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There is a group of dragons, the stuff of legend, that is said to take contracts for almost any sort of dirty work one can imagine. Espionage, assassination, the Night Court does it all. They are based in no one territory, have no one motivation, and have no secret signal to know each other by. The only ones who know the identities of all the courtiers at any given time are the four Majesties.
General Information
The Night Court is a loose network of spies, assassins, thieves, and informants ruled by four Majesties. Its purpose is essentially to provide a service - pay them, and you'll get one murder/theft/artfully-done-blackmailing of your choosing.
The Night Court can be summoned either by a dragon knowing the right courtiers, or by a spell that invokes the Majesties. The spell can be found in quite a few old works of literature and art, and isn't hard to find, though one does have to be actively looking in order to find it.
The Court recruits mostly from lost eggs and promising assassins and sneak thieves of other clans. They have no qualms about breaking a dragon out of prison, but there'd better be a good reason for them to go to that length for anyone.
There's one rule that's imperative to the Night Court's survival, and though the structure of the Court has changed over the years, this one thing has not. The Court is never beholden to any Flight or clan. They stay carefully neutral, killing for both sides of a conflict as they're contracted to, and not showing favoritism to anyone.
The Rulers
The Night Court is ruled by four Majesties, each called by a title instead of a name. Part of the coronation ceremony, and every Majesty's last mission, is the erasure of their previous name and the taking of their title. Titles follow the format of "Queen/King of ____", and tend to be chosen after something a Majesty is good at. After that mission to erase their previous name, the new Majesty doesn't usually take any more assignments or stray far from the Shaded Palace.
After all, the Majesties have an important job. They keep track of every single courtier in Sornieth, and they also direct from the shadows the assignments that their courtiers take on. The only way to get a complete list of all the courtiers would be to torture it out of a Majesty, and for that reason, the Majesties keep themselves safe and hidden.
When a Majesty dies, new Majesties are chosen through a long and arduous ritual called the "Royal Trials". What they entail is never really known to any dragon but those who have gone through it, but it involves killing one of every sentient species in Sornieth, a whole lot of cut-throatedness, and just a dash of luck. When a new Majesty is chosen, the Shaded Palace - the heavily enchanted lair in which the Majesties hide away - is always moved to a new location in a new territory, just for security measures.
The Skilled Ones
When an assignment is difficult or important, the Majesties tend to give it to the Highnesses. These six dragons are the princes and princesses of the Night Court, incredibly skilled in their chosen arts, and fiercely intelligent. They're groomed to be the best of the best and to be able to compete for a Majesty spot when one of the kings or queens dies. However, being a Highness guarantees no dragon the throne.
A Highness doesn't live in the Shaded Palace, but knows where the location of the current one is. They're also allowed, with the permission of the Majesties, through the wards without being accompanied. Most of them have nicknames of an adjective followed by "Prince" or "Princess". While they're still allowed to take on other assignments and have lives outside the Night Court, most of their time and energy will be taken up by the Court. For this reason, and because Highnesses are given the most dangerous missions, it takes a special sort of dragon to become a Highness.
When a slot for a new Prince or Princess opens up - usually after a former Highness' untimely death - the Majesties will pick out the most skilled assassins of the Court, and extend an invitation to them one by one to take the position. There is no penalty for declining, and many courtiers do, but one will always accept.
The Courtiers
The average network of dragons is made up of courtiers - skilled assassins, thieves, and spies who pay tithes to the Court. For giving up a set amount of their earnings, they gain the right to use the Court's extensive information network, the knowledge of extra jobs handed down from the Majesties, and protection from any dragon who might harm them after attempting to discover their identity.
Informants are also called "courtiers," but they're not thought to be on the same level as the courtiers who carry out missions. Still, informants are the backbone of the Court. The massive information trade ensures that every courtier who needs to know something ends up knowing it, and that the Majesties have a constant and accurate picture of what's going on in Sornieth.
All courtiers - assassins, informants, and those who do a mixture of both - pay tithes. Tithes are a set amount of treasure paid after each job taken. A courtier who takes on more jobs, or sells more information, will have to pay more in tithes than a lazier dragon. However, tithes are a fixed amount, not a percentage, and courtiers are allowed to keep whatever is left over after the tithe is paid. This encourages courtiers to negotiate their price as high up as their client will pay.
