***Aldrik***
The sickness had started somewhere between the rain and the morning after.
I'd known it was coming, had felt it settling into my chest and bones as I'd finally dragged myself back to the inn the previous evening, soaked through and shaking in ways that had nothing to do with cold.
I'd changed out of the wet clothes eventually, lay down on the bed, and let the fever build without doing anything about it because it seemed like a reasonable consequence and I had no particular objection to consequences.
By morning it was worse, by afternoon worse still, and when Petra knocked to ask if I wanted lunch I'd said no out of habit and then immediately regretted it because my throat felt like I'd swallowed gravel and I hadn't had water since the previous morning.
