When Nyrielle took Thane and Zedya as her progeny, she bestowed the Voice of Command and the Mesmerizing Gaze on them. The gifts had many uses, among them, the ability to pry the truth from even the most unwilling of captives. Over the past several decades, both Nyrielle's Lord General and her handmaiden had used those gifts countless times to learn secrets that Nyrielle's enemies would never have imagined that they'd divulge.
But when it came to Marcel, the famed Black Merchant who served as Nyrielle's Master of Spies, she bestowed the Cloak of Darkness on him. It was a powerful gift that allowed the cunning merchant to travel farther through human lands than most of her progeny dared, and it made him as elusive as smoke on the rare occasions he'd ever been seen where he shouldn't be, but it did nothing to help him separate truth from falsehood or to open the lips of the unwilling.
