mountain peaks shatter and crumble
by Rose Thorne
Disclaimer: I don't own anything associated with The Untamed, and make no money writing fanfiction.
He'd felt it, ever since he'd first fallen into the Burial Mounds, like glass burrowing beneath his skin—resentful energy, tearing him apart inside.
Wei Wuxian had tried, at the end of the war, when it seemed like he'd done all he'd set out to do. The seal had resisted his attempts to destroy it, blowing up a forge instead, and then before he had found a solution it had turned out he wasn't done after all. More people needed protecting.
And so he had quietly borne the pain, though he was fairly sure Wen Qing had seen past his mask of good cheer. She'd been good like that.
But she was gone. Wen Ning was gone. Shijie was gone.
The last good thing he could do was hide A-Yuan away and pray to any god that might listen to save just this one.
Wei Wuxian couldn't even save himself, didn't even want to anymore. He couldn't save the rest of the Wens, who bought him time to hide the boy, to prepare to give his life to destroy the weapon he regretted ever forging.
It had hooks in him, he realized as he gathered power, all those shards of glass in his muscles, in his bones, in his soul. But screams around him—Fourth Uncle, Granny, the other innocents—told him he had little time left.
And it was fine. He deserved to be destroyed along with it, having orphaned Jin Ling, having failed the Jiang sect, having failed the Wen remnants.
The power was building when he looked up to find Jiang Cheng approaching, his eyes like lightning, with no room in them for mercy, no forgiveness.
All deserved.
As the seal crumbled in his hands, as he realized he would fail to completely destroy it, as the icy glass of resentful energy sliced through his body, his bones, his soul, he welcomed the burn of Sandu as it pierced him, almost a relief in comparison.
They would find the remnant of the seal—he couldn't help that—but he could make it hard for them. Let them search the entrails of a thousand corpses for it.
His last order to the resentful corpses of the Burial Mounds was to take him, to consume him, consume the seal, and to spare Jiang Cheng.
Wei Wuxian didn't feel it, too far gone for pain, his soul already shattered beyond that.
For the August 11 prompt "glass" for Writer's Month. Title comes from Poem 193 of the Shi Jing.
