Necromancer's Descent

64 - Praying for Kindness

Rosalin's Point of View

I grit my teeth, and without a word, the magic activates, a spark of lightning goes from my hands into his body, and his body jolts against my hands.

A gasp of pained breath, and a tearless, pained sob escapes from sir Matty. He's silent for a moment, and then turns his head towards me, looking at me with pained green eyes.

"Why? Let me die," he says out almost as a whisper.

I don't know how to convince him to live. Should I just tell him that I don't think his death should help Alice? But would that even work. He might just say to keep her alive the same way he is being kept alive. So in the end the only answer I can think of, is selfish.

"I can't allow you to die..."

I move my hands from his chest and instead clench my hands into the bedsheet. Perhaps I could threaten him that I'll kill Alice? That might get a reaction out of him. But am I scary enough? What if I'm too scary? It's high risk high reward.

"Matty..."

Alice's tear strained voice sounds behind me, and I see the knight close his eyes and look away in shame.

The silent pitter patter of the pouring rain against the tent fabric almost seems deafening. I glance to Alice, whose lips move, but no sound comes out.

"Alice, are you out of mana?" I ask firmly. I know both Matty and Azzo might fret because they realized she might have heard Matty's pleading... but Alice already knew that he lost the will to live.

Alice looks at me with her tired tearful eyes, and simply nods, as if she doesn't even have the energy to answer properly. Or perhaps the heart.

I drop the bag on my back down on the floor gently, and pull it open.

"It's not much, but I had time on the way back to make some mana potions-"

I barely pull up the first bottle, before Alice grabs my hand with hers holding it with tears in her eyes.

"Thank you, thank you, Rosalin" she whispers as she puts her forehead against my hand.

I press my lips together quietly. Mia... at the very least, couldn't you have done this?

You didn't use a single potion on our journey, so don't you have even a single bottle to spare? Why am I the one receiving these thanks for helping the injured? Why? Why is it that these people end up thanking someone chosen by death, over the holy saintess of the goddess of life?

"Thank you, for saving it," Alice says with the hint of a smile on her lips, and relief in her voice.

Why do you leave them pleading? Do you even check on them?

I look at the mana potion. After getting Seid's blessing my mana and mana regeneration seems to have gone up quite a bit, but going by Alice's reaction to just a single bottle, it looks like my mana regeneration was already quite high.

"I didn't have anything else to spend it on... and I remembered you say you were lacking in mana to heal people before we left Avenfort. Start out with drinking that one and take care of the most hurt ones. Then take one of these, and make sure you yourself get healed properly. This is non-negotiable. I need you to be safe too, Alice," I scold her. But rather than looking like I scolded her, she looks at me with such a bright smile that you'd think I asked her to marry me.

She puts her forehead against my hand again, and gently squeezes it with her own hand.

"Rosalin... you remembered..."