The day the National Steel Foundry came to life was a day of fire and thunder. Christian stood on an iron gantry with Fievé and Løvenskiold, watching as the first charge of raw iron and coke was fed into the maw of the monstrous Bessemer converter. With a deafening roar and a shower of brilliant orange sparks, the great steel egg tilted, pouring a river of incandescent, liquid steel into the waiting molds. It was a primal, magnificent sight: the birth of Danish industrial sovereignty.
"My God," Løvenskiold whispered, his face illuminated by the glow. "The power…"
Fievé was speechless, his face a mask of pure, avaricious joy. This molten metal was the lifeblood of all their future ambitions.
Christian felt a rare, clean sense of triumph. This was real. This was progress. This was a tangible victory, forged not in the smoke-filled rooms of London, but in the heart of a furnace he had willed into existence. This steel would become the cannons for his army and the armor plate for his fleet.
From this triumph of fire and iron, however, he was forced to turn to the world of silk and pleasantries. With the wedding date set for late summer, the preparations for his union with Duchess Ingrid were now the talk of the court, and he could not avoid his duties as the groom.
He found the process an exercise in excruciating tedium. He sat in formal parlors with Ingrid and her mother, the formidable Duchess of Skarsten, enduring endless discussions about guest lists, floral arrangements, and the political implications of the seating chart.
Ingrid, in this domain, was a master. She moved through the complexities of aristocratic society with the same strategic acumen Christian applied to industry.
"No, mother," she would say with quiet authority, "we cannot seat the Swedish ambassador next to the French. They have a dispute over timber tariffs. And the Baroness von Plessen must be given a place of honor; her niece is to marry into the Russian court."
Christian listened, impressed in a detached way by her skill, but also profoundly bored. This was her battlefield, and while she was a capable general, he had no interest in the war she was fighting. He would offer polite agreement, all the while his mind was calculating the tensile strength of the new steel or the logistics of shipping clay from Africa.
One afternoon, seeking refuge and counsel on the ironclad designs, he visited Admiral Løvenskiold's home. He found Amalie in the library, reading a book on political economy. The contrast between her and his fiancée was a physical blow.
Their conversation was strained, hemmed in by the new reality of his betrothal. She offered him formal congratulations, her voice perfectly composed. He thanked her, his own voice feeling stiff and unnatural. After a moment of awkward silence, she looked up from her book.
"The first pour at the foundry was a great success, my lord. I read about it in the papers. A true foundation for the new Denmark." She paused, her gaze direct. "Does it feel as significant as the foundation you are laying with your upcoming marriage?"
The question was a subtle, elegant blade, sliding past his defenses. She was asking him to weigh his life's work against his life.
"One is a foundation for the empire, Miss Løvenskiold," he replied, the honesty of the answer surprising even himself. "The other… is also a foundation for the empire."
He saw in her eyes that she understood him perfectly. He was admitting that his own marriage, his own life, was just another component in his grand, impersonal design. A flicker of something—pity, perhaps, or shared sorrow for the man he was becoming—crossed her face before she looked away.
Christian left the Admiral's residence feeling the immense, crushing weight of the two worlds he now inhabited. That night, he stood on the balcony of his own residence, looking out at the city he was remaking. He thought of the raw, immense power of the molten steel he had witnessed, the foundation of his nation's future strength. Then he thought of the delicate, unbreakable threads of social and political obligation being woven around him in preparation for his wedding.
He was forging a new Denmark of steel, a nation of strength and industry. But to secure it, he was binding himself in chains of silk, and he was beginning to wonder which material was truly the stronger.