The Stone King's Lover (石王的愛)

Chapter 48

Xie Yi-jun

1304 years after The Long Night

Banks of Darkling Pond

<Campground>

Yi-jun wiped the blood off his face as he stumbled, still shaking, into camp. All around him people were rushing, shouting and bumping into each other. Bodies and those that wouldn't make it through the night lined the road, and over the noise of cries and the sounds of pain, was the King's heartbeat gradually slowing.

Unable to feel his body anymore, only aware of blurry figures moving past him and a sense of coldness, he made his way somehow to the medical tent.

He's here, he must be here... he said he'd be here-

A trembling hand lifted the curtain, but inside all he saw were other healers bandaging and tending to the wounded. Jin Songcai was nowhere to be seen.

Already on the verge of passing out from blood-loss and exhaustion, Xie Yi-jun ignored the calls of doctors trying to help him inside and instead dashed back through the crowd.

He must be here...

Yi-jun's heart was a stone in his chest, weighing his whole body down as he ran against the tide of the crowd. He kneeled occasionally, checking bodies that lay abandoned, searching for any indicator that Songcai was among them.

"My King!" A few people recognised him and attempted to keep him from leaving the temporary safety of the camp.

Let me go! He shook them all off weakly...

If I have to go back out there I will! I have to find him-

Wild-eyed, he pushed everyone away. Not noticing the blood still gushing from the wound in his side or the bone he'd broken in his leg, the King fell several times in painless desperation. Struggling with every breath toward the battlefield.

"Stop him!" A guard shouted, and several others came to try.

Yi-jun screamed, his eyes blazing red with fury-

"NO! SONGCAI! I HAVE TO FIND..."

He began to sob between every breath, fighting the people trying to save him from the truth.

My heart, it doesn't feel-

I can't feel him...

Have I died today?

Falling to the ground, Xie Yi-jun heard nothing; not the cries of his people suffering around him, nor the roar of the fires as folks boiled water to tend to wounds and sterilize needles. Yi-jun didn't even hear his own heartbeat anymore. No longer pounding, it seemed to have frozen entirely.

Staring at his hands on the ground, covered in blood and dirt and unrecognisable, the King dug his hands into the earth. He didn't feel it even as the rocks and gravel abraded his skin and drew blood...

I have to find him-

Having not felt the desire or need in his body to breathe deeply for some time, his lungs began aching, seeming to fill his entire chest until every breath was suffocating him.

"He's in shock," someone said distantly, but Yi-jun could barely understand the words.

Wrapping his fingers around a wrist, he didn't know whose, the King tried to say through evey painful gasp;