Rae’s hands and nose were numb with cold but the stars were out, and he didn’t want to get down yet.

He rarely had time for stargazing, but when his thoughts were keeping him awake, their twinkling light was a comforting companion. Rae was no mystic, he only knew the names of a few constellations, but the familiar shapes still reassured him. No matter where he was, nor how old he got, those shapes would cycle through their positions as they always did.

Rae’s eyes fell on a star he knew very well, the silver wing star. This was his mother’s death star, and its position meant it would soon be another year gone. The white wing star didn’t have any ominous associations, and any mystic wouldn’t hesitate to conduct a marriage ceremony, fertility rites, or thanksgiving ceremony under its light. Hardly a harbinger of doom, but Rae shivered at the thought that it would be at its highest point by the time he arrived at the Shak’s camp.

Or perhaps it was just the cold. It was long past time to go inside and find a warm fire to sit by. After so long sitting, his legs were a little shaky and upon standing up, he had a nasty case of pins and needles.

For a plains-person, this kind of condition in such a precarious place would be very dangerous, but Rae knew how to maintain his balance on the roof while he waited for his legs to return to normal. As he stretched, he heard a tile nearby shift against the rest, making a quiet scraping sound.

Rae froze.

Had someone else been on the roof this whole time? And Rae had failed to notice them in the dark? How embarrassing.

“Hello?”

Rae looked around. On the edge of the roof on the opposite side, there was a silent shadow in the gloom. The shape was certainly person-shaped, but it didn’t speak back. It might have been a monkey.

“Peace, friend,” Rae said squinting at the shadow, “You’re rather close to the edge, do be careful,”

The shadow let out a soft breath, before speaking.

“Rae je Kaolin,” the voice was low, like a threat. It was a threat. There was only one reason for someone lurking in the darkness to know that name, and say it now.

Rae didn’t respond, holding the short sword at his waist as subtly as possible. Rae’s eyes were well-adjusted to the darkness, and he still couldn’t see the assassin. To his enemy, he was likely just a shadow himself.

As Rae was thinking this, the shadow moved closer, running along the apex with the speed of a beast. The steel of a blade glinted in the starlight, and fabric rustled.

Rae blocked the blade with his sheathed sword and pushed back hard. His assailant grunted and stumbled down the opposite roof edge. Rae saw the shadow right itself a few feet away.

In the second they made contact, Rae got a closer look at his opponent. Lithe, pale limbs clothed in black, dark hair like a whip, fierce eyes gleaming in the starlight.

Rae might have been small and young, but he wasn’t defenceless. Preparing for a drawn-out fight, Rae unsheathed his weapon and moved his feet into a sword stance.

Forgetting where he was standing...

His foot slipped off the roof’s edge, and before he could do anything he was tumbling backwards. He twisted in the air, hoping to grab at the gutter, a veranda, anything. As he fell, he saw the shadow, standing where Rae once did, looming over him.

----------------------------------------

Rae got lucky.

His fall was broken by the decorative boxwood that lined the courtyard. It took a few seconds for the pain to hit Rae. He might have cried out during the free-fall, but the impact knocked any sounds out of him.

Trying to find which part of his body the pain was emanating from, getting scratched and poked in the eyes by the very branches that had just saved his life, Rae thrashed on the ground. He didn’t know where he was, all knowledge of the guest house he’d had before was replaced with the need to get away.

Gaori! Gaori, where are you? Rae thought, but couldn’t form words beyond pained groans.

No more than a few feet away, Rae heard boots hit the ground, and his fear grew even more bone-deep than before.

He hadn’t been able to push himself up with his arms. No matter how hard he tried, there was no strength left in them. At the sound of steps on the cobblestones, he threw himself into an upright position and scrambled onto his knees. His legs didn’t protest as severely as his arms had but were still too shaky to run away.

“No-!”

Illuminated by the light of the guest house, Rae finally had a clear view of the assassin’s face. This was what the demons that stalked the forests at night looked like. This was worse than the most terrible of the desert savages. Pale, sharp, with amber eyes so empty. So uncaring. The one thing crueller than cruelty. The sight shocked Rae back into silence.

The assassin’s blade twinkled like stars and moved just as inevitably.

“Don’t run,” the beast said.

Rae couldn’t so much as stand.

“Fuck you-”

Pathetic last words were made even worse by the way his voice cracked under the effort. It was shame, more than fear, that Rae would feel in his last moments. He hid his head in his hands.

“Get lost, beast,” a commanding voice cut through the scene.

Rae looked up, and his mind seemed to clear in an instant. Those horrifying, apathetic eyes were no longer fixed on him. With the clarity, the pain in his left wrist increased tenfold, and the first tears welled in his eyes.

“Do you know who I’m doing this for?” the assassin asked.

“Do you know who you’re talking to? Scram or I’ll cut you down,”

Rae’s vision, which painted the perfect portrait of evil when focused on the assassin, couldn’t quite make out the details of his saviour. His legs were even weaker than before and the throbbing in his arm echoed to his temples. The figure blurred and swayed before him.

“Who?”

Tall. Dark hair. Golden skin. White hot rage in his voice. He planted himself between Rae and the assassin. Rae wanted to tell him, “Kind sir, please run while you can! Don’t put your life on the line on my account.”

“Fool,” the assassin muttered. Rae’s view of him was blocked by his saviour, but he heard a swift burst of footfall and braced himself for an attack.

No impact came. No piercing pain in his heart. His saviour turned around, revealing the space where the assassin once was. He knelt and cupped Rae’s face in his hands. Soft hands. Warm hands.

“There, there. He’s gone now,”

Rae’s breath came fast. He wasn’t gone. He couldn’t be. No killer-for-hire would give up so easily.

Even so, those gentle hands brought Rae back from the precipice. His vision cleared, and met the dark eyes staring into his.

“Ven Ashem?” Rae asked, not believing his eyes.

“That’s right. Can you tell me what hurts?” Ven asked.

“My arm,” Rae said. At some point, Rae had started cradling his left arm to his chest.

“Can you stand?”

Rae thought so. Now the world wasn’t spinning, nor filled with knives aimed at his heart. He could stand.

Ven helped him up.

“Come with me. I have some healing ointments. The very best, save by those made by Duke Bejuk himself,”

Rae could barely follow a sentence, but he allowed himself to be led into the guest house and then carried up to Ven Ashem’s rooms.

----------------------------------------

What was Rae thinking? He was lying on Ven Ashem’s bed, so frazzled and sore he could barely lift a finger to defend himself. Heavens knew if Gaori had even noticed he was missing and here he was, completely at the enemy’s mercy.

What was Ven Ashem thinking? Was the second most pressing question. He had frightened off the assassin somehow and was now tending to Rae’s injuries with the carefulness of a wife caring for a husband fresh from the battlefield.

He pressed and prodded at Rae’s worst injury, the left arm. Rae wasn’t willing to show such weakness in front of another man, much less an Ashem, so bit his tongue rather than cry out. Ven saw right through him.

“It’s not broken, I’ll have a servant bring some ice,”

Rae’s arm was not the only thing in need of ice. The adrenaline had long worn off, but the humiliation of being so vulnerable had painted Rae beetroot from his ears to his chest. It grew ever more unbearable when Ven started rubbing his healing ointment over any part of his body that had been marred by the fall. He silently pleaded with the heavens, don’t let him see.

“You look a little feverish, you can spend the night here if you wish. I’ll go find your young master and explain everything,”

Somehow, Rae knew his flush had just gone a shade darker. Thank goodness his confusion had kept him quiet until now, he hadn’t yet revealed his true identity.

“Your name is Ashem, he won’t trust you. But I need to go warn my master of the danger,”

“There’s no danger. I saw him off. And you’re master and the shakje are safe and sound in their room,”

Shakje. Rae hadn’t been called that in… He didn’t know how long it had been.

“The shakje…”

“I know he’s with you. I mean him no harm, and the beast won’t come back again. He’s too stupid to kill the Shakje anyway, couldn’t even find the right target,”

Rae let out a harsh laugh, which he disguised as a cough.

“Stay a while, rest,”

Rae refused to fall asleep, no matter how much Ven reassured him that he didn’t mind him staying the night. He may be too shell-shocked to leave, but he needed to be ready to go find Gaori as soon as he could. As his condition improved, Ven’s conversation grew gutsier and gutsier.

“It’s because your masters are young master Kaolin and the Shakje. It’s dangerous serving someone so significant, why not follow me instead,” He asked, after the ice had been brought up, and was numbing the pain in Rae’s arm.

“Young master Ashem can’t be serious,”

“Young master Kaolin was so harsh with you. He seems quite the brute, you really want to stay with him?”

Rae laughed. Gaori, a brute! If only he were listening.

“He was a brute because you were being rude. And I had my duties to attend to,” Rae said. He was getting stronger, the lies were coming easier.

“The Shakje to attend to, you mean? Does he treat you well? Is that why you’re so loyal?” Ven asked, his voice had a little tension in it. It was long past midnight, he must have been regretting giving up his bed.

He had offered Rae an excuse to get away.

“If he’s noticed I’m missing, he’ll be very worried. This is a difficult enough time for him. I should go to him,”

Rae stood. To his surprise, his legs held him well. His vision stayed still and clear, and while his arm was sore, his head didn’t throb.

“A very trying time for him. It makes me worried he won’t ensure your injuries are taken care of. I’ll be in the Shak’s camp for the foreseeable future. If you need anything, come to me,”

Thank goodness, Ven wasn’t going to try to convince him to stay. Thank goodness.

“Can I trouble you one more time?”

“Of course,”

Ven accompanied Rae to the the corridor outside of Rae and Gaori’s room and didn’t comment nor complain when Rae refused to knock on the door until he was gone.

“I almost forgot, one more thing,” Ven said, just as they had said their farewells.

“This landed on my veranda, just when you were attacked, is it yours?” he asked and presented Rae’s short sword, hand-carved by his mother with the Kaolin crest.

Guilt and relief overtook Rae. He had dropped and forgotten a precious and irreplaceable thing. And it had been returned to his lap before he had even noticed it was gone.

“Thank the heavens!” in his excitement, Rae spoke a little too loudly for the hour. There was a thud, followed by thundering footsteps from Gaori and Rae’s room. Before Rae could tell Ven to make himself scarce, his cousin burst out of the door onto the landing.

“There you-“ he froze when he saw Ven. Then he got a proper look at Rae, and he went pale.

“What happened?” he asked Rae, “what have you done to him?” he then asked Ven.

Gaori hurried over and would have grabbed at Rae’s injured arm, had he not shoved him away.

“Young master,” Rae said, looking at Gaori as sternly as he could, “apologies for my absence,”

For a few seconds, Gaori was unable to give an intelligent response. He looked Rae over, face growing redder as he took in each injury. Then he turned the full force of his anger on Ven.

“You!-“

If it weren’t for Rae holding him back, Gaori might have thrown Ven off the landing.

“Let’s not make a scene, his Highness must be very tired,” Rae said, and finally, Gaori seemed to understand what he wanted.

“Make a scene? I’m not the one making a scene. Go see to your duties at once!”

Rae breathed a sigh of relief and hurried into the room. Gaori followed him, not without spitting a few expletives over his shoulder at Ven.

When the door was shut and they were sure Ven had gone back to his rooms, Gaori began prodding at Rae.

“What is all this?” he whispered and Rae batted his hands away.

“There was an assassin. He nearly killed me but that Ashem young master helped me out,”

Gaori’s crestfallen face made Rae feel a little guilty. Which was stupid, because what did Gaori have to be jealous of? He got all the girls, and Rae got all the murderers.

“And you were able to keep our cover intact?” Gaori asked and Rae nodded.

“He thinks you and I are accompanying the Shakje to the Shak’s camp. That’s why I was attacked. He doesn’t seem dangerous,”

“Still, we should leave quietly tomorrow. And keep our wits about us. We’ve come so far, it would be a shame to fall now,”

Normally, seeing Gaori so serious would be off-putting, but Rae was thankful he didn’t have to muscle through his bone-deep exhaustion to make their plans.

He went to bed immediately, not caring to ask where the girl had gone. Gaori promised to stay awake, packing their things, and standing guard all night.