Content Warnings: Violence, graphic depictions of gore and death involving a minor, depictions of war, PTSD, grief, dissociation, panic attacks, emetophobia, gas-lighting (not Hualian), and major plot spoilers (vol 1-8 English edition), including villain reveals.
It does end happily, I promise.
____
From the Imperial City to the outskirts of Young'An, smoke consumes the sky, painting it a dusty gray as the last remnants of Xianle fall.
The temples, palaces, and people are gone. Nothing but corpses and soot remains.
It's a while before Xie Lian turns away.
Failure is heavy.
In the center of his chest, it fractures his bones like twigs.
If he could cry, he would.
God, he wants to fucking cry.
He wants to mourn.
Scream.
Beg.
But there's no more tears or air in his lungs— only the cold embrace of catatonic regret.
It clings to him like a ghost all the way to Crown Prince Temple, where the air smells of rust.
A blood trail stretches towards the entrance and based on the amount, the person inside is long dead, but Xie Lian can't turn back.
After all, he must know...
What poor soul used their final moments to come here? Were they so furious they couldn't die without cursing him first?
Intent to make his sanctuary their grave.
Death hits Xie Lian the moment he enters. Putrid and sickly sweet, it lodges in his nose until he's gagging and pressing a sleeve to his mouth.
His eyes water as he swallows bile. After a few close calls, his breath steadies and only then does he lower his hand.
Slowly, he looks to the alter.
A fallen god stands upon it, sword in hand and a smile cracked down its golden center.
Evil qi seeps from the young soldier at its feet— a shredded mess of entrails and gore.
It can't be...
But the scimitar in the boy's lifeless hand confirms it.
Xie Lian buckles at the knee. There's no use checking for a pulse, no one can live in the state he's in, but Xie Lian scrambles to his side and clutches his wrist.
His fingers punch through rotten flesh.
"No...no," Frantic, Xie Lian shoves the mess of organs and bone back inside the boy. Sleeves dark with carnage, he pleads, "Don't leave, don't leave, don't leave, please don't leave!"
But the wounds are too deep and the body too cold. It's futile.
Collapsing under the weight of his grief, Xie Lian finally cries.
"I'm sorry. I-I didn't know—" Tears stream down ash-stained cheeks as he cradles the corpse's hand. "I'm sorry. Honger, I'm sorry, please,
...forgive me."
But there's no answer from the soldier.
He's nothing more than a dead man.
YOU ARE READING
The Harbinger's Well
FanfictionNightmares aren't new; if anything, they're one of the few constants in Xie Lian's life. Some are worse than others, like suffocating in a coffin or his second ascension. But this one...this one's different. It's in his bones. Malignant and cold lik...
