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There are fourteen regions of the Helvell Peninsula.

Braithen is the thirteenth, and an unforgiving land.

Its proximity to the sea should make it a wealthy trade port, and the mountains that rise sharply from the salt-green shore should be rich in seams of ore.

Instead, the mountains are cold, impassable and worthless, and the sea is known for nothing more than flinging ships against deep rocks, costing many a trader their crew and their livelihood.

The hermitage lies between the tooth-sharp spires of two mountains. The priest who will serve as my proxy spouse and king stands in the shadow between them both, before a stone altar, at a holy space where sky and land meet.

The monks wanted to attend the ceremony – there’s precious little to do in the hermitage, and this is the most excitement anyone is likely to see in decades – but the soldiers insisted that the priest requires privacy. So I walk now to my wedding – my proxy wedding – alone.

The darkness is lit by golden torches, flickering wildly in the fluting wind. Against the backdrop of the sky, with the contract unfurled upon the altar, stands the priest.

Priests are different from monks. Monks serve knowledge. Priests serve power. Knowledge and power are often the same god, but sometimes – often – they are not.

The Anamoren priest wears a gilded mask of the First King, priceless rubies embedded in a flourish like blood at the brow.

I do not know their gender, or if they have one at all.

They have not tied their gown in a typically feminine manner, or a masculine one, or marked themself with the braided belt or epaulettes typically used by Anamoren folk of other genders.

Instead, their gown is a sweep of black, without belt or drapery – a great spill of night.

I walk to them, and bow. “Welcome, priest,” I say. They reach for me and urge me to stand, their hands on my arms at first – and then around my own, clasping them tight.

“You are not Braithenese,” states the priest. In their grasp, my hands look small. Their fingers are callused, flecked with scars, and sun-darkened; my own are pale, with a single callus at my writing finger, a blush of ink stains beneath my nails.

How do they know? I suppose my accent revealed me.

“I was born in Anamora,” I reply. They have not released me. “I came to this hermitage in my nineteenth year.”

“A decade in this place is a fate I would not wish on anyone,” the priest murmurs. Only their eyes are visible through the mask, and they are dark brown, penetrating.

Of course the priest knows my age. Likely every official in Anamora knows everything about me. I am chosen, after all. But a disquieting feeling slithers through me. Those eyes look at me as if they know me.

“Why did you come here, Mistress Silver?” The priest’s voice, turned hollow by the mask, is prying. “Were you exiled to Braithen as punishment?”

“I chose to come here.”

“A strange choice for an heir of Tyrene,” says the priest.

“Not so strange,” I reply. “In this place, I may copy manuscripts and study magic without interference. I have a quiet life, with food and shelter and a very fine cat. Many would envy such a life.”

“As you say,” the priest offers eventually.

They turn from me abruptly, toward the marital contract, pinned to the stone altar with four palm-sized stones.

“Does anything stand in the way of your marriage to our king?” the priest asks. The words are brusque and formal. Their quill is ready, beaded with golden ink.

I almost say, Yes. I love someone else, steadfastly. I always shall. I would rather die than marry another. But love and marriage rarely co-exist when crowns are involved, and I am not actually interested in my own death, so I simply shake my head.

“Nothing,” I say. “Give me the quill.”

The priest signs the contract, then places the quill in my hand. I sign too, the words blurred in front of me.

The priest exhales. The mask lifts.

I see, in the torchlight, the shape of a strong jaw and a full, lush mouth. No more. The priest presses their lips to my knuckles. Their mouth is soft, skin hot. No part of me has been kissed in a decade, and the touch is a shock, a revelation. I hadn’t realised how much I missed tenderness.

I should be affronted. But I do not pull away as the priest’s mouth lingers, then leaves my skin.

“You do not have the right to kiss me,” I say.

“You should read contracts before signing them,” the priest replies. Their mask is back in place, their voice unreadable. They’ve released me. My hand is tingling. “Follow me,” they order.

***

How did I come to love her, Lark of the city, Lark the talonless, Lark with russet hair and blood on her teeth?

Well, I ask you – how could I not love her?

I had lived a regimented and sheltered life, safe in the gold-limned walls of the monastery.

Lark was like a creature from another world entirely.

I was fascinated by her. She was the rarest manuscript ever placed tantalisingly before me.

I wanted nothing more than to take her in my hands and read every part of her.

Yes, even when I was seventeen. Luckily I was too shy and awkward to act upon my desires, at first.

Our love story began with lessons. I was the only one she allowed to teach her to read.

She could not perform magic without her letters; magic, after all, begins in writing and ink.

But she taunted the monks, and was indifferent to our fellow heirs of Tyrene.

It was only my guidance she wanted, and I was glad to give it.

Soon enough, we truly were friends. When I entered our dormitory or the prayer hall, she would turn to me first, a smile on her mouth. For a girl like me, of little charm or beauty, her attention was a heady thing.

It took me a long time to realise my gaze followed her too.

I watched as she grew stronger, her gauntness giving way to muscle.

I watched her train with swords in the courtyard, skin gleaming with licks of sweat, and she watched me scribe letters for her in the cool quiet of the library, her gaze attentive, her shoulder pressed against mine.

We watched one another, orbiting each other as celestial bodies do. It should have been a cataclysm when we finally collided. But oh, it was sweet instead. Sweet and welcome.

It was my eighteenth, my natal day, and the monks had arranged for an artist to paint my portrait.

Accordingly, Lark and I had run from the monks and escaped to the roof.

We sat together and watched the clouds stretch their pale bodies across the city below – all its smog, and squat houses, its churning river.

Lark pointed from here to there, describing places she had lived as a child, the place she had broken a bottle over someone’s head, and the shingled rooftop where she’d slept under the stars.

There, she pointed, was the tavern where a true lord of the underworld had offered her a place in his gang, when she was only twelve.

“But I said no. I knew better than to get tangled up in that shit.”

“Of course you did,” I said fondly. “You’re too brave to put yourself under anyone’s power.”

Her gaze was fixed on the distance. Her smile was thin, almost a flinch.

I watched her – her wild hair, curling at the nape of her neck. Her glowing eyes. The movement of her mouth, and her hands.

I realised she had fallen quiet.

“You’re not looking at the city,” Lark said, voice tentative. She turned her whole body to face me, hesitated, then leaned incrementally forward, not quite touching me. Not yet.

I was used to Lark’s confidence. I was not used to her vulnerability. She looked at me nervously, hopefully. Her fingertips touched my cheek.

I lurched forward and kissed her.

Our kiss should have been awkward, but it was not.

We melted into each other like two halves, softness and fire.

Lark’s hesitation was gone. She tangled her hands in my hair.

She dragged me close, using her fresh strength to haul me into her lap.

I gave a squeak, and she laughed fondly, her nails pressing sparks of fire into my scalp.

“My Silver,” she murmured, her breath a caress against my lips. Then she kissed me once more.

Later, I was painted. I sat stiff in my chair while my portrait was sketched.

The artist was not interested in me, and I was not interested in him.

Melise, another heir, had spent days braiding their hair and applying blush to their cheeks before their portrait.

But they wanted to draw a king’s notice, and win a king’s torc.

I wanted no such thing. I was headily in love.

In my heart, I was sure that Lark and I would stay with each other forever – wreaking chaos in the monastery, kissing in the shadows, loving one another all our days.

We had six months of happiness.

***

I follow the priest.

They do not guide me back to the hermitage.

There is a makeshift camp at the entrance of the monastery, with horses tied to stakes, and soldiers milling by campfires.

Of course. The hermitage is not large enough to host them all, so they must make their own shelter.

They nod their heads as the priest passes.

There is a large tent. The priest enters. I know I must follow.

I think of the priest’s mouth against my fingers. I think of Lark on the rooftop. Lark of the kisses, Lark of my heart. I cannot imagine the king I am married to. I can only think of Lark. Lark of my grief.

I stand frozen before the entrance of the tent. I cannot enter.

***

Six months passed.

Lark woke me in the night. She hushed me with a fingertip to my lips, then released me and lit the stub of the candle by my bedside. I rose onto my elbows and looked at her. She was fully dressed, a coat over her gown.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered.