The night air gently brushed against what of her skin wasn’t covered by cape and hood and mask, her wings ruffling in the wind of her flight, and Malkah eagerly filled her lungs with freshness. It had been years since she’d been out of the Shaded Palace to run an assignment.
According to the King of Plots, the Highnesses couldn’t be trusted with rescuing a vulnerable King of Blades. That made sense - dragons didn’t become Highnesses of the Night Court if they weren’t ambitious and cutthroat - and so Malkah, the Queen of Poisons, had been selected as the best dragon to fulfill this mission.
She circled once over the clan which the King of Blades was trapped in, high enough that even if anyone looked up they’d only see a small blot against the stars. Malkah carefully analyzed the positions of the guards, as she’d done every night for the past week. Their numbers had dwindled to half of what they were.
Had the clan not yet realized their water was being poisoned?
It was a simple enough mixture Malkah had concocted, and which she’d been pouring every night into the pool which supplied the clan’s water. A bit of nightshade, some belladonna, and a dash of poison harvested from a Serthis’ fangs. Not rare ingredients, but deadly in combination. It acted quickly to bring a dragon low, but took its time in killing them.
After all, Malkah thought, tilting in midair to do another lap over the lair, anyone who kidnapped a Majesty was just asking to suffer.
Even as she watched, another guard collapsed, evidenced by the shine of armor as other guards flocked to their side. Malkah smiled under her mask.
Good. Their plan was working so far; now it was time for the part she didn’t quite enjoy so much. If she had her way, she’d just mix a more powerful poison, wait until the entire clan had ingested it, and walk in unopposed to rescue the King of Blades. However, they couldn’t take the risk that the King of Blades would be given the poisoned water. The longer this little game of weakening went on, the more likely that was, so Malkah sighed and dipped lower, slipping through the guards’ blind spots and between cracks in the clan wards.
She landed in silence and shadow, flattening her wings under her cape and crouching to the ground. The lair was quiet except for the gentle clink of movement from armored guards, and the occasional groan of pain from a poisoned dragon.
It was so nice to hear the results of her work. Malkah smiled once more and slithered through the lair, remembering the King of Plots’ detailed description of the layout. The den up ahead and to her left was the alchemist’s den - the only dragon with a separate water supply, and therefore not weakened by Malkah’s work.
That would have to be fixed.
Malkah kept her movements silent as a shadow as she nudged aside the curtain covering the alchemist’s door and slipped into his laboratory. The familiar scent of poisons and potions assaulted her nostrils. Mmm, was that a paralyzing agent? She breathed deeply, knowing her mask protected her from inhaling any of the actual poison, and decided it was. This alchemist was intelligent.
What a shame, she thought as she glanced around and saw him sleeping on a pile of cushions, that he had to die.
It was quick at least. Malkah uncapped a vial from under her cloak and pried open the Tundra’s mouth. He didn’t even have a chance to struggle before her signature fast-acting poison was trickling down his throat, and the moment he swallowed, he was doomed.
Malkah kept him silent for the few seconds it took him to convulse his life out. Then she stepped back and took a look around the alchemist’s lab.
Ah, this was the place he prepared the drug they were using to keep the King of Blades vaguely sedated. Malkah nudged the ingredients around with a claw, remembered the King of Plots showing her how it was created, and glanced around the lab again. Crap. The alchemist didn’t have all the ingredients for an antidote. Likely he thought there was none, but Malkah already knew she was far more skilled than most legitimate alchemists.
She swept a phytocat claw into a pouch in her cape before taking her leave. Those claws were annoying to obtain and very, very useful. It seemed a waste to just leave it here.
Once again she slipped like a shadow through the lair. There was one more target she wanted to catch before rescuing the King of Blades. And she was just… up… ahead.
Two guards were posted at the entrance of the Ridgeback’s den, that damned clan leader on whose order the King of Blades had been tortured. Malkah gritted her teeth and swept her claws quickly across both of their throats, then dragged them into the shadows and scuffed their armor with dirt. Hopefully their fellow guards wouldn’t find them until it was convenient.
Then Malkah entered the Ridgeback’s den.
Unlike the alchemist, the Ridgeback was not asleep. She had her back to the door, but she was most definitely awake, studying a map by candlelight.
Malkah closed the door and locked it, glad the Ridgeback didn’t have the common sense to let rust build up on her hinges as a natural alarm. She slipped forward until she was right next to the Ridgeback.
“You know, that’s called Windstar Bay,” she commented, pointing to the bay between Arcane and Wind marked “Starwind”.
The Ridgeback had fast reflexes. Unfortunately, Malkah was faster. By the time the Ridgeback had snarled and snapped at Malkah, she was already dancing away, grinning under her mask.
“Do you threaten every helpful stranger?” she asked, fluttering her wings at the Ridgeback. The Ridgeback was not pleased.
“Majesty.”
Malkah’s confidence stuttered. How did this Ridgeback know what she was? Had the King of Blades betrayed them? The King of Plots would have told her if that were so. He’d have seen it in his constant watch over the King of Blades.
Malkah filed that away to study later.
“Have you no respect for a Queen?” she responded. The Ridgeback bristled.
“I have no respect for lowlifes who creep in the dust, no matter how you might style yourself.” She drew herself up, apparently trying to look imposing to the smaller Malkah. “Though I must say, thank you for delivering yourself into my hands. It makes everything a lot easier when we storm your Shade Palace.”
Ha. As if she knew where the Shaded Palace was. Only the Majesties and select Highnesses were privy to that information.
The Ridgeback’s claws were creeping towards a broadsword leaning against a table, Malkah noted. She didn’t really want to face a broadsword. And the Ridgeback was showing the telltale signs of stress on top of Malkah’s poisoning - her scales losing their shine, deep shades of blue under her eyes.
Malkah pounced.
It only took a brief tussle with the weakened Ridgeback before Malkah had her pinned, using the magic of earth to create shackles of rock and keep the Ridgeback’s limbs restrained. Malkah sat on the Ridgeback’s chest and stared down at her.
The Ridgeback snarled and tried to bite her. Malkah barely leaned back to avoid the sharp teeth.
“Do I have to gag you as well?” she asked calmly, and then before the Ridgeback could respond, a muzzle of stone had already clamped around her mouth. “That’s better. Now, listen. Did you really think you could get away with kidnapping a Majesty?”
The Ridgeback gave a wordless snarl. Malkah stood up and climbed off the Ridgeback’s chest, instead going to stand by her head and stare into her eyes.
“The Night Court takes care of its own,” she said quietly. “And any good rulers punish those who dare attack it.”
The Ridgeback writhed in her bonds. Malkah put one sharp claw on the Ridgeback’s throat, feeling her racing pulse.
“I could kill you right now,” she said conversationally, not showing the disgust she felt at the thought of the Ridgeback’s blood spraying out of her body. Messy kills had never been her style. The Ridgeback, however, seemed suitably chastened. She certainly wasn’t squirming as much.
“But that wouldn’t be fair,” Malkah continued. “You made the King of Blades suffer and threatened to kill his subjects. So of course, the fair thing to do would be the same.”
There was fear in the Ridgeback’s eyes now. Malkah let the muzzle turn to dust, raining on the ground around the Ridgeback’s head, and slipped a full vial from one of the pockets in her cloak.
The Ridgeback opened her mouth to threaten something. Malkah uncorked the vial and poured the mixture inside right down the Ridgeback’s throat.
As she sputtered and choked, Malkah calmly corked the vial again and replaced it. “Would you like to know what that was?” she asked, and then without waiting for an answer, she continued. “It’s one of my favorite poisons. It’ll paralyze you for days, turning you into little more than a living, breathing doll. You’ll be unable to move from this position. You’ll be left helpless as your clan dies around you, and then you’ll die from starvation and lack of water. It’s a rather slow death.”
The Ridgeback gurgled. Malkah let the chains dissolve into dust as well and watched the Ridgeback try to scramble up and spit out the poison. It was a very concentrated dose, though. Even half of that vial would have been enough to take down a Guardian. A Ridgeback of this size didn’t stand a chance.
Malkah watched as the Ridgeback’s muscles stiffened up, and her legs gave out under her. She crashed to the floor in the position she’d be stuck in for the rest of her life.
She reached out and patted the Ridgeback’s head condescendingly, enjoying the rage and terror expressed in the Ridgeback’s eyes.
“And if you’re hoping your alchemist will save you, you’re out of luck,” she added. “He has all the ingredients for the antidote, but he’s very, very dead. He’s lucky. He got the fastest death of any member of your clan.”
That little spark of hope died in the Ridgeback’s eyes. Malkah always loved seeing that. She couldn’t stop herself from grinning behind her mask.
“And this, in case you’re wondering,” she couldn’t resist adding, “is why dragons don’t challenge the Night Court.”
The Ridgeback tried to growl. It came out as a pathetic gurgle. Malkah fastened her teeth in the Ridgeback’s scruff, tasting blood and not even trying to be gentle, then dragged her to the door where she’d have a good view as her clan went into their death throes.
“Stay,” she joked, and then walked away.
More guards had gone down. Malkah stuck to the shadows once more and slipped past the heap of groaning dragons, quickly killed the guard posted at the entrance of the half-underground den which the King of Plots had said was this clan’s prison, and entered.
Cells lined the long hall. Malkah heard the groans and breaths of tortured dragons behind each one. She ignored them all, purposefully moving down the hall to the only one with a guard posted outside it.
He was asleep on duty. Malkah stared down at the sleeping Pearlcatcher, then sighed, trickled a dose of the same poison she’d given the alchemist into his mouth, and let him go through his death throes before searching his belt of keys. He wasn’t necessarily worth killing, no, but he wasn’t worth leaving alive either.
Ah. Here was the key the King of Plots had seen in his scrying. Malkah detached it from the ring and opened the cell.
The moment the door swung open, Malkah recoiled. Her mask protected her from inhaling poisons, but the rank stench of blood and fear that permeated this cell was a poison in itself.
She swallowed hard and stepped inside. The walls once had been gray, it seemed, but now they were the rust-brown of dried blood. A glass of untouched water sat on a tray of gnawed-at scraps. Malkah took another timid step into the cell. Was the King of Blades gone?
No, he was curled up in a corner. Malkah’s eyes had just gone over him in the darkness. Metal chains locked his limbs into stillness, and his eyes were closed. Wounds both half-healed and new laced his body and distorted the swirling smoke patterns over his scales.
Malkah carefully picked her way across the cell and crouched at his side.
“Blades,” she hissed. “Blades, wake up.”
For a moment, he didn’t stir, and Malkah wondered if he’d been killed. But then a small tremor went through those black wings, and the King of Blades opened heavy eyelids, the normally bright orange of his eyes dull and sick.
“Poisons?” he whispered, his voice hoarse and dry from lack of water. Malkah reached for the chains and used the magic of Earth to rust them off.
“Come on,” she said, and stood up. The King of Blades struggled to his feet. His limbs were raw, the scales rubbed off, where the chains had been. He wasn’t going to be able to fly.
Then he turned his head, and Malkah forgot everything else. The wounds on his body and his gaunt appearance paled to her sight.
Across the King’s right eye, a clawmark marred his face, deep enough that Malkah knew immediately it wouldn’t heal without a scar. Blood matted the scales around it and it was swelled shut.
“Blades,” she whispered, automatically recoiling from it. The King of Blades watched her with his good eye.
“I know,” he rasped. “Poisons, listen. We have a spy. Someone… Someone’s betrayed us.”
A shock ran through Malkah. Betrayed? Who would be stupid enough to betray the Night Court?
“They knew…” the King of Blades started, then he wobbled on his feet. Malkah barely managed to reach out and keep his skull from cracking against the bloodwashed stone as he collapsed.
Well, of all the shade-touched cursed plots in Sornieth.
Malkah nudged the King of Blades again, but it seemed he was well and truly unconscious. She sighed and lifted him onto her shoulders. His ropy body instinctively curled around her, Malkah only rearranging him to free her wings.
Then she turned and left the stinking cell.
A traitor in the Night Court. The implications rocked Malkah’s thoughts so much that she barely heard the tortured breaths of the dragons in the cells on either side. They didn’t matter. The King of Plots had said no other Night Court member was captive here.
Malkah exited the prisons, then in a fit of spite, slammed her claws into the ground. The earthen mound collapsed in on itself and quietly buried alive everyone inside. The King of Blades’ soft breaths sounded in Malkah’s ear, infuriating her more.
A spy in the Night Court. Malkah reared up, ignoring the cries of alarm from the guards, and took to the skies, easily avoiding the missiles shot her way. It didn’t matter. They’d all be dead soon enough, and then the Ridgeback would slowly starve to death in the midst of her clanmates.
A spy in the Night Court.
Malkah only stopped once - at the pool of water which the clan drew from - and dumped a stronger dose of poison into it. With the King of Blades safe on her back, there was no longer any fear about killing everyone in that clan, but Malkah wanted them to suffer still.
She watched as the poison mixed with the clear water, then the pool stilled, leaving no sign it was tampered with. The King of Blades curled tighter around her.
The Queen of Poisons clawed her way into the sky again, flying for the Shaded Palace, rage in every wingbeat.
