February 12th, 1798

Francis and the stallion gifted by Laupin crossed endless forests, rivers, meadows, pastures and burnt cities until they arrived at Alvern. The journey was exhausting, but he couldn't afford to take too many breaks. He had to find Laura.

But, once they actually got to the city, he noticed something had gone terribly wrong in his absence.

He wasn't greeted with the cheerful and bright streets that he used to know. There was no laughter, and no joy, echoing around. No beauty and happiness in sight.

The businesses were burning. Bright orange flames licking through their walls and broken windows with an insatiable hunger. The street was filled with decomposing bodies. Some bloody, filled with bullet and bayonet wounds, and others, burnt beyond recognition. And the flies... they formed a dark constellation on the bright blue sky above.

It was a massacre.

Francis crossed the deadly tapestry with his face contorted in pain and disgust. The smell in the air was repugnant. It was a mixture of gunpowder, soot, rotten flesh and burning wood. He wanted to vomit, but he couldn't, for he was in complete shock. He couldn't even find enough strength to gag.

What exactly had happened here? Did the Duke go mad? Did he find out that the citizens of his little town had helped the revolutionary army and decided to punish every single one of them by killing them? Was this a revenge plot? And if so, where the hell were the Suzannets'? Where was Laura?

He had to find her. And so, he snapped out of his sickly stupor. Galloped until he reached the Dubois palace, forcing his horse to run as if their lives depended on it.

Arriving there was yet another punch to the gut. The plantations were also burning. His beloved garden, once full of greens, reds, yellows, and oranges, was now black as coal. Stiff as a rock. Nothing lived there, nothing grew, nothing thrived. And it wouldn't again, for a long, long time.

The palace no longer looked like a palace. It was in ruins. Nothing but the façade remained. The floors had been destroyed by the flames and a thick, grey smoke was still coming out from the twisted frames of its doors and windows. Where once there was luxury, comfort and excessive greed, now there was misery, desolation and ashes.

In a panic, Francis shook his head and went to the outskirts of town next, towards the Suzannet's mills and house. He didn't know why, but he expected that part of the city to still be intact. He hoped, desperately, to find everyone alive and well, still joking around, and working, and breathing...

It wasn't the case. Both husband and wife had been killed, and burnt to a crisp with their property. The hussar recognized their bodies by their wedding rings —the only objects that survived the intense heat of the flames—. Right by their side, with their mouths still opened in a perpetual scream, were their charred children.

Then, reality set it. All of his friends were now dead.

And Francis no longer could help himself.

He sobbed, hard. And in his desperation, tried to search for Laura, thinking that perhaps she still could be saved. Praying to God that maybe, just maybe, she was still alive underneath the smoking rubble.

He didn't care that part of the house's roof had collapsed, and that the room where his lover had been hiding in —according to her letters— no longer existed. He didn't care that he was exhausted from his long trip. He didn't care that fortune wasn't smiling at him, that his well of good luck had dried, and that his beloved hometown was now gone. He didn't care about the entertained giggles of the devil, or the way his own God was weeping. He didn't. Care.

He tried to remove the scolding hot debris from out of his way, because he needed to. He wouldn't rest until he found Laura. He wouldn't give up until he saw her again.

This was his greatest mistake. Because something horrible made him stop digging. A hand, protruding from the pile of slabs beneath him. With a diamond ring on its pointer finger, that belonged to only one person.

His lover.

The Duchess.

He'd indeed found her, but he'd come too late.

She was dead too.

And the Duke was nowhere to be found.

He screamed until his throat bled. Punched and kicked the remains of the house until his knuckles were wounded. But any pain he inflected upon himself was no worse than the pain of losing the only woman he'd ever truly loved.

He spent the next few hours crying. Hours trying to figure out what to do now.

His plans of living a good life after the war were destroyed. Gone. He no longer had a clear objective in mind. A clear goal for the future. The only thing he wanted now was revenge. To have the head of the Duke between his hands, to have his neck chopped off by a guillotine he himself had built. He wanted to see that son of a whore perish. And he wouldn't stop until his mission was done. Until his destiny was fulfilled.

After a long time sulking, grieving, suffering the pain of his loss, Francis stood up over his shaking legs. He tried to pull Laura's body out of the pile of rubble, but was too week to do it. And so, decided to leave it there. He couldn't do anything else, being all by himself. He was drained, tired, thirsty, and too devastated to even look at her face again. So, he removed the ring from her hand, kissed it one last time, saved it on his pocked, and left town.

Rode back to his army, to his men. Pushed his sorrow deep inside himself, and let anger fester freely. By the time he arrived at his camp, he was a changed man. commander Laupin knew it, right as his eyes met.

—Why did you come back so early? Where's the Duchess?

Francis didn't reply. He just showed his superior officer the ring. This simple gesture got the message across. She was gone. And so was the man that once loved her.