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In another room in the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Princess Olga was reciting the love poem Franz had sent her over and over.

".Waiting for the clouds after the rain, waiting for the brightest star. Waiting for the day you and I meet again." (Latin)

Though the meaning was obscure, Princess Olga had already imagined all sorts of reasons why Franz had been forced to write it that way.

Truth be told, it was embarrassing. At twenty-four, the daughter of the Russian Tsar had yet to receive a love letter in the true sense of the word.

Most of the love letters Olga had received before were written by people her brothers had hired to tease her. Even the genuine ones, if there had been any, she had burned along with the rest, thinking them all pranks.

Only Empress Alexandra was deeply worried. In three years, her daughter would be twenty-seven—a spinster of an age almost unheard of in royal circles.

But her daughter was content, her husband was beside himself with joy over those lumps of iron, and her sons were hopping about like monkeys. There was nothing she could do, so she could only hope everything went smoothly.

Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace.

The report on the Galicia campaign had come out.

It included vital figures such as casualties on both sides, property losses, the number of people slaughtered by the Polish Restoration Army, and the number of nobles who had conspired with them.

Civilian casualties in Galicia and the newly incorporated Kraków region had exceeded one hundred thousand in total. Most were serfs; the rest were mainly Kraków residents who had refused to be swept up in the rebellion. Among them were the former mayor of Kraków and nineteen councilors.

Over the course of the Galicia campaign, the