Sleeping didn't help.

Rolling around on the cart didn't help either, but at least it felt productive.

Every moment Molly could feel her aura falling apart. She wished it had shattered quickly. Even considering that as an option felt absurd, a choice between how your aura was shattered was a nightmare, not some child's 'what if' game.

Yet the choice consumed her thoughts. In the depths of her agony the proud Knight of Blightstone fortress wished she had seen her love die with her own eyes. That sight, she was convinced, would release her from her pain and allow her aura to truly die.

She would soon follow it. The Knight had no illusions about that. With a shattered aura and Nickolas gone Molly would be left with no purpose and effectively an exile. The orcs would never accept her, nor would she wish to join the savage brutes who took her love away from her. In her heart the Knight had already concluded she was fated to die, wandering off into the Green with nothing but her armor and spear to find the beast that would end her.

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Until then she was carried along with the caravan, biting down on the alcohol soaked cloth they gave her to keep quiet as she writhed.

Marious helped sometimes, rationing some of his potions to send her so deep into insensate nothingness that she couldn't feel the pain. It was the only thing keeping her sane at this point. The moments where she couldn't feel or think. It was a shame she was leaving the healer to an unknown fate, she had always had a soft spot for the strange Medicine Man.

The cart had been going on a long smooth path for the longest unbroken stretch she could remember. It felt like the caravan was increasing their pace despite the torrent of rain that had started the previous night. Molly focused just long enough to catch a snippet of whispered words through the whipping wind. They were close. It was possible they would be in sight of the city before dark.

There was a rattling and a sloshing sound as Peter clamored into the cart.

“Bycia's going ahead.” the young man said seriously, a far cry from the nervous wreck that had started the journey. “She's gone to get help. To find where Nickolas is.”

Just hearing the name was like taking a dagger to the lungs.

And yet the sweet promise of relief was too much. Final confirmation of his death a sickeningly sweet prospect.

The Knight moaned her assent, and prepared to die.