The Cartographer’s Vow

Meredith Quill corrects other surveyors’ maps under her father’s name, until the Society sends her to the valley of Graehold. Its people are polite about exactly one thing, which is why the surveys keep failing. The terms of the Warden’s bargain are given early and honoured throughout: the mountain eats what is not named, a Warden must be wed, and vows spoken before witnesses outlast the lips that speak them. The commission cannot close while the Warden is unwed, and the Warden has a matter of clauses to discuss over tea. A gothic romance of restraint, mountain weather and held glances, about a marriage that begins as arithmetic and refuses to stay there. Content note: grief for a spouse, atmospheric peril and mild horror.