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The practitioner on our right moved to open a door from the main foyer to a receiving room, moving ahead into the room and toward a side table laden with a kettle, small fire plate, and what appeared to be several canisters of tea. Behar trotted along at my side, nails clicking against the black stone floor not covered by carpet, ears still perked, and tail held high as he took in the environment.

"I sincerely apologize for the unpleasant display you had to witness," Nebold began. He moved to sit in one of the overstuffed chairs by the unlit fireplace and waved his hand to indicate I take the one opposite him. My head nodded absently, not taking my eyes from the one preparing our drinks. "Haron is… she is quite passionate about her career, one could say."

"It appeared she was under the assumption you were trying to keep her here." I kept my voice even and settled into my chair. Immediately, my hand moved to rest on Behar’s head as he sat alert to my right. "Is this a common practice for your guild? I would imagine she would be upset if you were trying to detain her unfairly."

Nebold slouched in his chair, sinking into the cushion so far it seemed about to eat his small body whole. He delayed answering by carefully leaning the staff against a small table at his elbow. "It was all a complete misunderstanding. Miss Haron came to deliver her monthly tithe to our treasurer, andhe mentioned the possibility of her taking up a residency in the Gilamorst branch in exchange for a lower monthly amount. We have had… difficulties finding a necromancer with her particular skillset and felt it would benefit both parties to offer her a room here to more readily serve clients. Despite her explosive and undesirable personality, Haron Val Toric is an immensely talented practitioner."

Lie. Lie. Lie.

The lies poured from his mouth as easily as the breath from his lungs. Behar growled again, sensing my growing discomfort listening to those deceptive words. It was easier to take the burden now, drawing on our shared strength to maintain my composure.

"'Undesirable?' 'Explosive?' Those seem like harsh words to describe a lady," I commented. It felt like I took ages to respond.

The man pouring our tea barked a short laugh, quickly trying and failing to mask it as a cough. Nebold shot the back of his hooded head a particularly dark glare. "Pardon the insolence of my understudy. He had an… unfortunate encounter with Haron previously, and has thus developed some bitter emotions he has yet to overcome."

"I could imagine," I mused, thinking back to the woman I could barely hold back from lunging back into the fight. The banded topal of a woman with fiery hair and interesting eyes. "But aside from the unruly guild member, I am here on other business related to Father's death."

Nebold waved his hand as if shooing away the unrelated subject. "Yes, yes. Please, do elaborate on the details. We will do our best to accommodate your request, for the right fee, of course."

Lie.

"I would like to have a necromancer on retainage at the palace until after my coronation. I have reason to believe several staffmembers who recently took their own lives were in fact involved in Father's death, some of whom we have not yet found their bodies. We need someone who can locate the missing bodies as well as resurrect them."

Now we traded lies. My stomach churned uncomfortably at the volley, but I had no intention of ever openly speaking of Father's true demise. At least, not if I wanted to keep my own head. Patricide was met with a cruel fate in Respar.

"So, someone who can speak to souls, instead of simply bringing the bodies to life?" Nebold rubbed his hand across the short white beard covering his thin jawline, his brow even more wrinkled with consternation. "That could be… a difficult request to fulfill."

"How so? Isn't that the whole purpose of your spellcasting?" My ignorance of this particular sect of magic was obvious, but at this point, I was invested in getting the guild's help to cover my tracks, willingly or otherwise.

"There is a difference between bringing a corpse to life, and being able to bind the soul that once inhabited that body to this world long enough to gather information from them. The latter is a much smaller and more rare study of our practice, lost to us since the fall of the Julran kingdom. In fact, only one documented necromancer has that particular skill set since the founder of necromancy himself, Prince Morrette Hilj."

The news injected some hope into my bleak outlook. "Excellent news! Where can I find this practitioner?"

This time, Nebold visibly winced. "You already have. She just stormed away."

Well, fuck."Is there any way to locate Haron without upsetting her even more?"

"We can try to summon her back to the guild." He shrugged, not seeming very confident in his own plan. "She is quite the restless sort, so it's difficult to point you in a certain directionto find her. Be prepared to pay a hefty sum for her services. Haron Val Toric knows she is worth her weight in drummons. Usually she helps with family matters, raising dead relatives of her clients to provide closure on unresolved issues or helping to find lost bodies. And of course, the request will need to be routed through the guild to ensure all laws are properly followed and regulations are maintained."

More lies poured from his wrinkled mouth. It made my stomach churn uneasily with the assault to my senses. It was hard to pin down what Nebold was lying about, but regardless of that I had no intention of giving him more access to my plans than I already had. It seemed someone from the guild will be watching to see if I make contact with Haron myself, to avoid being cut out of their comfortable position as the middleman. I was less than unconcerned with their intentions to stay inserted in this business relationship. There were other ways to lure Haron out than through a stuffy guild request.

I moved to rise from the chair, leaving Nebold to scramble up after me as I moved to exit the study with Behar at my heels. "Feel free to send the invite to Haron and relay my interest to employ her long-term. I will be waiting for your reply by the end of the month." That gave him a little over two moon phases to show me just how much sway he had over the woman I planned to steal from under the guild's thumb.

"Certainly, Your Highness.”

The first time I realized the extent of my gift, I was a young child. Beolf and I had been playing rough in the garden, and he had accidentally broken the thin arm off a small statue with his wooden sword. When the head gardener came around to scold us, I told her I was the one who broke it. I knew she wouldn’t be as harsh on the only Gailish prince as she would a lower-born noble.

What I didn’t know was that lie would send me into body-twisting convulsions. They only stopped when I catered to the overwhelming urge to hurt myself bodily, resulting in a broken thumb I had dislocated with my own hand. The poor woman was so traumatized she ran through the castle halls crying hysterically for the healer. I remember turning to Beolf, heart pounding in my chest and tears streaming down my cheeks as I gripped my wrist tight from the pain, to see his horrified and disbelieving look as he stared down at my thumb hanging loose from its socket.

He mentioned later, when we were older and I explained the compulsions of my inherited ability, that his loyalty to me became ironclad. Having a prince take what could have been a violent beating off his shoulders had opened Beolf’s eyes.

It took many years of trial and error to come to terms with what I later learned was called truthsayer magic. It was an exceedingly rare gift. The scholars at the Covenant Library only had eight documented cases since its establishment almost three hundred years ago, although they were sure it was more likely people didn’t come forth with the knowledge they possessed this power. On the surface, it seemed beneficial, being able to sense a truth from a lie. For every other documented case, the holders described some kind of physical discomfort, like ringing ears or throbbing headaches. One even claimed to have red-tinted vision when he heard a lie. My case was similar to a woman interviewed seventy years ago—almost halfway through therecent Fourth Reign of Ber, so at least forty years after the fall of Julra—who mentioned nausea brought on by both spoken and written lies. To the scholars’ best knowledge, it was the intent of the words that triggered the truthsayer side effects. Whether the words were heard or not had varied degrees of importance. From the scholars' observations, it appeared that the people with stronger reactions were also better able to determine lies. Maybe it had to do with the natural balance of magic, having to give and take in equal parts.

None of those cases mentioned self-harm if they spoke a lie themselves, though. That honor seemed to have only been bestowed onto me. With that terrible price, though, came the most sensitive truthsayer ability the scholars had ever studied. So much so I spent a whole summer in the City of Scholars when I was fourteen, going through several tests to see just how far I could be pushed before the compulsive self-harm occurred. While it was a miserable experience, the scholars' recommendation to study an alternative magic was what drove me to hone other talents in terramancy. I had to find something to ground myself to, some element that was easily accessible and mostly stable to set my focus. My love of the outdoors had a small part to play in that choice, one that the terramancers’ guildmaster Chaol Loren still firmly believed was another sign of my calling to the practice.

Chaol showed me the widely unknown and unused terramancy of beastwalking. Imbuing the user’s body with animalistic qualities to enhance their strength and senses, it was mostly avoided for a good reason. It required a sacrifice of sorts. A pact was made with an animal, and a piece of the spellcaster’s soul was exchanged with that animal to become a familiar. Mine was Behar, then a rinhound pup I found on a hunt with my father, who I had smuggled back to the guild to complete the beastwalking ritual. He has been my ever-present companionever since. His life had been extended to match mine, and likewise my life was tied to his. I relied on his heightened senses as much as my own, and I didn’t miss the fact his hackles only fell flat when we hit the bottom step of the necromancers’ guild hall. And that piece of magic I gave him in return took from the truthsayer ability, dulling it to a more manageable gift instead of an overbearing curse.

From the more pronounced reactions I felt while meeting with the guildmaster, I suspected there was something more foul than the lies Nebold spewed coming from that guild.