Bellavarn's eyes opened. Paralyzed.

"Help!"

A shrill scream tore through his eardrums, echoing off the walls. Bellavarn was scared stiff. A cry for help? In a Duke's house?

"Help! Someone please, help!"

Again it was there. He wasn't dreaming. It was real and someone was in trouble. But why couldn't he move?

Bellavarn remained utterly still while his mind geared into overdrive.

Someone is out there. Alarm. I need to call an alarm. Alert someone, anyone. That girl could be in trouble! She could be dead by now. Move. Damn it. Move!

He lurched up, gasping. Throwing off the covers he raced out the doors. Searching left and right.

Empty.

Silent.

Just once more. Scream again. Let me know you are alive.

No calls. No alarms. No shouts.

Cold winter silence.

Not a single person to be seen.

"Where are you?"

He ran around barefoot through the corridors, searching madly. His footsteps were the only echo in the entire mansion.

The guards. Someone should be on watch.

Bellavarn sprinted for the guard quarters. Someone had to have heard the cry. If no one responded, it could only mean the cry wasn't heard, or... there was no one to answer.

Rounding a corner, he lost his footing and tumbled into a wall. The thud made him lose his breath for a second, but he was up even faster. Running.

Why does the blasted mansion have to be so large?

"Where is everyone."

Rounding a final corner, he saw a pair of guards moving down a corridor. One held a lantern while the other looked around. Approaching swiftly, he noticed they weren't Kerv and Henry but another pair of guards employed by his father. They finally noticed him.

"Young master, is everything alright? Your feet are bare."

His scrapped soles didn't care.

"A scream. I heard someone scream."

The pair looked at each other in confusion.

"Who? We didn't hear anything."

"It was loud enough to wake me, and she sounded terrified. Mother? Send someone to check on my mother. Please."

Bellavarn eyes were darting everywhere, searching for some sign of an intruder. Adrenaline laced his pleading words and made his heart hammer.

"Korel, go wake the guards. Check on the Duchess. Young Master Bellavarn, can you take me to where you heard the scream."

"I-I can try. I heard it from my room. It sounded like it came in this direction."

Korel jogged off while the other guard, Taren, gave the disheveled Bellavarn an appraising look. Whatever he heard, he believed it. This was the first time such a thing happened, so it wasn't like the young lord was crying wolf. Taren had no reason to doubt.

"Let's retrace your steps. Stay behind me, alright?"

"Let's hurry."

=

Soon, everyone was awake whether they needed to be or not. The guards brought out hounds who started barking when the search began. Two more guards accompanied Bellavarn as they searched the inner garden courtyard. Bellavarn was searching in a bush when he heard his mother's voice.

"Bellavarn, why are you crouching in a shrub?"

"Mother."

He ran and hugged his mother, nearly barreling her over.

"I was afraid it was you who screamed."

Being woken up in the dead of night wasn't enough to make the Duchess stammer. Having her son embrace her so desperately seemed to have done the trick.

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"What- I. I am fine. What is all this about?"

"Son?"

Duke Braster stood next to his wife. Bellavarn had completely missed his presence. Finally registering their confused looks, he gave them the best answer he could.

"I woke to a cry for help. At first, I was petrified, but then I heard it again more clearly. I ran into Taren and Korel on the other side when searching but they didn't seem to hear anything, no one did... I've been searching this area since it sounded like it came from here."

The looks they gave him stung, but he powered through anyway. His mother held his arm, asking him for clarification.

"Did you recognize the voice?"

Shaking his head, Beallvarn felt eyes watching him.

"No. I didn't recognize it. It was feminine. She sounded as if she was being chased."

"What did she say exactly, Bellavarn."

His father asked.

"She screamed 'Help'. My eyes opened wide and I didn't move, thinking I imagined it. But then it came again a few moments later. 'Help. Someone please, help'. It was clear as we're talking now."

"Was the voice young or old? It could have been Misses Vale banging around the kitchen."

Bellavarn shook his head again.

"It was a younger woman. Not a child, but not old either. It was shrill. I can't help but think if I acted sooner we'd have found them by now."

Bellavarn's hands ran through his hair as Braster's eyebrows creased in thought. Trisha's gaze bounced between the two of them and around at all the guards searching the garden. The moon was supposed to be out, but the cloud cover cast everything in murky darkness.

"Are you sure you weren't dreaming?"

Bellavarn blinked. He wished to comfort her by lying, but he couldn't. Not when someone might be in danger.

"No. I wasn't dreaming. My eyes were wide open. I heard the voice twice."

"Are absolutely positive?"

"Yes, Mother, I am."

Trisha removed her hand from her son's arm and inched closer to Braster for comfort. Braster wrapped an arm around her while the guards continued their search in the background.

"Shall we try to head back to sleep for the night? All the guards will stay up to continue the search and I'll post some at our doors. We can reconvene for breakfast in the morning."

Bellavarn wanted to keep searching but realized he wasn't helping anyone in his condition. Reluctantly, he followed his father's words and tried to go back to sleep.

...As if sleep were possible.

=

Bellavarn had gotten precisely twenty minutes of sleep last night. His stomach grumbled throughout the night, awake but not in the right mind to procure food. Even now, his appetite was ruined. A silver fork pushed around the scrambled eggs on his plate. He chopped it up into little bits barely larger than the prongs on his fork. The tension in the air weighed on his shoulders.

When the food grew cold on his plate, the silent breakfast was broken by Duke Braster's voice.

"The guards were unable to find anything even as they worked into the morning. Nothing was found out of place. The mansion's wards didn't detect anything either."

Bellavarn looked up from his meal, horror written across his visage.

"Then the intruder managed to get away? What of the girl?"

Braster gave his son an understanding look.

"The guards checked everywhere in and out of the mansion. There's no sign of conflict or trouble of any kind."

Bellavarn's fists clenched tight around his fork.

"Could... could the scream have been a distraction? A smokescreen of some kind? A ploy to get everyone out and about while a crime was carried out elsewhere."

Braster smiled at his son's creative thinking.

"That is the answer I came to as well. I have Henry and a few others to expanding the search."

"Are we sure it wasn't a dream?"

Bellavarn's brief smile turned sullen as his mother spoke from her side of the table. He couldn't prevent his tone from becoming defensive.

"Dreams are dreams, mother. They can't make you see or hear things."

The Duchess glanced at Duke Braster, who sat in between them, and then back to Bellavarn.

"I know you've been having a rough time since Melody."

His gut twisted, and it felt like his heart had been stabbed.

"That's not it, mother. I promise. That isn't it."

There was silence from the table.

"I believed her as well, you know? I blame myself for having hired her in the first place. I know you are still hurting. Your father and I would completely understand if you had a nightmare."

Bellavarn flinched as his mother reached for him. It was true that his heart was damaged. It was true he waited outside, in the snow, for hours until the carriage's return. When the driver told him that Melody asked to be taken straight to the border and never looked back, he still struggled to understand.

Yes, he has trouble eating. Trouble sleeping, of course. But this? This is something he would bet his life on. What type of dream was audible?

"This and that are different. Someone could be in danger or hurt, or worse!"

"I know! I am just saying that it's possible."

Bellavarn felt bile pool in his mouth. A truth finally revealed itself. Last night. The gaze of the guards, and how slowly they searched. The staff's whispering and hovering on his periphery. His father's silence as Mother spoke of Melody. It was all so clear.

"You don't believe me."

It came out as a hollow whisper.

"Neither of you."

Looking around the room, he saw a server avoid eye contact. His parents glanced at each other wordlessly.

"You never believed me. You. The staff. The guards. You all think I am a heartbroken fool who dreams of Melody crying out for help."

"That's not true. We are just worried about you, Bellavarn."

His mother reached out again, but Bellavarn jumped away. The chair crashed to the floor.

"No! You never believed me. Not when Melody was hurt. Neither of you listened when I wanted to search for the real perpetrator. You aren't listening now, even when I know someone cried out for help. You think I'm a fool."

The silence from his mother was all he needed. His father stood from his seat, more controlled than Bellavarn, but with an identical crease in his eyebrows. Braster Sallow faced his son, his piercing blue eyes bore into Bellavarns soul, and the duke saw the crashing waves. The turmoil and despair. The hurt and mistrust. The love lost.

"I believe you about Melody. Your mother does as well. We are your parents. Trust us."

Bellavarn felt the eyes skewering him, burning, skalding labels onto his skin for all to see. For all he tried to wave his own desperate truth, it might as well have been invisible compared to all the rest carved into his flesh.

The trembling in his arms and legs was getting too much. The silverware dug into his palm.

"Permission to retire."

Conflicted and Warring. A battle between sense and reason. Truth and Fact blurred as a single word stood out in his mind.

Fictitious.

"Granted."

The silverware clattered onto his plate. Bellavarn stomped away, deaf to his father's words.

"We'll keep searching, Bellavarn. I promise."

=

Inconsolable, Bellavarn locked himself in the study and avoided all possible interactions. His room had too many painful memories. The stares from the staff and his parents pricked painfully. So, he retreated into books. This was where he slept and ate now.

His father did continue searching. Or at least ordered the guards to continue. Nothing was ever found.

An entire month.

No evidence.

No clues.

No hints.

And not a single dream.