Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 636: A Dynasty Unbroken

The noise of the boxing match still echoed through the coliseum, a wave of disbelief rolling back and forth across the seats, when another cheer rose from the field.

Not for Germany this time, but for the white-blue banners of Russia.

A pole-vaulter had cleared a height never before reached by a Russian athlete.

Moments later, another competitor in Imperial red and black took second place in a sprint, the difference measured only in heartbeats.

Bruno noted it. Everyone in the Reichstag box did. It was no coincidence.

The Romanovs had studied.

And copied.

Elsa’s husband, now Tsar Alexei, leaned forward in his seat with a rare smile, his face still youthful beneath the crown of authority, but sharpened by years of survival.

He applauded with deliberate pride as his countrymen bowed. When the noise subsided, he turned to his wife, took her hand, and pressed a kiss upon her fingers.

“My love,” he murmured in German so only those nearest could hear. “Your father has given us gifts beyond measure. We stand here only because of him, and because of you.”

Elsa’s expression did not change, though the faintest flicker of triumph stirred in her eyes.

She inclined her head, accepting the thanks with the same cool grace she gave every victory.

Across from them, Eva’s jaw tensed. She leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, silver dress catching the light, and gave her sister the kind of childish glare that carried more bite than words.

How could you?

The look said, pure and unfiltered, as if Elsa had betrayed something sacred in the family by sharing too much.

Elsa met her gaze slowly. She did not speak. She didn’t need to. Her eyes said everything, glacial and deliberate: Father never said I can’t tell my husband his secrets.

The air between them cracked like drawn steel.

Bruno sat between them, unmoving, eyes fixed on the field as though none of this had taken place.

But the corner of his mouth betrayed him. A faint upward curl, so subtle that only a man like him could have managed it, revealed not approval, but recognition.

He had seen this before, long ago, when two girls had fought with coin purses instead of crowns.

Now the stakes were empires.

And neither had changed.

The games rolled onward. Field to track, pool to platform, event to event, and through it all a rhythm emerged.

Germany’s dominance was beyond dispute; their athletes shattered records as if such numbers were made to be broken.

But behind them, just far enough to be noticed and yet never overtaken, marched the Russians.

Second place. Again and again.

A gold here and there, just to remain competitive. But never in a position to dominate.

A Russian swimmer touched the wall a single heartbeat after his German rival.

A weightlifter strained, locked, and held the bar above his head, stronger than any other, save for the colossus in Reich colors who had gone just before him.

Even in fencing, where Russian blades danced with inherited pride, they faltered by a point against the German system Elsa herself had whispered into existence years before.

By dusk of the second day, the scoreboard reflected the pattern clearly: Germany, first. Russia, second. Everyone else, far behind.

Alexei sat straighter with each Russian medal, pride warming his features, but there was a flicker beneath it.

An irritation he could not quite suppress. When the numbers tallied once again and Russia stood only second, his hand tightened on the armrest.

Elsa leaned close, slipping her hand into his with a softness no one in the stadium would have thought her capable of.

Her words, inaudible to anyone but him, were wrapped in silk.

“You have done magnificently, my Tsar. Do you not see? Alone we were adrift. Together we are second only to the might of the Reich. You have lifted Russia higher than she has stood in generations.”

Alexei exhaled, tension leaving him in a slow breath. He turned to her, kissed her brow, and let her words sink like balm on a wound.

His pride was consoled. His frustration quieted. He believed.

And Elsa, watching him with those glacier-blue eyes, smiled faintly as she turned her gaze across the stadium. Past the crowd. Past the flags. Past her husband’s comforted sigh.

Her eyes found her father.

Bruno did not move, but he saw her. He always saw her. She gave him the smallest of winks, subtle as the twitch of a candle flame, and then she returned to her husband’s embrace, resting her head against his shoulder as though the day had wearied her.

To Alexei and to the Romanovs, she was the dutiful wife, the consort who had brought Russia closer to glory than it had ever been.

But beneath the silk, beneath the poise, Elsa’s roots ran deeper than palaces in Saint Petersburg.

She was born a daughter of Prussia. Elevated to the position of Grand Princess of Tyrol, Raised by her father’s hand.

And though she had become an Empress in Russia, she had done so by binding it, cord by cord, oath by oath, child by child… forever to Germany.

Her husband might see a silver medal as loss.

But Elsa knew better.

It was the perfect distance.

Silver to Germany’s gold. Always second. Always bound.

—

The final days of the Games were less competition than coronation.

Germany had not merely won; it had dominated. Record after record fell beneath their athletes’ precision and preparation.

The scoreboard told the story plain: the Reich first in golds, first in silvers, first in bronzes, first in every category that mattered.

Behind them, as Elsa had all but orchestrated, Russia stood proud in second.

Their athletes had proven formidable, their training refined, but always a step behind, always half a breath slower.

Silver upon silver. A respectful shadow cast beneath Germany’s blaze.

Third place belonged to Italy, whose fencers and sprinters had clawed their way past expectation.

No doubt Anna had played a role in their rise to prominence. Brief as her time as their Princess was.

She too had begun to spin the web Elsa had long sense managed to ensnare the Tsar and all of Russia with.

They bowed with pride, but their triumph was muted, overshadowed by the two empires towering above them.

Below, resentment festered.

The Americans sulked, nursing fewer medals than their pride demanded.

Their newspapers had promised a challenge to Europe; instead, their athletes returned home humbled, stripped of illusions.

The French delegation seethed, red-faced and muttering of “unfair advantages” while their boxers were still tasting blood.

The British looked grim, their empire’s pride worn thin by the numbers on the board.

When the closing ceremony began, the stadium erupted in thunder.

The flags of the victors were raised, the anthem of the Reich drowned in brass and drum as the Olympic flame burned itself down to embers.

An anthem that had once copied the melody of “God Save the King” had now eclipsed it entirely, in both grandeur and prestige.

Athletes embraced, wept, saluted. The crowd roared with admiration, and the whole world watched knowing what it meant.

It was not just sport. It was proof. Proof of a nation’s system, its discipline, its future. Proof of power.

And when the torch was finally extinguished, when the last cheers faded into the Berlin night, the real games began.

In a secluded chamber of the British embassy, away from the stadium’s noise, three delegations gathered.

The British Prime Minister stared at the medal count sheets laid out before him as though they were casualty reports.

Across from him, the French foreign minister paced like a caged animal, spitting curses in his own tongue about humiliation and “German propaganda.”

The American envoy sat stiff, his jaw tight, hands folded so as not to betray the fury behind them.

“It is intolerable,” the Frenchman snapped.

“We cannot allow them to parade their system before the world as if it were gospel. Our people see these numbers, and they will begin to believe.”

“They already do,” the American muttered, voice low, heavy with the weight of recognition.

“That’s the problem.”

The Briton finally looked up, his face gray.

“The problem is not belief. The problem is that it works.”

He tapped the sheets with a shaking finger.

“Every boy and girl in their nation is drilled, bred, and conditioned like soldiers. If they can do this in games of sport, what do you imagine they will do in war?”

Silence settled, thick and bitter.

No one spoke of alliances. Not yet.

No one dared to say aloud what was already clawing in their minds: that the Games had not been mere competition, but a warning.

In Berlin, the crowds had cheered. In the embassy’s shadowed hall, the world’s rivals sat with clenched fists, teeth grinding in frustration, united not by triumph, but by humiliation.

Germany had taken gold.

Russia had accepted silver.

Italy had smiled from bronze.

And for America, France, and Britain, there was only the sour taste of loss.

The Games were over.

The storm to come had only just begun.