Goodbye to the Knight✔️

32. An angel's kiss

It's another rough night.

My sleep is very choppy and broken up, and I keep going from as cold as highest mountain peaks to as hot as a furnace, but through it all is Killian and Sage, taking turns watching over me.

My night watch.

And I am very grateful to them both.

Day breaks and still my appetite does not return. All I do is lie there is sweat, taking sips of water, and yet still at this temperature, shivers wrack my body.

"She's not getting any better," I hear Killian say to Sage during a rare moment of my consciousness.

"I'm worried..."

"...I am too."

Surprisingly I myself am not worried, though I think that is due to my condition. My thoughts are all over the place, often out of reach and all I want to do is sleep. Sleep is my saviour, it takes me away from the pain and offers me a soothing break.

Suddenly I hear a small gasp of horror from Sage but I have no energy to life my head up, or even open my eyes for that matter.

"Laddy! What is it?"

I strain my ears to catch is whispered answer.

"She-she has a mark."

A silence follows.

"Are you sure?" Killian's worried tone echos out.

"Take a look yourself."

On my ankle I feel a light brush of fingers moving aside my clothes.

Another long silence follows, or maybe my hearing goes, whatever way, I drift back off before I hear another word.

~~~

I sleep, for who knows how long.

This sleep is warm, and my body finally feels at ease.

I rest, embracing the comfort.

~~~

I wake, embraced in a warm hug and, for the first time in what now seems like forever but has merely been a few days at most, I am a good temperature.

As my brain clears the haze of sleep out, I realise I am quite literally trapped in the embrace. I look over across the dying embers of our fire that must have been going all night and see Sage wrapped up and sleeping heavily, little snores emitting from him here and there. Suddenly the realisation that it is Killian hugging me instead of Sage, hits. 

Although I still feel achy, both temperature and foggy head have left me, leaving me feeling much better. As I am lying here it suddenly strikes me, this is the closest I have ever been to a man, excluding family and Will. And with Will it was never like this. We embraced and occasionally he kissed me on the cheek, but it would have been outrageous for us to share a bed. As I'm thinking these thoughts I feel my cheeks heat up and I realise that I am blushing.

Argh.

The more I think about my blush the more it seems to heat up.

I must've gone back to sleep again because when I open my eyes again, Sage is gone and I am over heating from the body warmth. Tentatively I try to wriggle out without waking Killian but I fail miserably.

I feel strong arms tense around me as the man beside me wakes up.

"Good morn'n to you," I hear his low gravelly morning voice speak from behind me.

"Morning," I croak out, suddenly realising how thirsty I am.

"Let me get you water," He says and tries to get up, but this time it is me trapping him down with my body across his arm.

"Sorry," I laugh awkwardly and with a struggle I sit upright.

He gets up and goes over to the far side of the cave where our bags are. As I look further around the cave I see that it surprisingly a rather large one, and we are almost at the back. Close to me I see the strips of clothes that they had used to cool me down, and then it hits me. Sage saw a mark on my ankle that they thought was a mark of the plague.

I start breathing quickly and my hands tremble as I reach towards the leg of my linen breeches, fear seeping into my body, but it can't be the plagues touch, it can't be. I feel better today, that's not supposed to happen if I did have it. But no one knows exactly what is supposed to happen, the little voice in the back of my head niggles at me.

My thoughts are only making my feeling worse so I pull back the cloth to reveal the mark.

I breath out a sigh of relief.

It is only my birth mark, an angel's kiss as my mother told me when I was a young girl. To make sure they hadn't spotted an actual plague mark I do a quick check over of both my ankles to be extra sure, but nothing catches my eye.

I am not marked by death.

Killian comes back over sits down near me, passing me the waterskin.

"I take it you are feeling better today?"

I nod, "Yes, a lot."

"Sage will be pleased to hear that, your companion was very worried." And as if reading my mind he continues, "At the moment he's probably out with the horses,"

Of course, I smile.

"Are you hungry?"

I shake my head, "Not at the moment, I don't think I can stomach anything yet."

Killian nods, "I understand, when I was a young boy I got truly sick, like you, but I was throwing up everything for a few days in a row." He pauses, "Nobody thought I was going to make it."

I smile at him, "I'm glad you did."

He smiles back at me and we sit in silence until a thought strikes me, "How many times have you been through these mountains?"

He takes a moment to think, "A good few times to say the least,"

"And did you find the caves yourself?"

"Nay, well a few yes, but I was mostly shown by others who have journeyed with me."

"You found a few?" I say incredulously, "How many are there?"

He laughs at my expression, "These mountains are littered full of caves everywhere, caves and tunnels to be exact."

My eyes widen.

Caves and tunnels!

A/N:

Our girl is getting better! Whoop whoop! And we are seeing the true caring sides to both Sage and Killian!

Please vote and comment if you enjoyed!

SouthernAlps over and out...