Shen Wei never wanted to be an Emperor, but on the anniversary of the peace deal he discovers that Kunlun might be alive.
Part 1 of the The Leaves Of Autumn Are Memories series
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The name rang out over the emptiness, echoing within this created space, amplifying the fear and crushing anguish in the Emperor of Dixing's voice. The desperation and wrenching cry of a broken heart, still bleeding after all these long years.
It was Zhao Yunlan. There was no doubt in his heart.
It was him! He breathed his name, all but choking with the stunning realization, that he had found him. He had found Kunlun. Joy more powerful than he had ever felt before surged to his throat, tempered only by the agony of seeing Kunlun was trapped.
Stumbling forward, blind and deaf to everything but that beloved form, his eyes fixed on the man high above the ground. He shouted again, the joy twinning now with worry, woven into the syllables of a precious name.
"Zhao Yunlan!"
Nothing. Only the echo of his own voice. For the first time in his long battle experience, Shen Wei didn't check his surroundings before hurrying blindly over to the flames. His boots carried him closer without conscious thought, his feet walking on stone but he couldn't see the ground. Nothing stirred in this strange place of nothingness.
It felt like a tomb. Dense with the weight of hollow loss, of death.
He knew that Kunlun had been imprisoned, had known it in his very bones. Had to have been trapped because otherwise he would have returned to Shen Wei. He wasn't dead. He was here. Had been here all this time. Here in this unforgiving place, so far from Shen Wei's protective embrace.
All the times he had been to this damned land...all the tears he had cried on these shores...all the times he had camped within these hills searching, hoping, screaming Kunlun's name to the cold winds...and here he had been.
If he had found Guo Changcheng before...if he had done so many things differently...
Kunlun. Eyes blurred with tears stared up at him, frozen in time, hardly daring to believe that this was real. Not some torment that the Gate was attempting. Oh let it be true, he thought breathless with pain and hope.
Zhao Yunlan. Kunlun. His Ah Lan. Xiao Lan. The earth beneath his feet, the life in his blood. The reason his heart still beat.
This had to be real.
A third cry echoed brutally, "Zhao Yunlan!"
He hung there, suspended somehow in the air, the flames dancing around his limp form. There were rocks, barely more than fragmented stones drifting around him, like carrion crows circling a battlefield. His face, his beautiful cherished features were bloodied and he didn't stir as Shen Wei reached the fire.
He could feel the heat and the thrum of energy that was in no way natural. Like a dark energy fire, he thought wildly. Exactly like the one which had destroyed the Palace and claimed his family's lives.
