"You awake?"
Deathbringer's voice woke her up, followed by a poke to her scales. She groaned, blinking in the light. It was a little dimmer than when she'd gone to sleep, and she felt much more rested. Not that that would stop her from giving Deathbringer an annoyed look as he perched next to her on the large branch.
"I am now," she snorted. "What's the matter?"
"Just waking you up for those meetings you had rescheduled for later today," he said, "There's quite a line again. You're very popular today."
"I'm queen; I'm always popular," she got to her feet and stretched her wings, reluctant to get back to work but knowing it was probably for the best. "Did you get done what I wanted you to get done?" she asked him.
"Yes and no," came his answer, "I talked to the Rainwings, and while they were willing to give up a clawful of trees, they refused anymore unless they got a direct order from you."
"And Jambu?"
Deathbringer shook his head. "No sign of him. I asked around and nobody else knew where he was, either. Only thing I found out was that one dragon said she saw him flying southeast of the Nightwing village, probably to gather wild fruit."
Glory frowned. "And he hasn't come back?"
"Not that anyone's seen, no," Deathbringer told her with a shrug of his wings.
She tapped a claw on the tree branch. This was…odd, to say the least. Jambu was always one of the most sociable dragons in the village; other would have noticed if they'd seen him. For him to just disappear—especially without telling her—definitely made her feel like something was wrong.
"Do you have any word on those other Rainwings that were reported missing?" she found herself asking. "There are, what, three of them unaccounted for?"
"Three, yes," Deathbringer nodded, "I have some dragons looking into it, but you said it was a low priority. I haven't heard anything about them, so it's probably safe to assume they're missing as well. But with Rainwings, it's hard to know."
"Wasn't another one of them last seen going southeast?" She'd gone over the details of those reports, but perhaps not as hard as she should have.
"I think so," came Deathbringer's answer, "Actually, all of them might have been, come to think of it. Not that that really means anything. Who knows where a dragon might decide to go once they leave the eyes of others."
"I know…" Glory trailed off. She didn't want to overreact, but this wasn't a dragon that she'd never heard of before. This was Jambu. Her brother. And she'd specifically told him to let her know of anything that would pull him away for days at a time so she wouldn't have to worry about him.
"Are you okay?" Deathbringer asked, giving her a concerned look.
"Yes…well, no." She shook her head and hissed. "It might be too much, but I want you to pull some dragons together and search the Rainforest southeast of the Night Village. See if you can find him, or anything unusual. And tell anyone in the village to tell him to come to me if they see him around. Hopefully he's just been laying around somewhere unnoticed."
"Hopefully, yeah," the Nightwing nodded. "I'll get right on it, then. There's still plenty of daylight to search in, if we fly fast."
"Good. And thank you," she reached out a wing and set it on his shoulder, "If you get any news, come to me immediately."
"I will." Deathbringer took a deep breath, then gave her a reassuring look before taking off. She followed him in the air, but veered off away and back towards her throne room.
It's probably nothing, she told herself, He's probably just hiding somewhere. Deathbringer will find him. Unfortunately, that didn't dull the spike of worry in her chest.
Like Deathbringer had told her, there was a long line of dragons waiting to see her outside her throne room. Unlike earlier, she was almost happy to see it. Taking care of these problems would hopefully take her mind off things until she got any sort of update on her brother.
And they did, although not completely. Fortunately, the issues that were brought to her attention were more engaging than looking at sloths, and she was more or less able to keep her attention on the tasks at claw. Resolving a dispute between a Nightwing and a Rainwing who each accused the other of theft took some to sort out, as did another similar case of another Rainwing accusing a Nightwing of eating their pet sloth (which had happened a few times in the past, but wasn't the case in this situation). That kept her mind off of the worry, but it returned every time she had a break.
But the more she focused on being queen and the more removed she was from her conversation with Deathbringer earlier, the farther it was from her mind. After all, she could hardly give attention to her own concerns when the concerns of her kingdom were before her. And by the time dusk was falling outside and the last of the dragons that had come to her were finishing, she had almost, almost forgotten about Jambu being missing altogether.
Then, just as the last dragon was stepping up to speak with her, the doors to the throne room opened and Deathbringer stepped inside. And just by looking at his face, even from across the room, Glory knew something was wrong.
She quickly dismissed the last dragon and gave a short apology before all but running to the ex-assassin, scanning him for any clues of the news he brought. All she received was a very grim face. "Did you find him?" she asked, her voice faster than she meant, "Is he okay?"
Deathbringer gave a shaky breath. "We found him, but.." he shook his head, "Glory, I'm sorry…"
"What happened?" she demanded, "Where is he? Deathbringer, where's Jambu?"
The Nightwing swallowed and looked down. "Jambu is dead."
Glory felt her heart fall, and she couldn't stop her scales from turning color to a pale white. She opened her mouth, then shut it, feeling her body tense up. Tears began to well, but she forced them down, forced herself to stay in control. "He's dead?" she asked quietly, hoping that she somehow misheard.
Deathbringer closed his and nodded. "Yes."
Glory swallowed, then hissed, looking down and trying to calm the swarm of emotions within her. "How?"
"We don't know," Deathbringer shook his head again, "But he was…" he paused, "He was ripped open."
She blinked and looked up at him, dumbfounded. "He was what?"
"He was ripped open, like a prey animal, likely with claws," Deathbringer told her, "It wasn't an accident."
She stared at him, mouth agape, mind trying to process it. Then it did, and suddenly so much of the sorrow and confusion turned to rage. "Who did it?" she demanded, "Who killed him?"
"We don't know," Deathbringer set a claw on hers to calm her, "But I promise you, we'll find out.
Glory fell silent, but her tail lashed behind her. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to rip something or someone into a million pieces. Jambu was dead. Her brother was dead.
But she didn't. She couldn't. Not now. She needed to find out who was responsible, then perhaps she could mourn. Until then, she had to keep control. She had to keep control for his sake.
"Where is he?" she asked, and Deathbringer stepped back towards the door.
"We brought him back. He's outside. It was a miracle we could even spot him in the foliage, but he happened to be on the edge of a clearing."
"Can I see him?"
The Nightwing hesitated. "I don't know if that's the best…"
"I want to see him," she insisted, and he nodded before opening the door for her.
She stepped outside to see a small crowd of dragons gathered in a circle around something. Approaching, she saw it was a stretcher covered in a cloth, and she felt her heart fall all over again when she saw a tail poking out from under that cloth, half-covered.
The other dragons noticed her and stepped back as she walked forward, bowing their heads in both respect and sympathy. Glory just looked at the sight for a second, taking it in. She took a deep breath, and slowly reached for the cloth.
She pulled it back for only a second, seeing all that she needed to before dropping it again. It was Jambu, that was for certain. She'd recognize her bother face, destroyed as it was. But seeing it now…that was all she could take.
Glory staggered back and sat down, her breath suddenly ragged. She closed her eyes and felt herself begin to fall, only stopped by being caught in the wings of Deathbringer, who had followed her out. Tears now began to stream from her eyes as she choked out a cry, burying herself into his embrace.
"Why?" she cried, unable to keep her emotions bottled in anymore. Not even to portray a strong venire as queen. "Who would do that to him? Who would want to kill Jambu? Deathbringer, why?"
Deathbringer didn't answer, he just held her tight as she wept. Jambu hadn't just been killed; he'd been slaughtered. Ripped open and apart. Even in her short glance she'd been able to see that. And he'd been left to rot like a discarded carcass in the jungle.
It was hardly believable. He'd been fine only a few short days ago. He'd visited her for dinner and they laughed and ate like any other day. It was normal, usual, and now he was gone, ripped away from her. Her brother was dead, dead, and there was nothing she could have seen or done to stop it.
But maybe she could avenge him.
She felt herself grow hot, as if Deathbringer's fire burned within her own chest. Sorrow turned again to anger, misery to rage. Her claws clenched and unclenched as she broke from the Nightwing's embrace and fixed him with a look of wrathful determination.
"Find who did this, Deathbringer," she told him, "Search the whole Rainforest, if you must. Overturn every rock and shake every branch to track this son of a snake down."
"I will," he promised, "We will."
A silence fell, and Glory shuddered. She took a deep breath, but it didn't help at all. She felt like crying again, but she also felt so, so tired.
"Queen Glory," a dragon spoke her name and hesitantly stepped forward. She recognized him as Guava, one of the Rainwing doctors. He must have been called to look over Jambu—not that it could have done any good.
"What?" she asked, her voice coming out harsher than she intended, and the doctor flinched.
"I examined the body when he was brought back," Guava said, "He showed signs of being, well…" he hesitated, "Eaten."
Glory just looked at him for a moment, her body not sure if it should be sorrowful again at that revelation, or just confused. "What?"
"Several of his organs were missing, including his liver and heart," the doctor explained, "Along with the clawmarks that had torn him open, there were bitemarks in a lot of places. And I found this inside of him," he held out something sharp and white in his claw and gave it to her. It only took her a second to recognize it: it was a tooth.
"I…what does this mean," she asked, staring at it, "Are we dealing with some sort of cannibal?"
"I don't know," Guava shook his head, "I mean, any scavenger or predator could have come along and taken the opportunity to eat, although I didn't see any obvious signs of that. The thing is, that tooth is too big to belong to any panther or jaguar. And it doesn't look like any dragon tooth I've ever seen."
Again, all Glory could do was look at the tooth in confusion, then look back up at the doctor. "How…?"
"It's thinner than any dragon tooth, and more curved," he clarified, "I don't have another to compare, but the entire structure is different than any tribes' teeth. It almost looks more like a snake tooth than a dragon's. I mean, it has to be a dragon's since nothing else on Pyrrhia grows that big, but whoever's mouth that came from must be some sort of genetic anomaly."
Glory gripped the tooth, then turned to Deathbringer. "You heard that," she told him, "See if any dragon—Nightwing or Rainwing—has these kinds of teeth," she held it out and dropped it in his talon, "I don't care if you have to forcibly open every dragon's mouth in the kingdom to do so."
He nodded, "Understood."
"Is there anything else?" she asked, turning back to Guava.
"Not on my end," the doctor said, then gave a bow of his head and stepped back.
"If I may, Queen Glory," a second Rainwing from those gathered spoke up, "I think Tapir is missing. He hasn't come back from searching yet."
It took Glory a second not to ask "who". With her mind focused on Jambu's death, she hadn't even taken a moment to spare more than a glance at the other Rainwings present. Now she saw that these were probably the ones that Deathbringer had searching.
The one that spoke was Caiman, one of the few Rainwings that had shown a real propensity and talent for fighting since she'd arrived in the Rainforest, so much so that he caried a blade with him at all times. He'd proven competent in following Deathbringer's orders and not sneaking away for more sun time enough times that he'd become trusted to assist in carrying out missions on behalf of the ex-assassin. The dragon that he was speaking about, Tapir, was another such dragon that Deathbringer trusted to perform guard and military-like tasks, and Glory could only assume that both of these dragons had been ones that Deathbringer had asked to help find Jambu.
"That's…worrying," she said, trying to remain strong and queen-like and handle these matters despite wanting to break down again. She had barely even begun to process her brother's death, and now there was more being placed upon her.
"I think I had him searching just north of where the body was found," Deathbringer spoke, "You're right, he should be back by now."
Glory brought a claw to her face and closed her eyes. She suddenly wanted to cry again. First Jambu, now another dragon under her. Had she accidentally condemned another drake just trying to find her brother?
"I don't think there's much we can do right now," Deathbringer spoke, partly to Caiman, partly to her, and partly for her. "Night will be falling soon, and it's hard enough trying to search the Rainforest in daylight. Let's wait until tomorrow morning, and then if he's still gone, we can form a search party. Does that sound good, Glory?"
She nodded. "Yes," she said weakly.
"Good," Deathbringer gave a grim smile and put a wing lightly around her, "Let's get you to your hut. You need to rest. We can sort this out once you've recovered."
Glory just gave a small whimper, turning away from the other dragons as the dam within her threatened to burst again. She just felt…miserable. Miserable, tired, angry, and grief stricken. Numb, almost. It just didn't feel real. It didn't seem possible for this to happen, not to Jambu, not to her.
Deathbringer paused for just a moment, giving instructions on what to do with Jambu's corpse before gently guiding her away. She couldn't even remember anything after that before she was at her hut, then in her bed. But she did remember sobbing for a long time after she was there, and not even the comforting presence of Deathbringer watching over her helping.
Jambu was dead, and for now all she could do was grieve.