As gelid as if you have just stepped into a portal to either one of the poles, the night air only aggravates the discomfort brought by the snowfall kissing your face. Keeping to the shadows, you observe pairs of guards standing in front of every home and building warning the villagers of the situation and to stay indoors, all whilst a light yet persistent beckoning – almost primitive in the animal-like manner you sense it – irradiates from the Cœur D'Argent Manor.

 Almost as if fate is playing with you, another problem soon makes itself known: There are guards in front of the luxurious building trying – or more precisely, gathering courage to – entre. You could offer help, but going by Captain’s Lötschental stern look, you would be better off keeping to the shadows and look for an alternate entrance.

  It is by making your way around the perimeter of the building that you reach the back wall and a surprise: Echoes of glass being crush under the soles of your boots. At first it would seem strange to find broken glass at such a location, however, by looking up the wall to your right, your eyes are met with lush curtains dancing in the wind, almost detaching themselves from a window on the first floor and  directly facing over the village’s walls.

  At first, your brain hesitates whilst thinking that the walls are too plain to be climbed but by measuring the distance between one and  the other with your arms, optimist kindles your heart again. Thus, by spreading them and your legs between the two walls, you are able to ascend quite effortlessly… That is, effortlessly until the halfway point between the ground and the window: The before ignorable ache from your muscles and bones now reach an almost unbearable level, nearly forcing you to simply drop limply and then go share your finding with the guards, however, an extremely peculiar sound echoes beyond the dancing curtains giving your curiosity just enough motivation to overrule the pain.

  More glass shards crumble under your boots as you make it inside, announcing your arrival to the hauntingly dark halls, though currently you could not care less about it as an excruciating pain feeds on every cubic centimetre of your body as well as every millimetre of your mind.

  Breathing in deeply then letting the air out softly, peace returns to your mind only for a dying second as the agony in it is unfortunately replaced by flashing memories of this night’s haunting nightmare.

  Such dreadful images push your instincts to do anything that may distract you, seamlessly translating into you rummaging through the sounds and sights of the surrounding environment: The guards’ voices coming from beyond the front entrance downstairs fail to truly convey their urgency and hustle, merely echoing as inconsistent voices; the serene moonlight faintly bleeds through the windows at both ends of the hall you are in, illuminating what appears to be a muddy trail; the mobilia and decorations are all wrecked and scattered as if some wild animal rammed through them… A suggestion that – given all that you have witnessed thus far – does not play well with your safety, not a single bit.

  Yet, with all the clues one could find here regarding the imminent threat, what does catch your attention the most is a pack of old letters sticking out from under a crushed table. Though invading other’s personal space is not quite something you are comfortable with, the sheer impulsiveness that has taken over your mind these past few days overrules your rationality yet again, as you grab one of said letters. And, as soon as you lay your eyes upon the first lines, all notions of the current danger you are in as well as the very purpose of your visit simply fade into background noise as the words read thusly:

“18 Mars, (????).

Dear “Lord” Cœur D'Argent,

  Due to our rivalry I would be un idiot to expect to be invited to your village’s birthday fair and – make no mistake – even if I had been, I still wouldn’t even consider gracing your lowly lot with me presence. However, had I known beforehand what was about to happen, then maybe I would have made an exception this year.

  Understand o mon rival, the most interesting rumours recently reached my ears the other day… Rumours of how your little fair had to end rather early due to, shall we say, a misshapen caused by that drunkard that married your daughter.

  Truth be told, at first it sounded quite in line with what I usually expect from your people but what I was then told truly piqued my interest, hehehe…

  By the time I am writing this letter, a fortnight has already passed since that circus that you call a fair ended, yet, where have been the gypsies and the nobleman? Not a soul seems to have seen them ever since… Quite conveniently, don’t you think?

  You may be an ex-knight from the Holy War, as familiar with the known and unknown roads connecting the villages of this region as with your own hands, but, by the Nameless God are you too self-righteous and “just” to allow even the smallest of crimes to go unpunished… Add to that the fact that the drunkard is far too infamous and stupide to simply disappear on his own and, well, that makes my imagination wander.

  However that’s not all, is  it now? There’s still one last piece of the puzzle missing… There are those careless enough to even say that the gypsy caravan parted in such a hurry that their numbers were subtracted by two… Or peut-être three? Hahaha!

  It goes without saying I was fully invested in the gossips then, almost begging for even the smallest piece of additional information that I could get, honestly. But oh, what I learnt next was too good to be true.

  There’s a baby in the middle of all this mess! Indeed, yesterday I overheard two of my servants talking about a certain letter one of them received from her cousin – a cousin that serves under your household nevertheless – gossiping about how, for the past two weeks, Marie has oddly been spending far more time inside the manor than usual, even once being seen nursing a baby never before seen there… A baby of a different colour as hers.

  My heart simply burst with excitement at that time, hahaha! With that last clue I was finally able to piece together the story: Two hidden, yet most certainly honourable funerals – after all we’re talking about your doings –, an idiot either already dead or abandoned to rot in an old dungeon, somewhere out of the map probably and, finally, a lucky soul gaining a new life far too good for someone of his kin.

  Oh how typical of you, mon rival! Hahaha. Yet let’s not fail to give credit to everywhere credit is due… “As noble” as your heart is, that final part wasn’t by your will, was it?

  Oh douce et belle Marie, you did a fine job raising her, Cœur D'Argent… A far too fine job at that. Had she been noble only of words and not at her heart as well, my interest in your daughter would have been more than just for taking your village, hahahaha!

  Yet, enough of the past. You Cœurs D'Argents are in such deep shit that I honestly do not expect that “Petit Coin de Paradis” of yours to ever recover, not just that, but… If I were to whisper even a single word of this “misshapen” to the king, then your legacy will be stained for all eternity hahaha!

  But I shan’t say a thing, hehe. Nor will I – officially – support any rumours about this matter… I don’t need to, for I know that no matter what I do, nothing will hurt you more than having experienced such tragedy take place in your “Petit Coin de Paradis” without you having been able to do a thing until it was already too late, hahaha! You are not a lord, Cœur D'Argent… No matter how saint-like you might act, someone of your birth will always be in the mud.

  And oh! Before I finish this letter, would you kindly send a message from me to douce Marie? Hehe… Tell her I can’t wait to see what kind of education she’ll give to that  gypsy child. If I know her well, something tells me it will be quite entertaining to listen to all the lies and deception she will come up with, trying to “protect him from the pain” Hahaha!

  Either way, there will be quite the scene once he finds out the truth and, you can bet on it that I will be there to witness it first-hand.

Coordialement,

Lord (?????).”

-        Urgh! Why can’t the Beast be attacking whoever wrote this letter instead!

  With your blood boiling from such petty letter, words of frustration escape your mouth without the need for consent. Reading such outrageous attack further removes you from the imminent danger and into a storm of confusion:

-        Why did Lady Marie kept this?

-        Is this feud still going? Could it be tha-

  Enraged and confused, there are too many emotions circling inside your head for you to realise that you should be doing something else. Instead, before even finishing your previous line of though, your mind quickly turns to scrutinising the oldened piece of paper as the ink is severely worn down, almost illegible at the body of the text, whilst the greetings and goodbye are simply lost.

  Deduction is the only tool you have at your disposal right now to decipher it and that only brings more questions rather than answers:

-        “It talks about rivalry… Could it be that the sender of this letter is the lord of one of the neighbouring villages?”.

-        “If so then, could the burning bridge from the other day be their doing???”.

  Yet, your control over your own thoughts are far gone already, making it almost impossible to focus on such questions. In the middle of all of this, the cold wind blowing into the hall causes another piece of paper to flutter under the broken table. Desperate for answers, you grab it as soon as your eyes lay upon it. In a different calligraphy, the contents of this paper reveal themselves to be another letter:

“(????????????)

Ma petite Marie,

  There is so much I wish to tell you, yet each thought that runs through my mind makes even harder to write, therefore I shall be unfortunately brief.

  I have failed our village. I have failed its villagers and I have failed… You. When I returned from the Holy War, your mother and I decided to build this village as a safe place where people could live free from all the hate and pain that plagues this world.

  Au début, it was beautiful: The construction went through with little to no complications; the first people that came strongly shared of our values and goals; the neighbouring villages seemed to not pay us much mind and your birth brought me more happiness that I could ever have expected from life.

  Yet, Le Sans-Nom is always testing us, preparing our feeble human souls to endure the more turbulent times, and so, two nights after your conception, your mother departed for His kingdom.

  I must admit that weakness took over me as that happened, I cried and fell into despair for many nights… “How could I keep on fulfilling our dream alone now?” But then, during a rainy afternoon I heard your laughter, douce and innocent as a child’s should be, instantly having the flame in my heart rekindled.

  To this very day, I still remember holding you in my arms with joy and promising “Ma petite, I shall not give up, that I promise you.”

  And so I acted. The village continued to grow as you did, I took both my duties as a father and a lord with the upmost respect; no efforts were spared; no responsibility left unattended and not challenge failed. The years passed, weakening the colour of my hair and the strength of my muscles, but my soul only grew stronger with each passing day as I watched both, you and the village, grow into true blessings in this world.

  Looking back now, peut-être that was my first mistake… To be too focused on our prosperity, ignoring the sour taste it left in the mouths of those snobbish lords of the neighbouring villages. My second one was, by no doubt, offer your hand in marriage to that immature boy, expecting him to be any different from that greedy cochon of the (?????) village.

  Most tragically, the ones punished by my mistakes did not include me. Rather they were some poor, innocent souls whose only culpability was to be at the wrong place at the wrong time…

  I should have paid more attention to the things that were happing beyond of our village’s walls as well, I should have taken your protest against the marriage more seriously and I should have thought of a better solution when you persisted on sharing the consequences of my mistakes.

  During the Holy War, I truly used to think that I was different from those snobbish cochons that acted so virtue-less and sinfully, but now… By writing these final words I recognise that I – as well – have distanced myself from the ways of the Sans-Nom.

  All that I ever wanted was to protect our village, prevent foul rumours from spreading and drawing unwanted attention our way! Yet, my approach was thoughtless and equally as foul, resulting in an even greater tragedy to fall upon those that did not deserve it. Alors, I must pay for my sins.

  I have already instructed the captain Lötschental to prioritise Édouard’s and your safety, as well as how to proceed onwards. He also informed me that you had a matter to discuss yet I cannot talk with you again,  ma petite… For if you were to learn about my decision before I could act it, I am sure that you would have convinced me to not do it… And that, I cannot allow.

  I am sorry that things have to end like this but please, know that words alone cannot express how much I love you and how proud being your father has made me. Ma petite Marie, it is now time that you grow to be the lady of-”.

  Before you can finish reading the letter, your body jumps back in alert with the sound of the front door being literally exploded open and quickly followed by both shrieking and gnarling sounds echoing from downstairs. Your hands drop the letter  whilst the rest of your body freezes in dread, potentializing the pain on your muscles due to the surge of adrenaline that – also – sends your senses into overdrive, revealing the faint sound of a gun being cocked at a room to your left.

  With the most careful of steps, you move towards the door and upon opening it – cautiously and slowly – the sight of a rifle’s barrel pointing straight at your face nearly causes your soul to jump out of your body, but fortunately and barely a second after, said gun is moved away from your general direction:

-        Orion?!