The treaty was signed three days later. It bore no grand name—only the mark of three seals, stamped in wax with the authority of the Hohenzollerns, the Romanovs, and the house of von Zehntner.
Its purpose, however, was immense. Beneath the marble domes of the Winter Palace, the future of Eurasia had been sealed with ink and wine. The implications were vast. No longer would Germany and Russia merely trade goods across borders. No longer would their militaries march to different drummers. No—this was the formal birth of what would later be known as the Continental Axis.
A pact not built on ideology, nor on necessity, but on blood, iron, and dynastic bonds. Bruno left Saint Petersburg with the gravitas of a man who had just changed the course of human history. And he had. The world simply hadn't realized it yet.
