I remember the cold most of all. The way it bit through my coat, how my breath froze before it could even leave my lips. I was just another replacement, thrown into the meat grinder east of the Volga. The crossing was a nightmare—boats sinking, men screaming, bullets cutting through the water like scythes. When I made it to the west bank, they handed me a rifle with no bullets. Just cartridges. 'Fix bayonets,' they said. 'Charge.'

The attack was suicide. We ran into a storm of fire, bodies dropping around me like rain. I dove behind a collapsed wall, heart hammering, when a hand grabbed my collar—Danilov, the commissar. We shared one rifle, passing it back and forth like a cursed relic. Five Germans fell to our desperation. Five. When we crawled back to safety, I didn’t feel like a hero. I felt like a ghost.

Now, they call me Vassili Zaitsev. Sniper. Legend. But legends don’t bleed. Legends don’t dream of a woman’s touch. And legends don’t wake up screaming from the faces of the men they’ve killed.

Tania waits for me in the ruins. Danilov watches us both. And across the city, König is hunting me.

I have to decide: do I run? Do I fight? Or do I become the myth they need—no matter what it costs?