It had been a mistake to allow Alinora to attend the funerals.
      Solarrin realized that the moment Aethelyn Fistrel entered the audience chamber Solarrin had appropriated for his own use. It was situated in the Highlord’s Palace, rather than the Archmage’s Tower, the better for keeping prying eyes away from things Solarrin would just as soon keep private. 
      This audience chamber had seen much use in the past weeks. Given the naturally secretive and suspicious nature of the dwarves, it was no great matter to convince Roderick of Montennor – and by extension, Thane Konrad – that the elves were plotting in their distant woodland. Here, Solarrin had enjoyed the encounter that ended with Lord Marl’s broken leg. Even if Marl had later proved to be a craven yellow dog that groveled for forgiveness and then struck out with foaming, biting jaws … the temerity of the man to seek to discredit Solarrin, to expose his dealings with the Morvalan to the very Highlord himself! And to think he could then escape Solarrin’s punishment by taking his own life!
      The mere thought of it, of how Marl suffered now awaiting Solarrin’s whim, brought a smile to his face. It might have been called benign on any other countenance than that of a minotaur, particularly a minotaur attired as Solarrin was in a robe of red so dark it seemed black but for when the light touched the folds with a rime of blood-hue. 
      Oh yes, Marl endured. His body was beyond all pain, but how could the fool have failed to realize that all he’d done by his suicide was to spare Solarrin the messy necessity of killing Marl himself? Marl with his sweaty, greedy cunning. Marl, with his selfish ambition blocking his sight of the truth just as surely as his belly had blocked the sight of his own feet. Marl with his pitiful attempts to gain power … how he must have writhed to see Solarrin gather it so effortlessly.
      Solarrin supposed that in some small way he did owe a minor debt of thanks to the deceased lord. If not for Marl, it might never have occurred to him to strike an alliance with the Morvalan. Their plan to replace and control the Highlord had been a sound one, one that would have brought them to their goal of destroying the Northlands. As fate would have it, things hadn’t worked out just so. 
      Well, fate and some meddlesome acquaintances of Solarrin’s … but the results were much the same. And it turned out not to matter. It turned out that Solarrin by himself, spurred into action by the understanding that the Morvalan were likely doomed to failure, could do it all on his own. 
      So, truly, if he owed Marl a debt of thanks – however meager – for involving him in this, didn’t he also owe the same debt to Arien Mirida, his crossling thief of a lover, and their assorted oafish but diligent companions? Had they not interfered, Solarrin would have had to share the power with the Morvalan enchantress Marona, and the Rhunvala Terindor. That arrangement wouldn’t have held long in any case, even if their ultimate purpose was the same. 
      But none of it mattered, when all came down to brass tacks and coffin nails. It was better this way. Solarrin was Archmage as he’d yearned to be, with the Highlord just as surely under his control as any magical construct would have been. He had all of Thanis in the palm of his hand, all of the Northlands within his grasp, and had to share the sweetness of triumph with no one. 
      If that victory came with its annoyances and hitches, well, that was only to be expected. It had never occurred to him how many of his duties would end up being diplomatic in nature. 
      Diplomatic. Solarrin. The two had never gone well together. His only strength in it was in how it compared to Jarrell’s weakness. If Solarrin, a minotaur – for he preferred to keep his gnomish origins to himself – was a bit rough around the edges, the nobles and diplomats thought, consider how far he must have come!
      This taking-into-account had served Solarrin well in the first shaky few weeks of his reign, particularly when dealing with the dwarves. He needed them, couldn’t allow them to sever their ties with Thanis. Needed them as tools. 
      He needed the elves as well, until they had taken up the parts he meant them to play. He needed the elven ambassador to be thinking about the issues at hand. Not pressing with such inquisitiveness about a certain addle-minded elfmaid.
      “Her family?” Solarrin said now, berating himself for something he should have seen coming.
      “Yes,” Aethelyn Fistrel said. The ambassador from the Emerin was, like most of his people, tall and of a slenderness that seemed fragile. He was fair-haired and well-dressed, and his serene blue eyes were sharp. “I’m afraid I had never met the lady in my previous visits to Thanis, nor been aware of her at all until the funerals of the Highlord and Talus Yor. I’m told she is of the Elyvorrin household?”
      Solarrin dipped his horns in a nod, seething on the inside. How careful Arien Mirida must have been. How circumspect. As the Lord High Librarian, Arien was no nobleman in the Highlord’s service but was still enough of a figure of renown to be welcome at court. He had managed to avoid all events and affairs at which this man might have been in attendance, gone to some great but very subtle lengths to keep Alinora’s identity from becoming known to anyone from the Emerin.
      Arien’s reasons for this were easily understood – explaining Alinora’s miraculous return from the dead would be a daunting and delicate proposition, and clearly he was in no hurry to face the kinsfolk of the woman he’d once been suspected of if not killing, at least having some strange involvement in her demise. But Solarrin hadn’t given it so much as a thought.
      He supposed he could be forgiven for that. After all, he’d had quite a bit on his plate, more important things to worry about. It had never occurred to him that permitting Alinora to attend the funerals might bring her to the attention of the ambassador. 
      But of course it had. There weren’t more than a hundred elves in the Thanian population at any given time, and they tended to stand out. 
      “In fact,” said Aethelyn Fistrel, gesturing extravagantly as he spoke, “given her name, I’m exceptionally curious.”
      Solarrin watched closely. Though it differed from his own methods, he was familiar enough with elf-magic to recognize it if this one tried to work any spells on him. “Her name?”
      “Our custom is to name children by a variation of their parents’ names or those of other relations. My father, by way of example, was Thelyn Fistrel. And as it happens, the current count of Elyvorrin is named Alinor. Which wouldn’t unreasonably lead one to believe that this young lady is some close kin of his. In fact, wasn’t that the name of his eldest girl?”
      “I’m not well-versed with Emerinian families,” Solarrin said.
      “I’d very much like to speak with her. I hear she has been unwell?”
      “The distress of so much change, so much tragedy.”
      “Yes, we elves are not well-disposed in general to adapting quickly. Those of us who spend a good deal of time away from the Emerin do find ourselves forced to rush about quite a bit. I understand Lady Alinora is linked with the Lord High Librarian? Mirida, is that his name?”
      “Why do I have the feeling,” said Solarrin, leaning back and folding his hands on the rock-hard slab that was his stomach, “that you have already investigated these things before coming to me? What is the point in asking me these questions when you already know better than I?”
      “She is in your care. As I said, I should like to speak with her.”
      “By all means. Perhaps she can be of more help to you. But pardon me, Ambassador, for I had thought this visit was that we might discuss the troubles with Montennor. Not my … charge.”
      Aethelyn’s right eyebrow rose in a way that reminded Solarrin so much of Arien that he determined they must teach them that at school in the Emerin. “Of course. I had been under the impression that all remained well between Montennor and Thanis, despite some earlier thorny patches.”
      “I tell you this in confidence but deep concern, and would prefer it remains a matter between us and your king – Shaelan, if I am correct.”
      “Yes, gods grant his long life continues,” Aethelyn said.
      Solarrin shook his head, marveling. “Twelve hundred years. He must have seen the Emerin through many trials and watched it grow to even more of a thing of beauty in that time. It would be a shame, a terrible shame, to see anything happen to that fair land.”
      “It would indeed.” Aethelyn’s gaze sharpened all the more, azure needles boring into Solarrin’s dark brown orbs as if the elf could see through them into the very meat of his brain.
      “Forgive me,” Solarrin said with a disarming chuckle. “That came out sounding a threat, when I assure you, Thanis has only the highest regard for the Emerin and her people!” He leaned over by way of emphasis and patted Aethelyn companionably on the forearm.
      “Am I then to assume,” said Aethelyn without drawing away, though his body tensed ever-so-slightly, “you are come into some information regarding an actual threat to the Emerin?”
      Solarrin’s hand clamped down suddenly and hard, and he snarled a word of magic so dark that Aethelyn shuddered in horror before the spell overtook him. The ambassador slid down and back in his chair, head resting in the scoop of the backrest, staring at Solarrin with eyes no longer sharp but dulled.
      “You might say that,” Solarrin murmured. 
      He knew these elves and their magic. These Emerinians and their arrogance. They assumed so very readily that anything that was not done in the Emerin was not done at all. That schools of sorcery their mages declared forbidden must be the same everywhere else, such as spells that directly tampered with the fabric of another’s body or mind for purposes of malevolence or control. There, they balked with a prudishness that was oh-so-very prim and proper. 
      And so, not doing these things themselves, they assumed that no one else could … and thus failed to defend themselves against such an eventuality as encountering another and superior mage with no such squeamish compunctions.
      “Can you hear me, Aethelyn?” Solarrin asked.
      “I hear.”
      “And do you heed me?”
      “I hear and I heed.” The elf’s voice was as dull as his gaze, a sleepwalker’s voice.
      “Excellent. Now … firstly, you will not remember this portion of our little conversation taking place quite like this. The things that I tell you now, you will accept as truth and report to your king …”

      Jarrell Farleigh knew he was alone, knew it, but still felt watched. In fact, there were eyes upon him, but they were only the painted ones of his parents, watching him from the wedding portrait that had always held a place of prestige here in his father’s bedroom.
      “It’s my bedroom now, blast it,” Jarrell whispered. “I’m the Highlord. I am the Highlord!”
      Who would gainsay him? Wasn’t this his room now?
      “I’m the Highlord,” he muttered again, as if daring his father to come back from the grave and contradict him. But that would never happen. Duncan Farleigh was dead, dead and buried, and if the priests were right, he’d be in Galatine’s realm now, reunited with Jarrell’s mother Karina.
      Yes, he was the Highlord, with all its attendant privileges. He was finding, though, that it wasn’t all fun and power. There were gloomier sides to this story, not the least of which being the royal ball looming on the horizon like some sneering dragon.
      Already, cartloads of the finest foodstuffs were coming in from all over the realm. The best musicians and entertainers in the Northlands had been sent for. Noble and royal guests from Hachland, Casteban, Keyda, Gamelin, the Emerin, and Montennor were sending their confirmations, and would arrive laden with expensive gifts. All for Jarrell. 
      He might have looked forward to being the guest and center of attention at such an event, were it not for the true purpose of it. Like something out of a children’s nursery-story, he was to be presented with every eligible woman in the land, that he might choose a bride.
      The very idea! Married! He already knew many of the ladies who would be attending, and he yearned to bed more than half of them, but marriage? 
      Jarrell sourly almost found himself wishing that he had been betrothed from the cradle rather than go through this. But his father had said his mother wished him to marry for love … though his grandfather said it had been Karina’s idea to betroth him and Duncan’s objection … Jarrell wasn’t sure, and it did not matter all that much because the result was the same. Here he was, close to thirty and unmarried, and his advisors would not be dissuaded.
      The Highlord must marry, and produce an heir. This sentiment, in various forms, had been all but hammered into Jarrell’s head these past weeks. His grandsire, Chancellor Grugan, was nigh in a panic about it. As if he was desperate to see the next generation before he was wound in his own shroud. Archmage Solarrin was more detached, but agreed.
      Archmage Solarrin … 
      Marriage was not the only woe and worry of Jarrell’s. 
      Still edgy, still feeling the judging gaze of his parents, he crept to the fireplace and removed a loose hearthstone. Beneath, in a dusty recess, was a knife both functional and ornate. When Jarrell had been a child, he’d wanted one of those knives more than anything else, but his father had refused to give him one. 
      “The blade of the Royal Guard is not something that can be given as a gift,” Duncan had said. “It is something that must be earned. I hope to all the gods that someday I can present you with one of your own, but if you don’t pay more attention to your teachers, that day will never come.”
      His father’s words still stung. Even now, though he was in name the High Commander of the Royal Guard, he felt unworthy to handle the weapon. He set it aside and took out the other item in the concealed space.
      It was a shield-shaped piece of cloth, heavily embroidered with the crest and motto of the Guard and meant to adorn the shoulder of a uniform. Unsteady letters were scrawled across the back of this badge, written in the self-made ink of a desperate man. Jarrell shivered as he read them again. 
      My loyalty is to Thanis, not to the monster who now controls her. May the spirit of the Highlord forgive me. Geoffrey of Verun, of the Royal Guard. Honor and Brotherhood Eternal.
      The badge had come to him the night he’d been forced to order his men into the streets, where they had been cut down and bludgeoned by gangs of ruffians. The Nightsiders, after paying no heed to Jarrell’s frequent attempts to meet with their Guildmaster, had turned on his guards like a pack of rabid dogs. Yet all of the men would recover …
      … except that two were unaccounted for. 
      One of those, Geoffrey of Verun, had gone under his own free will and left the note Jarrell now held. Of the other, the very one who had brought the Highlord this message, not a trace could now be found. Had Rilmar Bearsarm followed the example of his partner and chosen desertion? Or…
      The monster who now controls her.
      “Remember Lord Marl,” Jarrell said aloud, startling himself. 
Marl. How quickly, how eagerly, had he embraced the suggestion that Marl had been suffering from a blood fever, an ailment of the brain. He had believed such an ailment had been what birthed the spate of lies Marl had written in his deathbed scroll of confession. To speculate otherwise was to be forced to examine the idea that Marl’s words might have been true. That Solarrin and Marl together might have been involved in some Morvalan plot against Thanis.
      And yet …
      Lord Marl had crossed Solarrin, and Lord Marl was dead. Two of the Royal Guard had failed in an assignment given them by Solarrin, and both of them were missing. 
      “No,” he told himself. “You make too much of little … of nothing! The Guards deserted. They were likely cowards, and saw how things would be different now. You’re leaping at shadows like some giddy girl. Solarrin barely knew Marl, and as for the idea of him plotting – pfah! He didn’t even want to be Archmage, remember? He only did it because you begged him!”
      His reflection nodded, and Jarrell himself felt somewhat reassured. 
      “You’re tired and overwrought,” he continued. “Losing your father like that, and the pressures of becoming Highlord … overwrought. Quit fretting about this other nonsense. Isn’t a bride enough to worry about?”
      His reflection nodded again, more firmly.
      “And besides,” he said, brightening, “Having a wife doesn’t mean you can’t still have mistresses. Why, all the lords do! Look at Baron Sondheim, that old lecher! Getting married just means that there’ll be at least one woman around whenever you want, a wife who can’t say no.”
      Movement in the mirror caught his eye, the swing of the door opening. Jarrell choked into a coughing fit as a robed and horned form appeared in the doorway. Solarrin loomed in a rectangle of torchlight from the hall, his shadow falling over the Highlord like a dark cape.
      “Pardon, my lord, I couldn’t help overhearing,” Solarrin said, smiling in that way he had that was doubtless meant to be friendly and reassuring, but showed all his teeth. “Still nervous about the impending decision, are you?”
      Jarrell started to turn, then saw he still held the crest of Geoffrey of Verun with its screaming, bloodied accusation. He stuffed it into a half-open drawer and slammed it shut, nearly catching his thumb. 
      “A bit,” he stammered.
      “You seem pale. Have you not been sleeping well?”
      “It’s as you said, Archmage. Nerves. All those ladies.” He started to spread his hands in confusion, saw flecks of dried blood on his palm. He shoved his hand behind him, groping for a handkerchief or something, and babbled. “How was your meeting with the ambassador? I’m so glad he was willing to speak to you … he never liked me. No, he never did. I don’t know what lies his daughter told him, but you know how those elves are. Say one little thing wrong and they act as if you’ve insulted them all the way back to the founding of the Emerin.”
      “It went as well as could be expected. We should have no … no difficulties with Ambassador Aethelyn. He’s a most cooperative man when one knows how to approach him properly.” Solarrin’s brow, one fearsome ridge of bone, furrowed in concern. “But you, Highlord, you’re certain nothing is the matter?”
      Was it Jarrell’s imagination, or was there a hint of menace in that question? His fingers found a handkerchief and he scrubbed it against his palm as well as he could with one hand, while his other hand went up to toy restlessly with his unruly mop of hair.
      “Nothing,” Jarrell said, cursing himself as the word squeaked out. He groped around again on the dresser behind him. His fingers closed on something. “I … I … aha! just have a gift for you, Archmage, that I’d been meaning to give. I wasn’t sure how best to present it. So I may as well do so now.”
      “A gift?” Solarrin’s brow rose further. “My lord --”
      “Please,” Jarrell blurted, stepping forward and holding out his hand. “Accept this as a small token of my gratitude.”
      “Why, it’s a shaving brush,” Solarrin said. “Thank you, my lord. I don’t believe I have one of these.”
      Jarrell gaped in dismay at his father’s gold-handled shaving brush, embossed with the Farleigh family seal. He raised his eyes to Solarrin’s face, covered in short, coarse brown hairs like the hide of … well … a bull. 
      “Oh, that’s not all,” he said, unable to extricate himself. “There’s a razor that goes with it!” 
      “My lord is most gracious,” Solarrin said, accepting the razor when Jarrell found it and tucking both into a purse on the belt of his robe. “I hope my service continues to be of value. As for the upcoming ball, I assure you, you needn’t be concerned. The ladies one and all shall be, I’m sure, doing their very best to impress you with their charms. A marketplace of females, assembled for your pleasure.”
      “You … uh … do have a way of making it sound more appealing, Lord Solarrin,” Jarrell said, forcing a lewd grin that felt false as the face a peasant might paint on an egg to scare away evil sprites.
      Solarrin bowed. “But I have another reason for this late-night visit, my lord. Urgent business at my castle demands my attention, and I’ve come to inquire whether you can do without me for a day or three.”
      A huge sagging relief turned Jarrell’s knees to water, and it was only by the greatest of efforts he was able to keep from falling over, or flinging his arms skyward and shrieking thanks to the gods. Solarrin, away for a few days? 
      But he kept his expression regal and composed. “As you will, Archmage. I know that I impressed you into service on very short notice, and I’d be remiss in requesting that you neglect your own concerns.”
      And wasn’t that a tidy little speech? Jarrell was still congratulating himself on it as Solarrin bowed again, more deeply, and let himself out. As the door closed, he did fall, at least as far as his knees, and exhaled a trembling laugh. 
      “Well done, Jarrell!” he told himself. “Fine, just fine! He didn’t suspect a thing was amiss!”

      Most men came home at the end of the day to a wife and family. Solarrin came home to an elf, an orc, and a disembodied spectral mass in a thick crystal jar.
      Alinora’s sweet singing could be heard the moment he opened the door. He caught a glimpse of Zura, her stocky body surprisingly quick even in a metal-framed bustle and underwear of perhaps as much as a full stone in weight, scurrying up the stairs. As the stairs were enchanted, moving of their own accord beneath the feet of anyone standing upon them, Zura was topping their speed markedly. 
      Her curving, upward course afforded Solarrin only the briefest glimpse of her face – thank Haarkon for small favors – but it was enough to see that her eyes were so wide with fear that they almost resembled human eyes.
      “Miss Alinora, don’t do that!” Zura cried.
      Solarrin emerged into the cylindrical shaft that housed the stairs at the center of the Tower. It was a high, soaring room with a domed ceiling painted in a mural of the skies. To heighten the effect, birds of crystal or jewel-studded gold and silver swung and spun at the ends of lengths of thin wire. And Alinora, he saw with a start of sickly foreboding shock and dismay, was balanced upon one of the higher railings and trying to reach these birds, as a child might seek to snare a butterfly in eager, bare hands.
      “Miss Alinora!” Zura was panting as she hurried up and up. “Do get down from there!”
      Alinora paid her no mind, leaning far out over the abyssal drop. She was in a gown of airy blue, her hair swirling around her in a platinum cloud, and her feet were clad in tiny velvet slippers that made it something of a wonder she hadn’t already lost her footing.
      Solarrin’s lips quirked as he brought the spell he wanted to the forefront of his mind. Arien Mirida, he knew, would not be nearly so amused how history was in some odd way about to repeat itself – himself and Alinora and the Tower of the Archmage rather than Arien and Cat and Castle Selbon. No, Arien would not be amused in the least.
      But it didn’t go that way. Zura reached Alinora before the inevitable occurred, and did not bother trying to coax her from the railing. She snatched the elfmaid down, setting her feet firmly on solid floor, and began lecturing her in a tone a few short paces removed from hysteria.
      Seeing that all was well in hand, Solarrin exhaled a groan and waved away the amorphous servants that had detected his arrival and floated to meet the master of the Tower. He had learned to control them, but couldn’t fully rely on them … they had been created by his predecessor, and he’d be forever unsure. He rang a bell-pull instead, and when Hustilo the chef – the only member of Talus Yor’s living staff Solarrin had kept on, and only then because Hustilo had been so immediately and thoroughly cowed by even the slightest intimidation – appeared, Solarrin commanded that his meal be brought to his study tonight.
      He had taken some pains to refurnish the Tower to his own preferences, but the study was the only room in which he felt fully at ease. He had brought down many of his possessions from Castle Selbon, including his dwarf-crafted clock, and the only things remaining that had belonged to Talus Yor in this room were the books and the shelves on which he’d kept them. The rest, with large solid furniture and dark colors relieved only by glints of bronze or bone, was entirely Solarrin.
      He poured himself a hearty drink and rounded the desk to lower himself into the vast leather chair. A drink and a chance to relax from the cares of the day before dinner, a vital part of anyone’s routine.
      A crystal jar squatted amid the litter of papers and books on the bloodstone surface of the desk. As Solarrin sat down, a stew of noisome, greasy smoke roiled inside it. Smirking, Solarrin rapped a hooflike fingernail against the side.
      “Good evening, Marl,” he said.
      The voice that replied was, appropriately, ghostly. “You’ll not get away with this, Solarrin! You cannot keep me this way!”
      “Again with this business. I can and I shall, Marl. Did you think to escape me so easily? Did you think to reach Haarkon’s realm before me? Well, mayhap you did, but it was no great matter to call you back. Although not into that stinking bilesack you called a body. Your spirit is only moderately less repellent, but at least it’s cheaper to feed.”
      “They’ll come for you. They’ll find you. Those ones you’re so worried about. They’ll come, and they’ll gut you and skin you and how I will laugh, Solarrin!”
      “The ones I’m worried about?” He flicked his nail ringingly against the crystal, making a dull and discordant but resonating tone. Marl’s spirit writhed in pain. “There are none about whom I worry. If you speak of my one-time acquaintances, they’re long gone by now. They fled, Marl. Fled like rabbits. They knew I would find them if they stayed, kill them on mere principle --”
      “Because they know!” Marl cried. “They know you murdered the Highlord and Talus Yor, and they know how!”
      “They’d be idiots not to. And Arien Mirida, at least, is no idiot … about most things. The crossling, Cat, is clever in her way, and even the rest of them are not so witless as to fail to connect those deaths with what they know of Selbon, and of me. But in knowing, whom would they tell? Whom would they find that might both believe them, and be in a position to do anything about it? No, Marl. They knew their lives were measured by a very short string indeed. They feared me. They fled.”
      “They’ll come for you. Just wait! I know I’ll be waiting!”
      “You go right on and wait. They had to call upon every cutpurse and rogue in Thanis to distract my men while they made their escape, which shows how afraid they are.”
      “Those same cutpurses and rogues who’ve gone on a spree of thievery,” Marl said. “Face it, Solarrin. You can’t stop them, and you can’t find these others. What you’re doing here is going to fall apart all around you, and I will laugh when it does! Betray me, will you? “
      “I am not concerned with the mischief of a pack of thieves,” Solarrin said. “They know better than to interfere with me. Have you seen them broach this Tower? Not now, and not ever. If they are giving the nobles of Thanis some restless nights and lightening their purses, what of it?”
      “What of it? Those nobles will expect you to put a stop to it, that’s what of it. They’ll demand it of the Highlord, but he’s not worth a pissant’s damn, and so they’ll demand it of you.”
      “No one demands of Archmage Solarrin.”
      “And they’ll talk!” Marl’s essence roiled gruesomely against the sides of his jar. “They’ll say that even the great Archmage Solarrin can’t keep the law. They’ll say he can’t hold the loyalty of the armies, the Guard. How many have deserted already? How many more will go?”
      “None. I will deal with the Nightsiders in my own time,” Solarrin snapped. “The matter of desertion, as well. In the meanwhile, in case you haven’t been aware, I have bigger fish to fry. That pup of a Highlord is keeping something from me, something that has impaired his trust, and I must help him choose a bride. Most of all, I have Montennor and the Emerin to occupy me. Wars don’t just start themselves, you know!”
      “And that’s the worst of it! We were to rule the Northlands! Not bring war!”
      “That may have been your plan.” Solarrin sipped his drink and felt warm amber fire spread through his veins. “I intend something different. I intend to see the Northlands run with blood, and be lulled off to sleep by the screams of the dying. The elves and the dwarves will fight, you’ll see. The humans won’t be able to stay out of it, nor will the orcs, the gnomes, the minotaurs. In the end, this land will be one vast charnel pit from the shores of Hachland to the sea beyond the Emerin.”
      “But why?” wailed Marl peevishly. “What’s the point in ruling a ruined empire?”
      Solarrin laughed, picking up the jar and tossing it from hand to hand, as the captive spirit within screamed in terror. “Marl, Marl. You still don’t understand. I am, for want of a better phrase, an evil necromancer. This is what we do!”