He growled crankily as they prowled the castle lands. Well, the immediate lands, anyway. The palace was on hundreds of acres, and included farms, forests, orchards, and more. It was practically a city, even though the royal city was only minutes away by horse or carriage, and even fewer minutes by dragon. Especially for his showoff brother with wings almost as big as his ego.
You're in a mood, Barkus said with an amused chuff. Didn't work out all that energy in the bedroom?
I'm not rutting in the snow, so get that thought right out of your head.
Barkus just lolled his tongue and let the thoughts remain, an idle, delightful distraction from all the cold, wet misery around them. It's nice out here. Not as cold as the mountains, and still a long way from summer and its wretched heat.
Heat? You think your summers are hot?
Not all of us live in lands of fire, demon.
Najlah hissed and flicked out his forked tongue at that. It would always be equal parts amusing and aggravating that people looked at him and thought demon long before dragon. Even though demons were silly human nonsense and dragons very real.
He froze as he caught the barest hint of an out of place scent. Beside him, Barkus growled as he caught it too. Najlah growled inquisitively.
It's called stardust, or at least that's what we call it on the Shide. Made from night-blooming star flowers, it's used for all kinds of things. Smoked in mild doses, it can leave you feeling a little bit like being drunk. In higher concentrations it can be used to knock people out or dope them enough to be manipulated. It can also be used as a poison, though that requires adding other components. On its own you'd have to take more than anyone could ingest in a single sitting. Barkus growled thoughtfully. It's fairly common on the Shide, and on the other side of the mountain, but not down here.
Najlah flicked his tongue out to taste it again, get a better sense of it so he'd remember it in the future. Strange thing to be in the middle of a field of snow and ice.
His mind filled with images of people smoking cigarettes, carelessly tossing the remains to the ground.
Growling again, tongue flicking over and over as he tried to lock onto the scent, Najlah prowled around on the hunt.
He found it a few minutes later, a small burnt end that had melted through some snow and then been covered up again by the wind. He snapped it up, absorbing every scent and flavor it offered. Disgusting. But there was enough of the human who'd smoked it for Najlah to recognize the bastard when he found him.
I can't believe you just ate that thing.
I've eaten far worse by choice. Like lava beetles, for one. Their shells were notoriously hard to crunch through and the meat had a horribly bitter taste when you did finally manage it. Najlah liked them anyway. Especially combined with firebirds, which were on the sweeter end of things. He growled and flicked his tongue out. Your ass, for two.
Ha, ha, ha. Barkus lunged close and nipped his back leg, eliciting a growl and brief tussle before they got back to work.
Najlah was considering whether or not to go into the city when an unmistakable roar rolled through the air, his brother ordering him to get his tail back home now. Ugh. What did he want this time? It wasn't time for the dinner, was it?
Not quite. We've got just under an hour, and I know it doesn't take you that long to dress. You barely get dressed at all.
You try wearing all those stupid clothes with all their stupid layers when you look like me.
Barkus snorted. Your brother manages it, and he has wings.
Horned brutes are admired for their obedience, not their intelligence. Najlah preened at the laughter that got him. I suppose I should see what he wants. He set his feet and roared a reply. He wasn't nearly as loud, but Ajith would hear him anyway.
Then it was back through the snow they trudged, to the service courtyard where deliveries were made all day, every day: foodstuffs, furniture, candles and other day to day miscellany… it was probably one of the busiest places in the whole palace, always on the edge of devolving into chaos. Najlah loved it, especially when he could easily steal from the meat deliveries. When it was fresh and unmarred by things like spices and cooking and still carried a hint of the blood that had been recently drained from it.
Sometimes I think you'd enjoy me more as dinner than as lover.
Lovers are burned, not eaten. Only enemies are eaten. I'm rude, not disrespectful. Najlah turned to flick his tongue out, eyes swirling a brilliant red-orange.
You're both.
Najlah didn't reply, but his eyes shifted to the green of amusement, and Barkus's pleasure rolled through the bond.
As they stepped inside, sadly without contraband snacks, Ajith was waiting for them in the main hallway. "It's about time you showed up."
"When will it be time for you to stop nagging me?"
"When you stop being a brat."
Najlah hissed. "Why were you bellowing?"
"We found bodies. Come and take a look at them."
Najlah hissed again, but this time it was all menace, none of the affection and amusement he used with his brother and Barkus. Bodies? Of who? They'd killed or imprisoned all the assassins, and surely if they'd killed someone before they'd tried for Tevra and Their Majesties, the bodies would have been found long before now.
Ajith huffed impatiently when he asked. "If we knew, I'd have told you. Now come on and take a look for yourself, see what you see. We'll go from there."
"Fine." Growling his dissatisfaction at the way the pile of questions continued to grow, while the pile of answers remained all but barren, Najlah and Barkus followed Ajith through the palace to the dungeons and catacombs below.
The room they stopped in smelled of death and astringent cleaners that burned Najlah's nose and stung his eyes. He growled. Why did they keep the dead piled up this way? It was unhealthy, dangerous.
Looks like they're all victims of suspicious deaths and examined thoroughly for clues before being sent off for proper burial.
Back home, bodies were burned in some places, in others left for the elements and carrion feeders to attend to. Here, they were buried in the ground to return to the earth, often with a tree or some other plant to commemorate.
"This way," Ajith said, and led him down the long, grisly room to the very end, where three bodies were set on high, narrow tables of the sort butchers used. Fitting.
"I don't smell blood from open wounds. How did they die?"
An imperious woman dressed in the livery of the guard, but with an apron covered in blood and other fluids over it, stepped forward. "If you're wondering about the cause of death, we don't know. There's no signs of… well, anything on the bodies. It's like they were fine one moment and fell over dead the next."
Magic, Barkus said. That reeks of Gormestian magic. Hang on. He shifted, shook himself, and said, "That sounds like Gormestian magic. I've never seen it, but I've heard of it. They can put symbols on people that are basically a death curse. They interrupt or stop the heart or something. I don't know where the mark is placed, though."
"Magic like that is usually placed along the major veins," the woman said. "In my limited experience, at least. It travels more easily through the blood that way." She approached the nearest body, pulling on close-fitting leather gloves, and delicately set to work examining it. After a few minutes, she said, "Here, on his upper right arm, where the serpent artery is located. I don't know anything about the mark itself, but I would wager he died instantly, with little to no warning. Probably never even knew what hit him."