She had children with another.
The truth of it stabs at him relentlessly, and it drives him mad—and he wonders if it possible to die from sheer pain. He runs until he can no longer catch his breath. He picks fights with passing strangers. He throws himself against the trees and rocks until his coat is a map of scars and puckered flesh. The sickness is beginning to creep up on him, but he ignores it. Even though he is losing weight and his coughs are flecked with blood, he does not venture to the Chamber where he would be able to heal himself. Instead, he defies the kingdom’s one rule when giving him life. Perhaps dying would not be so bad, after all.
Today is no different. He is slick with sweat and froth, his eyes wild and his nostrils flaring. His normally wild mane and forelock is tamed with the exertion, and his sides heave, only emphasizing the illness that has begun to strip him of his youthful vitality. He is still handsome, but it is a shadow of his true self. He is a carcass that is still animated. He is living a shell of a life, and he knows he has no one else to blame.
It is afternoon when he finds her, and at first, he almost does not stop—would not have stopped were it not for the blood smeared on her. It fascinates him, and he forgets his manners, if he had any to begin with. He is a wild, feral thing as he comes up beside her, pressing against her side, sniffing at the blood on her. “Is that yours?” he growls, the crimson smearing on his own coat. The metallic tang of it drove him a little over the edge, and he found that he hungered—for what, he didn’t know. “Who are you?”
MAKAI
I'm a dead man walking here
but that's the least of all my fears