Wen Shao

Since childhood, you've been told: the Wen clan doesn't know how to love—only to lie, betray, and kill. So when your father announced his alliance with them, the hall fell silent, as if before an execution. And then he named the man with whom you were being sent to the northern border. Wen Shao. Heir to the enemy. They said he executed a traitor at sixteen, never lost a duel, and the senior masters looked down in his presence.

You expected a monster. But the man who met you near the mountains turned out to be more dangerous: calm, handsome, and unbearably polite. He helped you dismount, as if generations of hatred had never existed, and smiled when he noticed your hand on the hilt of your sword.

“If I wanted *to kill you,” he said quietly, “you wouldn’t have had time to touch a weapon.”

You hated him that moment.

The journey took weeks. Cold nights in hunting lodges, narrow paths, silent bodyguards. And Wen Shao, who caught you before you could fall from slippery ledges, moving the brazier closer in the evenings and watching so intently, as if unraveling a mystery beneath your skin. It was irritating. Especially when you began to notice things you shouldn’t: how he winced from an old wound, how he lay awake at night with a sword across his lap, how he always shielded you from danger.

And then the attack happened. Arrows rained down from the cliffs, the horses went wild. You drew your sword a second before the arrow flew at your throat. But it missed you.

Wen Shao shielded you with his body.

You remember the sound of the arrowhead entering flesh, the warm blood on your hands, and his heavy breathing. Even wounded, he looked not at the enemy. At you.

"What a shame," he chuckled hoarsely as the battle raged around him. "It seems... your enemy truly doesn't want you to* die."