Egelric wakes, and Sela is not there

Egelric awoke, and Sela was not there. He even thought he had awoken because she was not there. Her absence seemed odd.

It took such an effort for her to rise lately that, whenever she could wait, she preferred to lie in her bed until he could pull her to her feet. But the bladder of a pregnant woman could be both demanding and unpredictable, and he himself was notoriously difficult to wake, so he suspected she had gone lumbering out on her own. He closed his eyes and listened for her.

The longer he listened, the more he strained his ears for the least sound. The fire had burned too low to crackle. The night was unnaturally still, and the pines were silent. He could only hear his own heart, after a while, and the longer he listened, the louder it beat. He was frightened. Absurdly frightened. Surely she was sitting on a chair in the other room. Perhaps she was feeling ill? Perhaps–

He would go see.

He got up and looked in the kitchen. She was not there. He dressed hurriedly and went outside. She was not there.

Belsar came walking up, his head hanging between his shoulders in drowsiness, his tail waving slowly in time with his feet.

“Where is she, boy?” he asked, rubbing the old dog’s head.

Belsar only opened his mouth in a wide yawn that ended with a whine.

“Sela!” he called.

Outside, in the brilliantly clear, nearly moonless night, he could hear more than the beating of his heart and the thump-​​thump of Belsar’s tail on the packed earth. There was no wind, but high overhead he could hear the sighing of the sky in the pines. Never had it sounded so forlorn.

He went to see the horse. The horse dozed in his stall.

“Sela!”

The pines strained all the sound from his voice, and no more than a whisper could have reached the hills against which the call might have echoed. He was as mute as Sela. Never had he hated the silence of the pines more.

He would have to go in search of her. She could not call out to him, and he knew that if she had wandered off, if she had been hurt, or if–

He might pass within a few yards of her and never know it. But he had to search, or he would die. A heart could not throb like this for long.

He went back into the kitchen to take his cloak and his knives. Her cloak still hung on the peg, though it was true she rarely wore it unless he was there to make her.

His short black knife was in the small chest that stood against the wall, and he took it out and tucked it into his boot.

The long, ancient knife of his grandfather he left on the table these days, in case–

The knife was gone.

Someone had taken his knife. Someone had taken Sela. It meant–

His heart went silent for a moment, wrung by something more powerful than fear. Then it began again to beat. Never had it so raged. He had to search. He would find her, or he would die.