Tash’s sunny facade wavered for a fraction of a second, just long enough for Davran to notice. He watched as Tash’s fingers, usually clumsy, traced the symbol with unnerving precision. “What is it?” Davran’s voice was a low growl, the remnants of his jealous fury now replaced by a chilling suspicion. Tash blinked, the momentary clarity in his eyes replaced by a familiar, wide-eyed bewilderment. He tapped the symbol. “Oh! This? It looks like a… a worm eating a stick. Maybe it’s a new kind of beetle? Should we tell the groundskeeper? They do love their exotic bugs here. Although,” he tilted his head, “this beetle looks rather cross.” Davran stared. The complete absence of comprehension, the sheer, unadulterated airheadedness, was almost impressive. For a moment, Davran wondered if the shockwave had rattled Tash’s brain more than his own. But then he remembered the easy way Tash had disarmed the tavern brawlers, the almost casual lethality beneath the bright smile. Was this an act? A remarkably effective one? He forced himself to focus. “No, Tash. It’s not a beetle. It’s a mark. A symbol of… a specific group.” He omitted the name Skarn Brotherhood, unwilling to cause a panic until he understood the scope of the infiltration. “A group that would mean us harm.” Tash parted his lips in mock dismay. “Harm? Like… tripping us on the stairs? Oh, I hate that! My knee still remembers that last marble incident. Very rude, those marbles.” Davran pinched the bridge of his nose. “More than tripping, Tash. Like… trying to end our lives.” “Oh, dear. That’s even ruder,” Tash mumbled, but a faint tremor ran through his hand as he brushed away another clump of dust. He was playing the fool, Davran realized with a sour prickle of certainty. This wasn’t cluelessness; it was a deliberate performance. To what end? To put Davran at ease? Or to hide something else entirely? “The trellis,” Davran said, his voice hard. “It wasn’t just my motion-burst. It was sabotaged to collapse at a specific moment.” Tash nodded, his face suddenly serious for a fleeting moment. “The wood here… weakened from the inside. And the bracing points were… adjusted. Not a simple accident, Lord Davran. Someone wanted this structure to fall.” The admission, spoken with an unnerving calm, settled like lead in Davran's stomach. He straightened, his gaze sweeping the damaged garden. “We need to find who did this. And quickly.” The next few hours were a blur of hushed conversations and tense observations. Davran, consumed by a cold fury, interrogated the estate’s security detail, the garden staff, even the servants responsible for daily cleaning. Tash, meanwhile, flitted around, a persistent, buoyant shadow. He asked questions, too, but they were the most innocuous, bewildering inquiries imaginable. “Pardon me, Master Orev,” Tash chirped, sidling up to a burly stableman inspecting a broken rose bush. “But I was just wondering, when you polish the stirrups in the morning, do you prefer a circular motion or more of a gentle up-and-down sweep? Lord Davran’s boots always look so magnificent, I want to ensure my own, ah, cleaning technique, is up to par.” Orev, a man whose face usually looked carved from granite, blinked, entirely wrong-footed. “Uh, a circular polish, for the shine, young Tash. For the shine.” “Ah, the shine! Of course! And the scent of the leather conditioning oil, is it meant to evoke the scent of, say, a freshly bloomed desert lily, or more of a crisp, sun-dried sand-sage?” Tash’s eyes were wide and earnest, his head tilted in an expression of profound contemplation. Orev stammered, “The… the scent? I just use the standard issue, Tash. Nothing fancy.” He looked around, clearly uncomfortable, as if Tash had asked him to explain quantum physics. Davran, watching from behind a ruined stone fountain, felt a grudging admiration. Tash’s vapid questions were like a blunt instrument, smashing through guarded expressions and eliciting genuine, confused responses. No one would suspect him of intelligence, much less espionage. Later, Tash engaged the head steward, a man of impeccably starched collars and a perpetually serene look, in a lengthy discussion about the proper angle for serving a spiced date tart. “Is it truly gauche to offer the left-most tart first, if its candied peel is particularly plump?” Tash asked, brows furrowed in mock concern. “I feel it’s an oversight in the Vamor Etiquette Scrolls. A plumper peel should always take precedence, don’t you agree, Steward?” The steward's polite smile seemed to strain. “The etiquette scrolls are quite clear, Tash. The choice of tart is at the guest’s discretion, not the server’s.” His voice was smooth, but Davran noticed a subtle twitch in his brow, a brief moment of impatience that vanished beneath polished manners. “Ah, but what if the guest is indecisive?” Tash pressed, completely unfazed. “What if they gaze upon the platter with such longing, such… *tart-lust*… that they simply cannot choose? Should we not guide them to the plumpest, most promising specimen? For their culinary delight?” The steward tightened his lips almost imperceptibly. “Tash, you worry too much about the finer points of dessert service. Perhaps you should focus more on your, ah, defensive forms. Lord Davran expects peak performance.” “Oh, I do! My roundhouse kicks are getting so much higher! Almost as high as a particularly tall Gale-Stalker!” Tash beamed, swinging an imaginary leg with a wobble that nearly sent him toppling. “Though I still sometimes forget which way my elbow goes for the ‘Sun-Shield Block.’ It’s always the wrong way. So embarrassing.” Davran frowned. The steward's attempt to deflect, the pointed jab at Tash’s clumsiness—it grated. He had trusted the man for years, yet the guild of killers was known for burrowing deep into high households. He moved, subtly positioning himself closer to Tash, his hand instinctively resting on the hilt of his personal martial blade, sheathed discreetly beneath his tunic. Tash, oblivious, was still prattling about mistaking a decorative pillow for a training dummy. “You know, Elder Servant, sometimes I wonder if the placement of the ornamental water jugs in the north hall is a subtle nod to the ancient ritual of the Cloud-Weavers, or merely an aesthetic choice to hide a draft?” Tash rambled, leaning in conspiratorially. “I once heard a rumor…” Before Tash could finish, the steward moved with a speed that belied his age and placid demeanor. Not to his hip, where a ceremonial dagger might sit, but to the small of his back. Two flashes of bone-white. Not blades of polished steel, but long, curved weapons crafted from the sharpened femurs of a Gale-Stalker, etched with runes that hummed faintly with kinetic energy. The same gruesome mark of the venomous cabal. The steward's serene mask twisted into a predatory snarl. “A draft, Tash?” the servant hissed, his voice raw, stripped of its cultured veneer. “No, just a convenient place for me to dispose of troublesome little insects like you.” The bone-blades arced, a deadly silver blur aimed directly at Tash’s chest. Davran reacted instantly, a roar tearing from his throat. He threw himself forward, shoving Tash violently to the side, taking the brunt of the attack across his left shoulder. A searing pain blossomed, the bone-blade scoring a shallow, but vicious, gash. Blood bloomed dark against his light tunic. “Lord Davran!” Tash’s voice, for the first time since the trellis incident, was not cheerful, not airheaded, but a sharp, cold command. The transformation was instantaneous, absolute. His eyes, usually wide and guileless, narrowed to glittering shards of obsidian. His body, typically prone to exaggerated flails, moved with a fluid grace that defied belief. It was the precise, lethal dance of a viper. The traitor, surprised by Davran’s intervention, hesitated for a split second, his bone-blades still slick with blood. It was all Tash needed. He didn’t reach for a weapon. He didn’t need one. His open palm struck the man's wrist in a blur, hitting the nerve cluster to jar the bone-blade loose against the tile. Before his target could recover, Tash spun, hooking the older man's ankle. Renwick stumbled, off-balance. Tash followed, a human projectile. His knee connected with the steward's elbow, twisting the joint with a harsh crack. The second bone-blade skittered across the floor. Tash brought the heel of his palm down onto the traitor's collarbone, a stunning blow that drove the larger man flat against the stones, gasping for air. Davran, clutching his bleeding shoulder, could only stare. The body sprawled on the ground was their household steward, but the figure standing over him was no longer Tash. This was something else. A phantom. A ghost of lethal competence, stripped bare of all pretense. The cheerful idiot, the clumsy bodyguard, was gone, replaced by a terrifyingly efficient machine of combat. The speed, the precision, the utter lack of wasted movement… it was breathtaking and chilling. Renwick coughed, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the polished floor. A gurgling laugh escaped his lips. His hand, shaking, fumbled at a hidden pouch at his belt. “You… you truly don’t know, do you?” he choked out, his eyes fixed on Tash, a malevolent gleam in their depths. “The grand masquerade… you don’t even know who you are…” With a final, desperate surge of strength, Renwick squeezed the pouch. A pulse of raw kinetic energy, dark and malevolent, emanated from his hand, growing rapidly. A concussive charge. Tash stiffened, the cold mask flickering into sudden alarm. He lunged, but it was too late. Renwick’s final, guttural laugh was swallowed by the concussive force. The explosion ripped through the air, sending shards of marble and splintered wood flying, a deafening roar that vibrated through the very foundations of the estate.

The Skarn Infiltration