<p><em>Sticks and stones may break their bones, but he'll just resurrect them.</em></p><p> </p><p>Four years ago, Sikras 'Catseye' Nikabod had it all: a beautiful wife, friends and family, and the endless luxuries that came with being the all-powerful necromancer to the queen.</p><p> </p><p>Now, his brother-in-law is a walking corpse, he's wanted for tax evasion, his oldest friend, Vessik, has slaughtered thousands of the queen's people with a skeleton army, and his wife is dead. Sort of.</p><p> </p><p>With the kingdom under threat, it's only natural for the queen to task Sikras with the totally normal, not-at-all-cruel chore of brutally murdering his dearest friend. Sure. Great. It's not like he already failed to stop Vessik's reign of terror twice or anything.</p><p> </p><p>Turns out, it's hard to kill a monster when you can't stop remembering the good man he used to be. Harder still when you're pretty sure his descent into madness is kind of, sort of, hypothetically ... all your fault.</p><p> </p><p>Raise a glass. Raise the dead. Just don't raise your hopes.</p>