Ian’s lips pressed into a line as he contemplated the man’s brazen request. It was one thing to say he was Ian Dunai and another to prove the veracity of his words by using his practice.

“I can see you’re suffering from withdrawal,” Soolemar said, his voice echoing through the gorge. “Watch your fingers.”

Ian looked down and formed his hands into fists, concealing the tiny, trembling traitors. “You can tell even through the gloves?”

“Just come down already so we can stop shouting,” Soolemar bellowed, shooting Ian a dry smile.

Ian shook his head and stood up, then fell forward face-first off the cliff.

The moment of giving in was euphoric, akin to the blessed sip of water after days without a single liquid drop. It was an all-encompassing relief that thrummed through his entire body.

As Ian came to a stop next to Soolemar, his feet didn’t kick up a single trace of dust, stopping a hair before the ground.

“You know, I didn’t even notice the little friend you keep in your coat,” Soolemar commented. “What is it?”

Ian figured that Soolemar noticed Bluebird’s socketed soul gems. “It’s nothing important.”

Soolemar snorted a laugh. “Nevermind then. Are you feeling better?”

Ian wasn’t even going to try denying it. Death energy danced along his left arm and furled over his hand like the vine-like succulents draping on the canyon wall. “Yes.”

Soolemar nodded. “What do you think I am?”

His words caught Ian off guard. Unbidden, the opening words of a rather famous epic poem came to mind: “Between life and death, without need for worldly breath: beyond resurrection, undeath.”

Soolemar’s eyes glinted. “Be still, gilded fated lines; sleep, angry piercing tines; rest, treasured time.”

Ian wracked his brain for the next stanza, to no avail. “I confess I can’t remember the rest.”

The necromancer continued alone: “Man enters and exits coiled, lofty crown to lowly soil; but a moment to rise and spoil. Skoda’nel no’we–one trifecta: flesh, soul, and energy.”

Ian froze, recognizing the foreign phrase. He’d be damned if he forgot the stanza from the necromancer’s chant: He’d pored over it with Aunt Julia and Germaine in the loop, trying to decipher the meaning of the man’s golem-creating spell.

“Skoda’nel no’we,” Ian murmured softly. “Borrowed, but not missed.”

Soolemar shook his head. “Almost; that’s a rather direct translation, but there’s some missing nuance. ‘No’we’ is often translated as ‘not missed,’ though fundamentally is a negation of the verb that means ‘to find’ or ‘to search for.’ But in antiquity, the context for its usage was with respect to discernment: spotting what doesn’t belong. With this in mind, the phrase really means something closer to, ‘Borrowed, returned the same.’”

The necromancer sighed and jumped up fifteen feet, stepping gingerly on a ledge at the base of the stairs leading up to the temple. “Are they teaching the Misery of Mal’dor in schools these days?”

Ian joined him and started to ascend the steps, matching Soolemar’s unhurried pace. “No; it’s actually a favorite of my mother.”

Soolemar began to laugh. “I didn’t think anyone actually liked Misery. It’s not romantic; it doesn’t end well.”

“It ends well, but it’s not a happy ending,” Ian corrected. He thought of how Mother used to describe it. “It’s the story of a man who took everything but received nothing.”

The necromancer nodded. “A cautionary tale if there ever was one. Most people don’t like to be told reaching too far will burn them.”

Ian gave Soolemar a pointed look. “Has it burned you?”

The man smiled and nodded. When he spoke, his words were soft, almost inaudible despite the silence of the gorge. “Me most of all, I think.”

The man’s next steps seemed a bit heavier. After walking up a cliffside flight of stairs without speaking, Ian decided to broach a new subject.

“What do you know about Achemiss?”

“It’s a name I haven’t heard in a long while,” Soolemar said. “I don’t think there’s anyone left who’d remember it.”

“Wouldn’t there be historical records?” Ian hadn’t looked through the SPU’s records for mentions of Achemiss, but figured that Euryphel must have inquired into the ascendant’s identity; his silence on the matter suggested he’d found nothing of relevance. However, just because the SPU’s records were lacking didn’t mean those of other states would be. If Achemiss was powerful enough to ascend, Ian figured that he must have been a notable figure.

“It was a long time ago,” Soolemar sighed, kicking a small rock off to the left. In contrast to Ian’s muddied boots, the necromancer’s shoes looked perfectly polished. He turned back, looking over his shoulder. “A really long time ago.”

“As long ago as Hercates?”

Soolemar chuckled. “Hercates isn’t that old, Ian, though I’m surprised you know that name: I thought he faded into obscurity.”

“I learned from his grimoire.”

Soolemar paused. “Where’d you find it?”

“On a cruise ship.”

Soolemar raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

Ian smiled. “It was taken over by a practitioner of the Dark art with no qualms about using human reagents.”

“...Where was this ship, exactly?”

“Outside of Menocht Bay...inside the Infinity Loop.”

Soolemar’s lips pressed together and he nodded slowly. “Interesting.”

“Anyway...what can you tell me about Achemiss?”

“I can tell you quite a bit, but not now,” the necromancer stated. “This isn’t the time.”

While disappointed, Ian liked the implication that they’d be meeting again in the future.

They continued up one more flight of stairs before they finally reached the foot of the temple. Ian smelled the scent of pine wafting from the incense burner, a large, evenly-sliced log as thick as his leg jutting out like a smoldering cigarette. The burner was covered in geometric inscriptions with pictures woven within with images of riftbeasts. Some looked like normal animals while others were mutants with mismatched scales, fur, and limbs.

Ian looked up, his eyes trailing Soolemar’s path up through the tall, wide-open doors of the entrance. He noticed riftbeast gargoyles keeping vigil on where the roof tapered to the sides, their long, spade-tipped tails forming each corner.

“Why did you seek me out, Ian?”

Ian shifted to the left. “I’m self-taught; surely there’s a lot I can learn from an established practitioner of the Dark art.” He specifically avoided mentioning necromancy or decemancy, keeping the terminology vague.

He wandered into the temple entrance, his boots clicking on the stone floor. He found Soolemar standing alone beside a small, green orb floating above a triangular pedestal. His hands gently cupped the air around it, his expression somewhat melancholic.

“What is that?” Ian asked, stepping closer.

Soolemar’s gaze didn’t leave the orb. “Come and place your hands like mine.”

“Like this?” Ian copied Soolemar’s stance.

“Bring them in toward the center until you feel resistance.”

Ian only needed to move his hands another inch before he felt a jittery, numbing heat in his fingertips, similar to the sensation of a limb falling asleep. Ian tried to discern the purpose of the orb while adjusting the angle of his hands, the numbing sensation spreading evenly across his palms.

He decided to force his hands forward against the resistance. The further he went, the more his hand became numb. If Soolemar had any concerns, he wasn’t voicing them, so Ian steeled himself and continued on until his hands were nearly at the center of the orb, his index fingers separated by little more than a hair.

When his fingers at last swept through the orb’s center...he felt different. More clear, as though a haze had been lifted over his senses, his vision sharpening along with his perception of Death.

Soolemar was a swirl of tightly-coursing Death. Previously, the man’s energy had seemed like a placid lake, but now...it was a network of threads moving together as a roiling current, so fast as to seem unmoving. And underneath the moving current of energy, Ian caught the barest hints of white and scarlet.

His control over energy puts mine to shame, Ian thought, envisioning his favored Death energy jacket.

Ian withdrew his hands and took in a shuddering breath.

“What did you notice?” Soolemar asked.

Ian rubbed his hands together and considered his next words. “You’re–”

“Not about me, I’m unimportant,” Soolemar replied, his tone somewhat exasperated. “Look, I want you to try and focus on what’s past the doors behind us. See if you can discern something unexpected.”

Ian stepped forward and drew his hands toward the green orb’s center. Once more the world fell into sharp definition, the scent of pine from the burner overwhelming his nose. When Soolemar took a step, even his light footfall sounded sharply in Ian’s ears.

Ian turned his gaze outside of the temple toward the open canyon and gray sky. “I don’t see anything,” he observed. “I feel like a haze has been lifted from my senses, but that’s the extent.”

Now Soolemar seemed a bit confused. “You don’t see or sense anything out there?”

“No...” Not unless the necromancer was referring to a small emerald soul floating in the distance. Ian decided to test the waters before revealing the fact that he could see souls to a veritable stranger, even if said stranger was a powerful necromancer.

“Can you please enter a Regret scenario? I’m going to do something and I’m going to tell you either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ after I do it.” He’d tell Soolemar about his ability to use souls and talk for however long he could before passing judgment: ‘Yes’ for telling Soolemar and ‘no’ for keeping quiet.

Though Ian couldn’t hear the voice on the other line, the practitioner’s thoughts came swiftly, almost as though they were interrupted while zoning out.

“Ok. You have seventeen seconds, and...done. It’s a ‘yes.’”

Apparently another version of me thinks it’s fine to tell Soolemar, Ian thought, still hesitant. He wished he could get as much information as possible, but he’d already wasted a solid two seconds contacting the Regret practitioner and getting a response: The pause was growing awkward.

“Perhaps you’re–”

Now it was Ian’s turn to cut off the necromancer. “Are you referring to the soul in the distance?”

Soolemar’s lips curled into a grin. “Precisely. Did you only just begin to see it?”

Ian shook his head. “I can already see souls; this green orb doesn’t help in that respect that I can discern.” To be fair, the only nearby soul was far-off in the distance: He might not notice any subtle improvements.

This seemed to take Soolemar aback, his composure faltering. “You...what?”

Ian swallowed. “This sight was a gift from Achemiss to help prepare for my descendant.”

“How long have you seen souls, then?”

“Not very long,” Ian replied. “Less than a month.”

Soolemar walked over and nudged Ian’s hands out of the orb. “Using this orb is a waste.”

“What comes next after seeing them, then?” Ian wondered, ignoring Soolemar’s pinched eyebrows. He recalled how the necromancer ate a soul on the ride over.

Soolemar let out a long sigh. “I just can’t get over how lucky you are,” the necromancer muttered. “This orb here is a priceless artifact intended to help develop your ability to at first sense, and eventually see, souls...but it’s completely worthless to you. It’s unfathomable. I...Achemiss must want something from you in return.”

“Technically the soul sight was a gift,” Ian replied. “But you’re right: There’s a reason he contacted me in the first place.”

Soolemar let out another long sigh. “I’d like to hear more about that eventually, but we don’t have all the time in the world before we need to head back with Jordan.”

Ian cocked his head. “We could go back with her...and then come right back on our own,” he suggested.

“No good,” Soolemar muttered. “Divi'll be angry at me if I don’t return for dinner.”

Divi...? “Your dog?”

“Of course.”

Ian blinked. “Okay, so what comes next, then?”

“Part of this exercise was to judge your aptitude for interacting with souls, but obviously that’s not going to be possible. Instead I’m going to assess your general practice myself.”

“Do you want me to create something?” Ian wondered, his hand already reaching for the void storage.

“No need,” Soolemar replied, his eyes glinting green from the reflected light of the orb. “Just...stand still.”