A scream not her own making could be heard all the way from the barracks. “Her Grace has fainted! Someone, bring a physician!”
It snapped Ellowyn back to her senses. She bolted into the manor towards her mother’s quarters. There were already several servants rushing in and out, holding towels and blankets. Her lady-in-waiting was amongst them, hurriedly carrying a bucket of water inside. ‘Sherene!’
“It seems the news has been relayed to Her Grace as well, Lady Ellowyn,” the butler, although out of breath, had followed right after her.
She gnawed on her lip. “Jorge, send a messenger to notify the duke immediately!” Without waiting for his answer, she then entered the duchess’ bedroom. “Sherene, is Mother okay?”
The lady-in-waiting was hurriedly pressing a wet towel to her mother’s forehead. She did not even look up as she answered her. “For now, yes. Jorge and I were there when she received the carrier pigeon from the capital.”
Ellowyn rushed towards her mother’s bedside. Her skin was deathly pale and her lips blue. Although her arm felt cold, her face was covered in beads of sweat. Her chest heaved up and down out of rhythm, as if it was a struggle to breathe.
It caused Ellowyn’s mind to succumb to a haze. Her own fingers shook violently as she entwined them with her mother’s, holding her hand up to her cheek. That hand, once the only thing that could soothe her with its gentle caress, was too cold and limp. “Mother,” she croaked. “Mother!”
“The physician has arrived!” she vaguely heard one of the maids shout. A man in a long coat holding a briefcase entered her peripheral vision. She still held firmly to her mother’s hand. The voices around her became nothing but white noise as she gazed at her mother’s unconscious face. Her eyelashes fluttered about multiple times. She couldn’t even sleep peacefully! Yet Ellowyn’s mind was utterly frozen.
Several arms began grabbing her limbs, and she cried out. She saw Sherene’s lips move trying to tell her something, but she was unable to listen through her own yells. She tried desperately to stay at her mother’s side, but at some point knights had come in as well. There was no way she could go against them, not in this state. Not in her mother’s quarters. So she could only continue crying out for her.
Those cries turned into pained moans as the last thing Ellowyn saw, right before she was taken out of the duchess’s chambers, was the man in the long coat take out a syringe to insert its needle into her mother’s arm.
…
It was only later, after many attempts by the butler and the lady-in-waiting, that Ellowyn found out she had lost control of her aura energy again. In its raw form, she accidentally blasted everyone in the room away from her mother, which included the physician. Luckily, she only managed to calm down slightly after receiving news that her mother’s fever went down.
However, the anxiety that plagued her mind did not diminish even a bit. She sat in her bedroom, staring off into space for who knew how long.
She heard a few hesitant knocks against her doors. “My Lady,” Jorge called out for her. “Are you still awake?”
“Come in.”
He gingerly cracked open a door and stepped in. When he saw the untouched dinner at her desk, he looked at her with such deep concern that she found herself turning away from him. She hadn’t even known it was already nighttime until then. “My Lady…”
“If you have nothing to report, leave,” she interrupted.
That sent him a strong message as he proceeded to clear his throat. He stood as straight as a pin, but his voice was utterly sullen as he spoke. “My Lady, the carrier pigeon came from Murwic Academy themselves. It seems they got concerned when Lady Florencia did not arrive for several days after the arranged date, and sent the message immediately after their own investigations.”
“And what did the academy find?” she asked warily. It was the last thing she wanted to hear about, but it was also the most necessary matter at hand.
“...The carriage was in complete wreck. It was surrounded by the corpses of the knights and servants that escorted Lady Florencia. The only corpse they couldn’t find was her own, which is why they believe she was kidnapped.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “And then?”
“A-and, the perpetrator left a note amongst the wreckage. It said, ‘The moment we hear word about anyone trying to find her, she will die.’”
She bit her lip until she felt warm blood flow onto her tongue. The pain was nothing compared to the roaring in her head. “Any word from Father?”
Jorge shook his head. “We don’t even know where he is at this point in time.”
“How about the scouts I sent to inspect the other provinces? Have they come back yet?” He shook his head again. She swallowed down the coppery taste. “All right, thank you. I need some time to think. Please.”
After the doors creaked closed again, she only opened her eyes after she could no longer hear any footsteps outside. Her room lit with an orange glow from the lanterns the maids lit for her, but she could no longer feel its warmth. With a long exhale, she stood from her seat. The very same chair she’d braided her sister’s hair in not so long ago.
“Urgh–ARGH!” Ellowyn swiftly brought her fist down against the desk’s surface. It left a sizable yet unsatisfying dent. She barely fathomed the throbbing in her knuckles as she resorted to gripping the edges of the desk with both hands. She didn’t dare shout out or punch the desk again in fear of alerting anyone passing by outside of her bedroom. The last thing she wanted was to add more things for the duchess to worry about. “Father, I’m sorry,” she murmured as burning tears flowed freely from her eyes. “I cannot be a knight worthy of the Vestein name. Not yet.”
She let herself take a few more long breaths. Days had already passed ever since Florencia’s kidnapping, and judging by the note, it seemed her kidnapper wanted to keep her alive as long as no one went to find her. Anything could have happened by now, but she did not allow her thoughts to wander that far yet. ‘I must bring her back alive–no matter what!’
With a new resolve in her heart, she snatched a lamp and a map scroll off her shelves. In the dead of the night, she staggered out of the manor.
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