That is super not his actual title! Your majesty and your eminence are both fine and it's your grace for the rest of the family unless we hold titles in our own right. However sometimes he needs to be taken down a few pegs, you know?

Chuckle. :I can see how the level of - deference - granted to him, in your system, might result in him needing it. Though he seems fairly - I am not sure how to describe it. Grounded?: 

I think he's doing better now than the last time we met, shortly after he'd taken the throne. The more satisfactory of my siblings are settled down, he eventually figured out how having children works...

:I would not have thought that having children was complicated! Anyway, I will ask him tonight about other search spells, he wished to speak anyway: 

And Leareth shifts his attention back to the researchers and informs them that he's ready to watch some artifact-creation.

They create the artifact! The materials which have their own inherent reserves are clearly doing a lot of the work; the actual process isn't too complicated. Eventually servants bring dinner and a while after that come back to start putting artifacts away somewhere safe. No one asks Leareth for his headband back.

Leareth wants to avoid making assumptions, here. "Should I return this?" he asks them, tapping it. 

"The pharaoh said he thought you'd like it, and you may keep it if you do."

"That is very generous of his majesty." Leareth hopes this is the right title usage. "I do like it very much." 

The pharaoh himself comes by once the researchers have cleared out. "Leareth! Sit comfortably, please - is it a good time to talk or have the researchers exhausted you."

"No, no, now is a perfectly good time to talk." He ducks his head, touches the headband. "Thank you for the very generous gift." 

"I am a religious man, and Abadar is faintly confused about the whole concept of gifts; consider it an investment. In whatever things you decide to do going a little better, not in any venture in the specific."

Leareth nods. "Well, I am grateful for the vote of confidence in my plans that that conveys, then. Was there something in particular you wished to discuss now? I do have one question for you." 

"I want to talk about Rahadoum! But I'd be happy to answer your question first."

Leareth does a quick check with Thoughtsensing to make sure Vanyel is definitely far away, and then quietly explains the Companion reincarnation situation. "It would be somewhat odd if it were that, but I think less so than his soul having been destroyed entirely, since I know of very few mechanisms for that, and no reason to single him out. I wondered if your magic offers any way to search for a reincarnated person, if you know who they were in their previous life." 

"Huh. I think I would know how to do that were it done with the spell Reincarnate, but this sounds somewhat different than that. Have you tried scrying for him?"

"Mahdi tried scrying for his spirit - I am not exactly sure how that works, Velgarth magic does not offer any methods of finding dead people. I have not tried scrying for him with the additional information that he is probably not dead." 

"Hmm. If scrying for his reincarnation doesn't work I do not know what would, but I can have some people look into it."

"Thank you. Honestly I am not sure what would even be the result of discovering that Vanyel's lifebonded is reincarnated as a magic horse - as someone else's magic horse, one assumes - but, it seems better to know than not." 

"Of course. I can't say we're familiar with the underlying phenomenon but I'll see if we have anything that might be helpful."

Nod. "Anyway. Rahadoum?" 

"Yes. I was wondering if we might arrange a mutually beneficial trade of information. I have a reasonably competent diplomatic team that tracks goings-on in our neighboring countries, and they have some context about what Rahadoum is up to and what resources they might have to accomplish it. However, I think they're missing something. I thought perhaps I could save you the trouble of duplicating all their work and you could tell me what they're missing."

"You are very perceptive." 

(Of course he is, he has an absurd level of god-granted intelligence boost.) 

"I need to think for a moment," he says, with no change in his expression at all, and he stretches out his Thoughtsensing again. :Hagan?: 

Hmmm?

:Your brother is pressing me for information on Rahadoum. He knows that we know something he does not and he will definitely notice if I try to elide it. However, I cannot explain Rahadoum without telling him everything about Aroden, and I have - mixed feelings - about doing that. What do you think: 

Hmm, what are your mixed feelings about it?