use as shelter.
Both sides were trained, well armed, and both sides understood that defeat might mean death.
Thus the casualties mounted quickly.
Karl had opened the gates, but the advance had stopped there.
Beyond the archway lay a long ceremonial driveway, formal gardens, fountains, and open ground stretching toward the palace itself. Resurrectionists occupied rows of windows across the broad facade, and every attempt to move beyond the gate was met by concentrated fire.
Second Company could enter the grounds.
It could not yet cross them.
Dieter looked toward the newly arrived carriers and pointed at two.
"Empty those vehicles!"
The assault teams dismounted, leaving only the drivers and roof gunners.
Dieter pointed through the broken gates.
"Side by side. Push forward until the machines will go no farther. We advance behind you."
The drivers understood.
Engines roared.
The two armored carriers entered the palace grounds together, moving abreast with only a narrow gap between them. Their machine guns hammered the palace windows while Eternal Guards and SEK officers followed close behind, crouched within the moving shelter of their armored hulls.
The Resurrectionists answered with everything they had.
Rifle and machine-gun fire struck the carriers in a continuous storm. Bullets rang against steel, shattered viewing glass, and tore into tires and roof mounts. Grenade-launcher rounds burst around the vehicles, throwing earth, stone, and fragments across the men advancing behind them.
One roof gunner collapsed over his weapon.
The second continued firing until bullets tore through his shield and threw him backward.
A driver was struck behind the viewing slit. His carrier continued forward without guidance, drifted across the driveway, and ground to a halt.
The other vehicle pushed several meters farther before its front wheel burst. The driver died over the controls, and the engine coughed itself into silence.
Both carriers had been destroyed, but they had gone far enough. Now their hulls stood within the palace grounds like steel barricades, dividing the defenders' fields of fire and giving the attackers their first real foothold beyond the gates.
"Forward!" Dieter shouted.
Eternal Guards and SEK men surged behind the wrecks.
Some spread into the gardens and fired upon the palace windows. Others turned toward the southern gate towers, forcing themselves through their narrow entrances beneath covering fire and grenades.
Ladder teams followed.
They carried whatever could bear a man's weight—garden ladders, maintenance frames, timber poles, and equipment taken from the surrounding estates. They raised them against the old walls beneath a storm of rifle fire.
The assault took on the shape of a medieval siege fought with modern weapons.
Machine guns hammered stone parapets while black-armored men climbed ladders beneath them. Riflemen fired upward as they ascended. Grenades sailed over crenellations and burst among the defenders. Royal Guards leaned over the walls to shoot or throw explosives down, only to be dragged backward by bullets and flying fragments.
At the towers, men fought over narrow staircases one landing at a time. Grenades went up first, followed by gunfire. Then men climbed over the dead to reach the next turn of stone steps.
Neither side could rush the work. Every chamber, stairwell, parapet, and firing slit had to be taken separately. A defender hidden behind thick masonry could hold up an entire section until rifle fire, grenades, or men attacking from another direction forced him out.
Slowly, the southern wall began to fall.
The first breach came near the eastern gate tower. Eternal Guards reached the battlement and attacked the defenders from the side. Another section near the main arch followed. Each captured foothold allowed more men to climb, spread along the wall, and strike the next position from two directions.
The Resurrectionist line broke into separate pockets, but it did not collapse.
Men fought from towers, guardrooms, stairwells, and sealed chambers. Sections that appeared secure erupted again when hidden defenders emerged from doors or interior passages. Every meter of wall cost time, ammunition, and blood.
While Dieter's force tore at the southern defenses, the SEK completed the encirclement of the palace walls.
Armored vehicles and assault teams spread east and west along the surrounding roads, taking positions before the lesser gates and sealing every approach. Behind them, regular police secured the wider royal quarter. Residences, offices, gardens, and service roads were cleared one by one, allowing ambulances and ammunition vehicles to move forward without fear of attack from the rear.
The palace was surrounded.
Its southern wall was being taken apart piece by piece.
Still, it held.
Before long, all sense of time vanished beneath the gunfire. The sun climbed steadily while men fought over towers, battlements, narrow staircases, gardens, and the exposed ground beyond the gates. The wounded were carried back. Fresh ammunition came forward. Eternal Guards recalled from leave arrived in twos and threes, joining the battle without ceremony before disappearing into the smoke.
Dieter remained at the southern entrance, directing the assault through the confusion.
Around him, loyalist forces continued to grow. More police arrived. More armored vehicles took position. More men moved toward the walls. Slowly, section by section, the southern defenses were passing into their hands.
At this rate, Dieter judged, they might control the outer walls before midday.
Then only the palace itself would remain.
And somewhere beneath it, he prayed, Oskar's family was still alive.
That thought brought little comfort.
They had secured the outer royal quarter. They had surrounded the fortified walls. They had broken through the southern gate and seized several sections of the battlements.
But the palace proper still stood across a wide stretch of open ground, its windows filled with armed men and protected by overlapping fields of fire. Any direct assault would be costly. Worse, the Resurrectionists held servants and members of the imperial household inside. A careless bombardment or desperate charge might kill the very people the loyalists had come to save.
Yet waiting carried dangers of its own.
The underground refuge beneath the palace had never been designed to withstand an assault from within the building. It had been built for secrecy, aerial attack, bombardment, and threats beyond the outer walls. Its entrances were reinforced, but its ventilation system remained vulnerable. If the Resurrectionists discovered the hidden shafts, they could block them, poison them, or simply cut off the flow of air.
Oskar's family might survive gunfire only to suffocate beneath their own home.
Dieter felt sweat running beneath his helmet despite the cool morning air.
They had to move faster.
They needed more men, more equipment, and a way into the palace that would not turn the hostages into casualties.
And Karl was already somewhere inside, alone and without support.
Then another siren rose above the battle.
Dieter turned toward the road, expecting another SEK column or perhaps the first reinforcements from the local garrison.
Instead far off down the road, a fire engine thundered through the smoke.
Its bell hammered wildly. A long mechanical ladder rested folded across its roof, while armed men clung to its running boards, rear platform, and steel frame. Their grey officer uniforms were blackened by coal dust, smoke, and railway grime.
Behind it came civilian motorcars, a commandeered truck, police vehicles, and motorcycles carrying additional officers and ammunition.
For one astonished moment, Dieter simply stared.
"What in God's name is this?"
Then the fire engine drew closer.
He recognized the men riding upon it.
Günther, Max, Adolf, Otto, Göbels. The entire Suicide Squad clung to the stolen machine as though arriving at a palace siege aboard a fire engine had been part of the plan all along.
Ronald and Hilary Tolkien rode with them.
Through the cracked front glass, Dieter saw Captain Conrad of First Company gripping the steering wheel. His uniform was dark with soot, and dried blood marked one side of his face.
"Conrad?"
Then the engine reached the junction before the southern gate, and Conrad wrenched the wheel to the right.
Rather than joining Dieter's attack, the fire engine turned east and thundered along the road beside the palace walls. The direction was deliberate. Oskar's family wing lay on the eastern side of the palace, while farther northeast the First Company barracks remained under attack.
Conrad meant to bring his force as close to both as possible.
The turn revealed the rest of the column. Two civilian motorcars and a large truck followed, crowded with the fifty Eternal Guards who had accompanied Tanya to Warsaw. Black helmets and armored shoulders filled the windows and open truck bed. Rifles pointed outward as the vehicles raced beside the walls.
Police cars and motorcycles followed close behind, their officers joining the SEK teams already positioned around the eastern side.
Then a motorcycle swept past them all.
Tanya rode low over the machine, leaning into its speed as she chased the fire engine through smoke and gunfire.
The motorcycle was a polished Muscle Motors Silver-Class model, sleek and powerful, its engine roaring beneath her like an angry living thing.
She had taken it from a wealthy young German who had possessed enough wisdom to surrender it without argument.
Now the machine carried her toward the palace.
Dust, soot, and railway smoke marked the red dress she had worn from Warsaw, but they had done little to diminish her. The fabric still clung to her narrow waist and full, trained figure with the polished elegance familiar to all Germans from Angel Works advertisements and fashionable magazines. A golden cross rested against the daring line of her chest. High heels remained stubbornly fixed to her feet as she controlled the motorcycle at speed.
Her long golden hair streamed behind her in bright waves.
For years, Germany had seen Tanya posed beside Muscle Motors machines, smiling with soft beauty and confidence—the living image of the new German womanhood Oskar's world promised.
There was no smile now.
Her great blue eyes burned behind her goggles. Her full lips were drawn tight. Fear for her children and fury toward anyone standing between her and them had transformed her familiar beauty into something frightening.
The column swept eastward.
Dieter watched it vanish around the palace wall.
"Lady Tanya…"
The fire engine braked hard before the eastern defenses.
The vehicles behind it spread across the road. Doors opened, and First Company poured out beneath immediate rifle fire. Bullets struck the fire engine and snapped against the commandeered cars. Glass shattered. Metal rang.
The Eternal Guards answered at once.
They moved into the firing positions already established by the SEK, adding their carbines and machine guns to the assault. Police officers took cover behind vehicles and walls and opened fire with rifles and shotguns. Together they hammered the eastern battlements, forcing Resurrectionist defenders behind stone.
Captain Conrad climbed from the fire engine.
"Suppress the walls!" he shouted. "Bring the ladder around!"
Otto and Göbels threw themselves onto the controls. Gears groaned as the long mechanical ladder rose from the roof and began turning toward the battlement.
The Suicide Squad took positions around the vehicle. First Company formed behind them, preparing to climb.
Then Tanya stopped directly behind the fire engine.
The motorcycle slid sideways across the road before settling beneath her. For one dangerous moment, she remained seated in the open, one hand gripping the handlebar while smoke drifted around her and bullets struck sparks from the stone nearby.
Then she rose.
She tore the goggles from her face and stared up at the eastern battlements.
The Royal Guards upon the battlements saw her. And for a moment several rifles turned toward the woman in red, then the men holding them froze.
They knew Tanya in a way the rest of Germany did not. Before she had been a princess, before the magazines, cosmetics, royal dresses, and children, she had been a maid within these very walls. Many of the guards above had watched her grow from a stubborn young servant into one of the central women of Oskar's household.
They had seen her carrying trays through the corridors. They had watched her walking in the gardens with children gathered around her skirts. They had heard her singing through open windows and received hot drinks from her hands during long winter watches. They knew her as composed, graceful, and unfailingly kind.
They had never seen her like this.
Her long golden hair spilled around her shoulders in the wind. Her red dress remained elegant despite the soot and railway grime staining it, but there was nothing soft in the woman wearing it now. Her great blue eyes burned with terror and fury. Her full lips trembled, not from fear, but from the effort of holding back something far more violent.
Her beauty had always drawn men toward her. Now it warned them away.
She looked like something holy driven into wrath.
"Where are my babies? What have you done with them?" she screamed.
Her voice cut through the gunfire with such force that men across the wall turned toward her.
"Where are my children?"
The Royal Guards stared down in silence.
Tanya stepped forward and pointed at them as though they were disobedient boys rather than armed men defending a fortress.
"What in God's name has happened to you?" she demanded. "Have all of you gone mad?"
Several men stepped back from the parapet.
They had expected Eternal Guards. Police. Faceless enemies they could fire upon without thought.
They had not expected Tanya.
"You have opened fire upon your own palace!" she shouted. "You have endangered women and children while Germany is already fighting for its life! You stand beside traitors tearing this nation apart, and you still dare call it duty?"
Her voice sharpened.
"Put down your weapons!"
One guard flinched as though she had struck him.
"I am warning you," Tanya continued. "Return my children to me. End this foolishness now, before you destroy yourselves!"
Something shifted upon the wall.
It was not merely fear. It was recognition, guilt, and the crushing shame of being judged by someone they had once known and respected.
Another commander's rage might have hardened them. Tanya's made them hesitate.
One man lowered his rifle. Another stared down at his weapon as if only now realizing whom it had been aimed toward. A third stepped away from the battlement and raised both hands.
Others remained frozen, unable to surrender while their officers watched, but equally unable to fire upon her.
That hesitation was all the attackers needed.
The fire engine's ladder struck the battlement with a metallic crash. Max and Adolf were already at its head. They threw themselves over the parapet almost together.
One Royal Guard turned toward them and tried to raise his rifle.
Max shot him through the chest.
Another swung his weapon toward Adolf. Adolf fired twice and dropped him against the stone before he could pull the trigger.
The two men landed low upon the narrow wall walk, weapons covering opposite directions.
"Drop them!" Max roared.
"Rifles down!" Adolf shouted. "On the ground!"
Günther came over the parapet behind them, followed by Otto, Göbels, Ronald, and Hilary.
"You heard Her Highness!" Günther thundered. "Weapons down immediately!"
Rifles began striking the stone.
Several Royal Guards sank to their knees or lay flat upon the battlement with their hands spread where they could be seen. One begged Tanya's forgiveness from above. Another swore that he had never intended for the children to be harmed.
But not everyone surrendered.
An officer farther along the wall screamed at his men to resist. A bullet silenced him before he finished the order.
The remaining hardliners opened fire, then began withdrawing toward the towers and enclosed stairways. They fired wildly as they retreated, but none turned their weapons toward Tanya. They moved away from her as if she were fire given human form—too dangerous to approach, too sacred or terrifying to touch.
The Suicide Squad fired after them.
"Push!" Günther ordered. "Do not let them regroup!"
Max and Adolf led the pursuit toward the eastern tower. Otto and Göbels followed, while Ronald and Hilary covered the rear.
Then the eastern wall broke open.
Eternal Guards poured up the fire engine's ladder behind the Suicide Squad. Along the wall below, SEK assault teams raised ladders of their own against the stone and began climbing under covering fire, while police riflemen kept the battlements suppressed from the road.
It was as if floodgates had opened.
Black-armored men spread across the battlements, driving the Resurrectionists from firing positions that had held only moments before. Some turned south, striking toward Dieter's assault at the main gate. Others pushed north along the wall, trying to get closer toward the First Company barracks.
Inside the palace grounds, that building was nearly in ruins.
One of Prittwitz's tanks had crawled close enough to pound the barracks at short range. Shells had torn open the upper floors. Smoke poured from broken windows. Sections of the roof had collapsed, and Resurrectionists pressed forward through the gardens beneath the tank's protection.
Yet the barracks still fought.
From the upper floors, black carbine fire flashed through shattered windows and firing slits. Wounded Eternal Guards dragged themselves between positions. Every doorway and broken window continued answering the men trying to storm them.
Now loyal fire began reaching them from the eastern wall.
Machine guns opened from the captured battlements. Rifles struck the Resurrectionists advancing behind the tank. Grenades fell among men sheltering in the gardens.
The pressure upon the barracks shifted almost at once.
The Resurrectionists were no longer attacking an isolated building. They were being struck from the flank.
Below the wall, Tanya pointed after the advancing soldiers.
"Go!" she screamed. "Find my babies—and show no mercy to anyone who has harmed them!"
"Yes, my lady!" the men of First Company roared as one.
They poured up the ladders and over the battlements.
Then Tanya stepped onto the side of the fire engine and reached for the first rung.
Captain Conrad saw her at once.
"My lady, wait!"
She ignored him and began to climb.
For one brief moment, Conrad hesitated.
To him, Tanya was more than Oskar's wife. She was the mother of the Iron Prince's eldest son, one of the sacred pillars of his household, and nearly a living saint within the faith that had grown around them. But if anything happened to her under his watch, he would never forgive himself.
He set his rifle aside, caught Tanya firmly around the waist, and pulled her bodily from the ladder.
She cried out in fury as the sudden motion nearly sent her flying into his arms.
"What are you doing? Put me down!"
Conrad held her against him with little difficulty, though every instinct warned him that touching her in such a manner was almost as dangerous as the bullets crossing the wall above.
"My lady, please," he said. "Calm yourself."
"My children are inside! They need me!" she roared.
She fought wildly in his arms, driving the heels of her shoes down onto his boots and twisting against the arm locked around her narrow waist. When she could not pry his hand loose, she tried to bite his forearm, but the awkward angle, his superior strength, and the tight bodice of her dress left her unable to reach him.
Behind them, the door of a motorcar opened. Imperiel stepped out and watched in cold silence.
Conrad noticed him and felt his unease deepen. Still, he did not release Tanya.
"The wall remains contested," he said quickly. "Bullets are still crossing the battlements. Men are fighting inside the towers. It is too dangerous. Please reconsider."
Tanya's great blue eyes filled with tears, though rage kept them from falling. Her usual grace and composure had shattered beneath terror for her children. What remained was a mother driven beyond reason, struggling against the one man trying to keep her alive.
Conrad knew that restraining her like this was improper. He also knew that propriety would mean nothing if she was shot climbing the ladder.
Then Tanya stopped fighting quite so violently. Instead she drew a shaking breath and glared up at him.
"Do not be a fool, Captain," she said. "You need me."
Conrad frowned.
"You saw what happened upon that wall. Those men know me. Some of them will listen to me when they would shoot you without hesitation. I may be able to make more of them surrender and bring this madness to an end sooner."
Her voice sharpened.
"So release me, you overgrown brute, or I will tell Oskar exactly how you manhandled me."
Conrad stared at her. The threat was absurd under the circumstances. It was also terrifyingly effective.
His arm loosened slightly around her waist.
Tanya sensed victory and continued.
"I am not asking your permission. My babies are inside that palace. I am going to them."
Conrad closed his eyes for one brief moment.
Then he sighed.
Keeping one arm around her, he reached with the other and opened a storage compartment along the side of the fire engine. Inside lay several pieces of emergency equipment.
He pulled out a red fireman's helmet and a pair of protective goggles.
"Put these on."
Tanya blinked at him.
Conrad released her and placed the helmet firmly into her hands.
"That was not a request, my lady. If you insist upon climbing into rifle fire, then you will at least protect your head and eyes."
He glanced toward the back of the fire engine.
"There may also be spare clothing inside. Something more suitable than that dress."
Tanya looked down at herself, then back at him with open offense.
"I happen to like this dress very much, thank you."
Conrad's mouth tightened.
"But," she added with a huff, "I will wear the helmet and goggles if it will stop you behaving like a frightened nursemaid."
"That will do."
Under his watch, Tanya gathered her golden hair and forced the helmet over it. Then she pulled the goggles back across her eyes.
Conrad visibly relaxed.
He retrieved his rifle and stepped onto the ladder.
"You remain directly behind me," he ordered. "You move when I move, stop when I stop, and keep your head below the parapet until I say otherwise."
Tanya folded her arms beneath her chest and lifted her chin.
"Do I truly look so helpless to you?" she demanded. "I am not a fool, Captain. I have studied my husband's weapons, listened to his soldiers, and learned how to keep myself alive under fire."
Conrad looked down at her and found the claim difficult to reconcile with the woman standing before him.
Tanya was fit—he knew that. Years of exercise had given her strength, balance, and flexibility far beyond what her appearance suggested. But she was still petite, barely reaching his chest, and nothing about her resembled a soldier hardened by campaign or battlefield.
Beneath the oversized red fireman's helmet, she looked more like the star of some daring advertisement than a woman preparing to climb into gunfire. Golden hair spilled around her shoulders, framing a heart-shaped face known from magazines across Germany. Her elegant red dress emphasized the dramatic hourglass of her figure: a slender waist between full hips and a generous chest, made all the more noticeable now that she stood with her arms folded beneath it in stubborn defiance.
She looked as though she had arrived to model for the fire brigade rather than storm a palace wall.
And Conrad had just lifted her bodily from the ladder with almost embarrassing ease.
Whatever training she possessed, Tanya had never seen war. She had never climbed toward men firing rifles, never crossed a battlement slick with blood, never felt bullets snapping past her head. She was fierce, certainly, but she had been made for warmth, beauty, motherhood, and the bright rooms of the palace—not for this.
Yet when she looked up at him, the fury in her immense blue eyes stripped away any thought of helplessness.
And when she spoke, that sweet, almost angelic voice carried an authority far greater than her small body should have possessed.
Conrad had already risked enough by laying hands upon her once. He had no desire to test either her patience or Oskar's understanding a second time.
So he gave a reluctant nod and began climbing.
Tanya smiled as she gathered the skirts of her red dress in one hand and followed directly behind him, her heels striking the metal rungs while bullets hissed over the battlement above.
Behind them, Imperiel moved toward the ladder.
"Imperiel!" Gundelinde cried. "Where are you going?"
He looked back only once.
"To help Mother."
Before anyone could stop him, he seized the lower rungs and began climbing after Tanya.
Louise followed without hesitation.
Unlike Gundelinde, she appeared almost eager beneath her fear. There was something reckless and bright in her expression—the excitement of a tomboy princess who had spent years listening to tales of danger and had finally found herself standing inside one.
She gathered her skirts, placed one foot upon the ladder, and climbed after Imperiel.
Gundelinde remained below.
She was not a fighter. She had never stormed a wall, climbed toward gunfire, or chased armed men through smoke. Unlike the others, she had never taken Oskar's pistol drills or martial training seriously, or Oskar's endless insistence that everyone in the household learn to defend themselves.
Her hands trembled around the fabric of her dress.
Above her, Conrad climbed toward the battlement.
Tanya followed him.
Imperiel followed Tanya.
Louise followed Imperiel.
And somewhere beyond those walls, Gundelinde's own children remained trapped.
She swallowed hard.
Then she gathered her skirts in both hands, hurried awkwardly toward the ladder, and began to climb after them.
Around them, the eastern assault continued pouring over the battlements. The Suicide Squad drove the remaining Resurrectionists toward the towers while First Company and the SEK spread along the wall and deeper into the palace grounds.
Another section of the defenses was passing into loyal hands.
Yet beneath the noise of that assault, Karl moved alone through darkness.
He crawled through a narrow ventilation shaft beneath the western side of the palace, his torn batsuit scraping against metal and stone. The passage was too small for any ordinary man, but for Karl it offered a hidden road eastward, toward Oskar's family and the heart of the fighting.
He moved slowly, silently, listening whenever boots or voices passed through the corridors beyond the thin walls.
He did not know how close he was. He did not know what waited ahead exactly.
And he did not know that the Eternal Guards protecting Oskar's family were preparing something far more terrible than any rifle or grenade.
In the eastern basement, the defenders were being driven back one turn of the stairwell at a time. Gunfire flashed against stone. Grenades burst through smoke. Each time the Resurrectionists gained another landing, the surviving Eternal Guards withdrew closer to the underground entrance hall and the immense doors of the Oskar Industrial Group meeting chamber.
Blood streaked the walls.
The wounded had been carried through the doors and laid beside the triangular marble table beneath the painted heavens and the towering image of Babel. Medics cut away armor, tightened tourniquets, and worked beneath the distant thunder of battle.
Farther inside, Oskar's family had been moved into the hidden laboratory.
Anna held the youngest children beneath cold electric lights. Azarael lay wounded, with Liorael refusing to leave his side. Juniel and Lailael remained close to their mother, their small pistols still gripped in their hands.
Gas masks covered every face.
In the entrance hall, masked Eternal Guards rolled heavy chemical containers into position.
They placed them near the stairwell, the freight elevator, and the smaller service lift. Hoses were connected. Seals were checked. Valves were tested while the enemy continued forcing its way downward.
The defenders were preparing their final answer.
If the basement could not be held, they would make the palace above uninhabitable.
Poison would be released into the stairways, elevator shafts, corridors, halls, and galleries. Every Resurrectionist between the underground refuge and the open sky would die.
The guards believed everyone who truly mattered had already been brought below.
They knew nothing of the servants held prisoner in the great hall. They knew nothing of the Kaiser and Empress locked within the imperial study.
And even had they known, it would have changed little.
Their duty was not to the servants, or to the Kaiser, not even to the monarchy.
Their duty was to Oskar, his wives, his children, and the bloodline they had sworn to protect at any cost.
Above them, Tanya climbed into the battle.
Within the walls, Karl crawled toward the trapped family.
And far beneath them both, as another turn of the staircase was surrendered, black-gloved hands closed around the valves.