Dream of Me/Believe in Me

was gone.
    “Nooo!”
    The cry was ripped from her heart. What torment was this to show her a glimpse of a future never to be? Why this added torture when there was already so much to bear? Was God truly so cruel?
    Sobbing, she struggled to rise from the floor but weakness overcame her. Why bother to stand, why keep fighting, why not just give up now? Surely death would close around her as easily as the darkness did.
    Or perhaps not … for what was this just within the touch of her fingers, this solid something she had fallen beside? Slowly, Krysta lifted her head. She still could see nothing but by carefully feeling what she had just found, her despair gave way to hope. Hard within her grasp, firm and real, was what gave every evidence of being a solid iron bar of a kind that might be used on the windows of a cell. This one had no windows but there was that small opening in the door. Had it once been closed over by the very bar she now clutched?
    Carefully, Krysta got to her feet. She fumbled into the darkness, finding her way back to the wall. Without it, she would have been lost entirely. Moving slowly along it, she positioned herself to the side of the door where she would be best concealed when it opened.
    Holding the bar in one hand, she touched the other to her sleeping child. Her tears were gone. In their place was a smile identical to her son's.
    “Thank you,” she murmured and felt her fear flow away. In its place was hard, clear resolve.
    H AWK HAD BEEN AFRAID BEFORE. ANY MAN WHO didn't know fear in battle was an idiot and probablya dead one at that. Fear could be good. It could stop you from doing insanely stupid things and even sometimes keep you alive for another moment, another breath, another hour, another day, another battle.
    This was different. Terror ate at him, making his soul burn. He wasn't sure which was worse, the sickening anguish he felt or the rage that accompanied it.
    She was gone. After hours of searching, he was convinced that Krysta was truly gone. But how and why remained unknown to him. He had questioned every guard, seeking any hint that someone might have done at Hawkforte what Udell had managed at Winchester. But that had happened at night, and Krysta had vanished while yet it was day. The guard had been vigilant as always and no one had seen anything. Not a person out of place, not a single suspicious action, not a hint that his life was about to come crashing down around him.
    This was worse than Udell. Then, he had known who had taken her, the danger she faced, and what he must do. Now he knew nothing except that the pain he felt was not to be borne.
    Was it possible she had gone of her own free will?
    The question had first come to him hours before when he learned that Thorgold and Raven were also not to be found. He had dismissed it at once, stunned even to have thought it. But over and over again as the night wore on, the same doubt flared. Could she have lain in his arms, shared the heights of loving passion, laughed and teased, tantalized his mind as well as his body, and it all meant nothing? Had she clung to her determination that they should not be man and wife?
    He shook his head, struggling to clear it. The very notion was absurd, a sick figment of his tormented imagination. Krysta loved him as he loved her. She had put aside all her doubts and fears when they wed. Besides, were thatnot so he would know it, for she had no subterfuge in her. She was as guileless as clear, sparkling water.
    And she was gone.
    Not
of her own free will, of that he was certain. Someone had taken her, somehow, somewhere. Taken her and, he recalled as a fresh bolt of agony ripped through him, their child.
    He would take Hawkforte apart stone by stone if need be. He would scour the surrounding land, put aside his love for it and strip it bare if he must, but he would, by God and all the saints, find her.
    “Brother …”
    He turned, seeing Daria yet not truly seeing her until he forced himself back from the dire vision of destruction he had conjured and stared into the grave face of his half-sister.
    “Brother,” she said again, “it is very late. Surely everyone is exhausted, yourself included. Would it not be better to resume in the morning when there is light to see by?”
    Light? There was no light and would never be again without Krysta. He was not tired, such consideration did not exist. If it did for others, so be it. It made no difference to him.
    “Go to your bed.”
    She