Ven had met quite the beauty. The youth from Camp Kaolin had been enthralling from the first moment. So small and slight, with adorable features. All soft skin and fierce eyes. The sight of him on the stairs had something nostalgic about it. It made Ven want to tease him. 

Ms. Gidun, the Scarlet Vixen, the prima donna of the Fragrant Valley Troupe, should have been quite the conquest in her own right. But his heart wasn’t in it. She was not happy to serve as a sub-par distraction from his Kaolin beauty. 

The vixen saved Ven’s reputation by rejecting him quietly and out of view. Once he had seen his father, he would have baskets of flowers and fruits sent to the troupe, to repair any wounded hearts.

The night certainly would have been lonely in the guest house, had the exact person he had been dreaming of not fallen into his lap. Ven had been woken by the clatter of something bouncing off his window and landing on the balcony. 

The beast hadn’t shown his face since. He was probably hiding somewhere in the forest, licking his wounds until Duke Ashem summoned him. He might have thanked the bastard, for giving him a little more time with the one who had caught his interest, if he hadn’t given the beauty such a nasty fright.

Ven wasn’t a healer, wasn’t used to sitting by a bedside, tending to wounds, talking through fears. He was a flirt. And the next time he saw the Kaolin beauty he intended to set the record straight.

The youth would need to be treated gently, that much was clear.  He hid his weaknesses any way he could, even when Ven had already carried him into bed and tended to his wounds. Like a cat, if you approached him too aggressively, he would hiss, spit and claw his way free. Once he had been calmed and coaxed out of his shell, only then could Ven go further…

He waited outside the meeting hall, as the custom dictated, to be invited in. The palace was certainly more sombre than Ven had last seen it. The five Shali, his nieces, were confined to the  Shana’s courtyard. Other than a few sentries, there were no servants around. The only sound was that of a cuckoo in the trees which clung to the hillside.

Ven’s father emerged from the meeting hall.

“You’re looking well,” he said, in the cold and uninterested tone  that reassured Ven that all was well, “how was the journey?”

“That rabid dog of yours caused some trouble in the valley, and I haven’t seen any sign of him since,” Ven said, eager to discuss what punishment might befall the beast.

“So that’s who did it,” was all his father said. 

So his beauty had already arrived, and the Shakje had given Duke Ashem a piece of his mind. Good to know the Kaolin beauty had someone dependable on his side after all. 

“How is sister?”

“Come see for yourself,” 

Ven’s sister was not well. She barely had the will to greet her little brother. Eyes down-turned, tear-stained cheeks, dressed in a way more befitting of the camp crones than a noble lady in her prime. And finally free of a husband who was good for nothing other than impregnating her.

Perhaps she was grieving the father her next child would never meet, but that didn’t seem like much to cry over either. 

Duke Bejuk was there, brewing some tonic to help the Shana with her nerves. Beside him, lounging on a plush seat was the moronic Kaolin young master.

“You!” he said upon seeing him, and Ven couldn’t help but smirk. Of course, the dolt hadn’t deduced who he was. For the sake of the people, he hoped the Shakje wasn’t as stupid as he was. 

“So the Shakje is already here?” Ven asked, a little disappointed that his beauty was nowhere to be found. He hoped he had been sent to see a healer. 

The Kaolin Oaf was either so baffled or enraged by the question that he was stunned silent. 
“He’s seeing the Shak’s spirit off. Take a seat, it could be a long while,” Duke Bejuk said. He had finished the concoction for the Shana, and she was struggling to drink it without gagging.

When Ven had first come to the Shak’s camp, to attend his sister’s wedding ceremony, he had never come across the Shakje. Less than a year later, the Shak’s only child would be relocated to Camp Kaolin. Even as young as he was, the reasoning behind this move was never hidden from him. 

With no one left to protect the defenceless child in the Shak’s camp and a new stepmother from an ambitious family already pregnant, the Shakje’s only hope was to get as far away as possible. Raised in the southern mountains by his maternal uncle, rumours about the Shak’s only son echoed around the mountain-people for many years. 

Ven had heard some of them but was smart enough not to repeat any to his sister or father. Until the Shak’s health took a sudden, and irreparable turn for the worst, it was best to pretend the Kaolin Shakje had never even existed.

Ven sat with his sister while waiting for the Shakje to emerge from the death chamber.

What a vile thing, he thought. To spend so long communing with a corpse. If he were in the Shakje’s shoes, he’d do a quick lap of the chamber, blow out the candles and be at Bejuk’s heels on the way out. 

Ven wondered what sort of person the Shakje might be. After many years spent in exile, finally being called back to assume a position so many wished to usurp… if he was as stupid as the Kaolin young master, he surely wouldn’t last long. 

Speaking of the Kaolin young master, he had been glaring death at Ven ever since he’d arrived. 
“So you’re not just any young master Ashem. You’re the young master Ashem,” 

Ven could feel his father watching them. He wondered just what orders his father had given the beast. To send an assassin, no matter how incompetent, after the Shak-in-waiting was a crime even Duke Ashem wouldn’t get away with easily.  

“Yes, that’s right,” Ven smiled and bowed, “I apologise for not making my identity known sooner. I was nervous speaking to strangers while travelling,” 

“Oh we know the dangers all too well,” the Kaolin Oaf was trying to be clever “Why after the trouble we came across, we would do well to follow young master Ashem’s example,”

Ven was about to point out that neither young master Kaolin nor the Shakje had met any harm. That the only one to suffer any trouble was a defenceless but steadfast servant with a slim waist and gorgeous lips. He bit back those words, however, and would soon be glad he did.