Muffled Scream

Just as Martha stepped out of Seren's bedchamber, the calmness on her face was replaced with worry. She was lost in thought as she entered her own room, and even as she sat on a wooden chair next to the window, the worry on her face never eased.

Martha's room was next to Seren's room. When Seren was young, Martha used to stay with the little princess the morning she woke up until she fell asleep. As the little princess was isolated in her tower all her life, abandoned by the entire world for reasons she didn't understand, she was scared of everything around her, especially people. Martha was the only exception; as her nanny, she had been around Seren since she was a baby.

As such, although most royal servants have their separate quarters from where they could be summoned by the chambermaids if needed, as Seren's only servant, Martha's living arrangement was different. She stayed in the guestroom directly beside Seren's bedchamber.

Although it was only slightly smaller than the princess's room, it was stripped of the decorations befitting a royal or a noble. It only had the basic furniture inside, and it looked pretty bare compared to others' living quarters. Perhaps, the only good thing about it was that she had the room all for herself.

Martha looked out of the window and thought about the incident in the marketplace. She couldn't believe Seren escaped, and she didn't even get a hint. Martha looked at her hands and twirled her fingers to check something.

'Is this spell losing its effect? How come I didn't figure out her whereabouts? It has never failed before,' Martha thought in a daze.

Martha recalled the scenes one by one. After buying the hairpin for Seren, Martha returned to the dress shop, and Seren didn't come out of the changing room despite waiting for so long.

Worried something happened to the princess, Martha tried to sense her whereabouts, but she couldn't reach Seren. When she stepped inside the empty dressing room, she found that the olive green dress Seren took with her was lying on the floor.

'I am sure she didn't come out of the shop.' Martha checked with the owner if there's another way to exit from the shop, and as expected, the backdoor was open.

'This girl!' Martha stepped out of the back door to manually retrace the steps Seren took because the magic spell she had always used to track the princess didn't work, and she couldn't understand the reason.

Only after walking along the alleys, guessing where she could have gone, did Martha realize that there was some unknown energy stopping her spell from locating Seren.

'What is this? I have never sensed such energy before. Why can't I reach her?'

Feeling even more worried for Seren, Martha picked up the pace, searching for her like a crazy mother who had just lost her child in the crowd.

Soon, she reached the market's plaza, where she saw an angry mob forming. Even without hearing their conversation, she was sure it had something to do with Seren.

"What happened?" Martha asked one group of women who were whispering among themselves compared to the rest who looked angry; they looked scared.

"There is a witch here, and she burned a few people," one of the women replied.

No longer interested to hear more, Martha hurried towards where most of the people gathered, and Martha realized she was headed towards a place Seren would never go.

'It's all my fault. How can I be so careless?' Martha cursed herself as she thought. "Fire? Someone must have done something to anger her." The area she was in was where ill-mannered men go for pleasure, and Martha could guess what must have happened.

Martha tried to sense Seren's presence again but frowned. 'Who is stopping me from reaching her?'

Soon, she heard a commotion in another alley where a mob of furious people blocked the entrance, yelling at someone.

'She must be there.' Martha stepped forward only to see the mob shifting back in panic, and she heard a familiar masculine voice, the same voice she heard while leaving the Second Princess's engagement ceremony.

"Didn't I warn you before? Anyone else wants to try again?"

The scared mob was too terrified to move, and Martha managed to squeeze her way to the front and saw a man with a bloodied sword. There was a corpse on the street, and it appeared that he had just beheaded the man.

'Who is he?' Martha thought, and her sight followed the familiar hat that the man held. It was Seren's hat.

Because of the man's threat, the mob had dispersed, and she found herself face to face with a red-eyed stranger. Based on how he carried himself, she could guess he was not an ordinary person. However, based on his expression, he recognized her and was probably someone from the palace. Martha didn't have time to talk with him as she needed to find Seren, but she was sure that the man had no ill intentions for the princess.

When she went closer, the man offered her the hat. The two didn't talk, and Martha went inside the alley as she was sure Seren was there.

Recalling the entire incident, Martha again looked at her fingers. 'Is it because of him I couldn't track her?'

Crack!

A sudden cracking sound pulled Martha out of her thoughts, and she looked at her window where the glass had small cracks on it.

Martha stood up from her chair immediately and hurried to go to Seren's room.

'But I didn't hear her scream.'

-------

Drayce was comfortably lying in bed, still thinking about a pair of pretty purple eyes, when his highly sensitive ears caught a muffled scream, followed by the sound of glass cracking.

Drayce found that the window of his room had some light cracks on it. He climbed out of bed and checked if there was an intruder outside who might have thrown a stone on his window or if maybe a swift bird had accidentally hit the glass, but there was nothing.

"This place is strange," he mumbled and recalled that muffled scream he had just heard. It was a woman's voice for sure and a familiar one too.

One corner of his lips curved up to form a little happy smirk. "Is she thinking about me, screaming at this late hour of the night? Did I scare the little kitten into having a nightmare?"