Re: Blood and Iron

The chapel bell rang out across the winter courtyard of the Potsdam Youth Academy, its sharp tools echoing against the stone walls and frozen barracks. Snow clung to the corners of them. Untouched and silent, much like Erwin von Zehntner, as he sat alone on the stone bench beneath the statue of Saint Maurice, his collar drawn up high against the chill wind.

Fourteen years old, already taller than most of his peers, he wore the cadet grey of the Imperial Military Academy’s youth corps. The fabric, pristine and pressed, bore the insignia of House von Zehntner over the heart—a silver wolf rampant beneath the Iron Cross.

A symbol he had grown to resent.

His gloved hands clutched the letter tighter. He’d read it three times already, each time more painfully than the last. Alya’s handwriting was graceful, even when weighed down with sorrow.

Though they had been married for less than a year at this point, her words, written poetically echoed a true sentiment, one born by every soldier’s wife in history. She missed him. She said the house felt too large without him.

That she had grown accustomed to falling asleep to the sound of his quiet breathing beside her, and now silence gnawed at her like winter rats in the rafters. He had read those words and felt his chest tighten in a way no drill or sparring match had ever inflicted.

Cadet life was not what he expected. The uniforms, the formations, the lectures on Clausewitz and Frederick the Great—those were all as Father had said. But the pressure... the weight of expectation... that had not been in any letter or spoken word from the man who stood taller than any statue of Germania herself.

Bruno von Zehntner was more than a father. He was the man who saved Germany. The man who carved a new world order with blood and iron. A living legend. And Erwin was his son. Not just any son, but the first. The heir. The one whose name already passed lips in every officer’s mess from Berlin to Königsberg.

And yet... He didn’t want it. Not like this. For years he had tried to distance himself from the expectation those had of him. Thinking he would be the next alpha in a dynasty of wolves. But the more spectacular Bruno became, the more Erwin expected to fill the footprints he left behind.

It was a crushing realization, one that Erwin understood was not his father’s fault, nor his own inadequacy for that matter, displaying remarkable maturity and resilience for his age. He just knew that with the way things were headed, the path of the military officer may not have been what he thought all those years ago, when be begged his mother to let him become a cadet.

But these thoughts were instantly stirred by the creaking of the floorboards. Erwin heard footsteps approach. Not boots—they were lighter, softer. He didn’t need to look to know who it was. Only one person in the academy knew to look for him in this secluded corner.

Konrad Albrecht. His roommate. Son of a merchant, grandson of a decorated artillery officer. Loyal, simple, and honest to a fault.