The Sand Bride - Chapter 89

It was Verach.

“W-why are you…….”

Despite Bianca’s question, Verach silently led her. The sturdy Kemut man’s body moved forward without wavering even while carrying the body of a woman who had fallen into a dying state in the desert.

“Why me…….”

Verach still kept his mouth shut and crossed over a sand dune. There, a horse was already waiting for its master. The well-trained horse waited loyally in place for its master despite being completely free without anything tying it down.

Verach secured Bianca firmly in his arms and leaped onto the horse. He had hastily bound the wound area with cloth to stop the bleeding, but Bianca was in danger if she didn’t receive treatment quickly. Therefore, Verach hurriedly drove the horse.

Bianca must not be allowed to die. Her survival would become Greta’s solid shield to block Karzhen’s sword.

‘I’m sorry, King.’

Verach ground his teeth as he stared at the faintly visible city.

‘Your destruction is my fear.’

* * *

“Esther!”

Karzhen shouted as loudly as he could manage. Wind was blowing. The wind mixed with sand blocked his vision and also blocked sound. However, since Karzhen was quickly running toward Esther, it was certainly loud enough to be heard. But Esther didn’t stop.

Because Karzhen, who was running after her bleeding from behind, was more terrible and frightening than the sandstorm approaching before her eyes.

“Don’t go, Esther! Damn it, don’t go that way!”

Esther kept running. Karzhen didn’t give up and shouted. His chest pounded with urgency. Anxiety spread from his heart and reached his eyes, making his vision dizzy. He was feeling fear for the first time in his life.

He didn’t know, but Esther might not be able to endure in the sandstorm and disappear without a trace. That was more frightening than death. When he could imagine Esther dying and disappearing into that sand, Karzhen finally understood what fear was.

It was the sensation of the ground beneath his feet collapsing into an abyss and everything from his heart to his fingertips growing cold even under the scorching sun. That emotion that made all the muscles in his body tense and stiffen.

However, he didn’t give up and continued to scream. More precisely, he could move in order to scream.

At Karzhen’s continued shouting, Esther looked back, but that wasn’t a preparation process for returning. It was eyes gauging how far Karzhen had followed and whether she could avoid being caught by him, in order to move forward. Her pupils, widely dilated with fear, trembled anxiously.

The sandstorm was approaching ever closer. Between the swirling grains of sand, Karzhen saw Esther.

The cloth wrapped around her head had already blown away and disappeared, and her long hair was fluttering in all directions in the wind. Karzhen’s mouth went dry with impatience. It seemed as if she would scatter ephemeral into the wind at any moment.

“You mustn’t weaken.”

And at that moment, Karzhen heard faint words. Those words that sprung from his mind cut through the fierce wind and pierced into his ears with utmost clarity.

“Even if we love, we mustn’t weaken.”

Hemor’s dark blue eyes. Those eyes that seemed cracked…….

“If you weaken, you’ll break.”

Karzhen’s steps slowed. As grains of sand struck both his cheeks roughly like a downpour, realization thundered through his head. He opened and closed his mouth while staggering. It wasn’t because of the fierce wind. The wind shaking him was blowing inside his head.

“Brother, why didn’t my sister’s man take his life immediately?”

Karzhen had finally found the answer to Hakan’s question. Why didn’t he die? That day when his wife died and his child died. Why didn’t the man take his life immediately but give Hemor room for forgiveness while preparing for death behind the scenes?

“I suppose I love you.”

Karzhen burst into bewildered laughter. He had no choice but to laugh.

“Yes.”

Moving his steps again, Karzhen prepared to shout. He gazed long at the sandstorm slowly approaching like breath as he would look at Hemor, and when sand struck his outstretched palm, he gripped it tightly with all his strength.

The sand in his palm would scatter if he didn’t grip it strongly. Since it was something he could hold in such a relationship from the beginning, he mustn’t loosen his grip if he wanted to keep holding it.

What beast wouldn’t think of escaping from a wounded predator?

What person wouldn’t take the sweet revenge of their own death against an enemy who said they loved them…….

What needed to be done was decided. Karzhen raised his body and began to move. And again he shouted as if coughing up blood.

“Fine, try going once!”

He wanted his bloodied, twisted appearance to look like an evil spirit to Esther, and it had to be so. Wounded Karzhen acted as if his wounds didn’t exist, as if the blood he was shedding was someone else’s blood. He thrust at her the familiar fear so that Esther wouldn’t even think of running away.

“If you take one more step, both that wench behind and you… I’ll kill you all!”

And that was right.

Esther’s steps slowed. She, who had stopped her legs, slowly turned around. Mineral-like eyes, completely dried up, stared at Karzhen. Behind her back, the sandstorm blew.

Not missing that opportunity, Karzhen quickly approached and suddenly embraced the stopped Esther in his arms. The two fell onto the sand like that. The fine sand softly received their bodies.

As soon as Esther buried her face in Karzhen’s embrace, she could smell the thick scent of blood. He always smelled of blood. That familiar smell gripped Esther with familiar fear. She, who had gone limp, was helplessly dragged by the force that lifted her and pulled her out of the sandstorm.

The two escaped from the sandstorm like that. Riding and galloping on horseback, Karzhen preciously embraced Esther in his arms. Her faintly trembling breath reached his nape distinctly. Karzhen was both relieved and miserable at the emotion contained in that breath. However, it was a misery that could confine despair.

Karzhen smiled a twisted smile. It was self-mockery toward himself who would preciously embrace for life in a jar the vegetation that would never come alive again no matter how much water was poured into the parched sand.

Esther finally closed her eyes, panting. Holding that body tightly, he heard the sound of deep blue vegetation breaking and twisting. It was Esther’s end.

Karzhen willingly embraced that end in his heart.