I put my skeletal hands on my hips and glare at the priest. "You're telling me I cannot get married? You don't care about the heart of a skeleton girl, is that it?"

"You haven't got a heart," says the priest. "You are nought but cold bone."

"She is cold bone with a warm heart," says Jaime. "Not heart in the sense of a muscle that pumps blood around a living body, but heart in the sense of courage and decency."

Jaime is so eloquent. I just want to cuddle and kiss him here and now, but I'd better not interrupt.

"She's dead," says the priest. "By divine laws she should be nothing but a handful of dust."

"She laid down her life for this town. It is a blessing that she is still with us, whatever her form," says Jaime hotly.

"Her form is a terrifying creature of the night," says the priest.

Jaime points at the priest. "You are bigoted, Sir. I am going to report you to the Mayor."

I gaze at Jaime as he tells the priest off. His gorgeous eyes gleam with anger. I feel a surge of pride to have a man like him by my side and standing up for me. Why should I care about a bigoted priest.

I touch Jaime's freckled cheek with the tip of my skeletal finger. "You are so wise, my love. Let's go the Mayor right away."

00O00

The Mayor tuts and nods as we tell him about the bigoted priest. "I am fully on your side," he says. "You are truly a dream couple."

Jaime nods in satisfaction.

"However, I cannot overrule a priest," says the Mayor. "The powers of Lord Mayor don't extend to religious matters."

"What?" Jaime narrows his eyes at the Mayor.

"You must know some way of helping us!" I exclaim. The priest says I don't have a heart, but if that were true, then how do I feel such a pang of sadness at the thought of being denied marriage to my true love? I tremble at the thought and my jaws clatter.

"As it happens, I do have a solution," says the Mayor. "A run of the mill priest won't approve your marriage, but my old friend Oleus is a priest of the night. He will officially make you husband and wife if I send him a message. He lives in the Cityport of Glikridge. I encourage you to elope and then come back as husband and wife."

"Elope? How romantic." I feel giddy with relief and my skull starts spinning round. I grab at my skull to steady it. I don't need it to fly off.

"Glikridge … it's a shady place though, isn't it?" Jaime sounds uneasy.

I take his soft hand in both my bony ones. "I'll protect you. Always. I'm basically invulnerable."

"That's the spirit," says the Mayor.

00O00

The walk to Glikridge takes us west some twenty miles across plains and hills. It's exhilarating to be on an adventure again, and this time with Jaime by my side. I keep turning to gaze at him. I can't help it. He's growing out his stubble and it really suits him.

"See something to interest you, my brave swordsgirl?" asks Jaime, using his old nickname for me.

"A cat may look at a king," I say with mock solemnity. "Or a poor skeleton may look at the handsomest hunk for miles around!" I rub my bony cheek against his stubbly jaw and it makes a very slight scratchy sound.

Eventually we reach the coast and see the high wall surrounding the cityport and the cluster of buildings projecting into the sea like an ugly mark. Ships lie anchored in the harbour and smoke rises gently from chimneys. It looks peaceful enough, but when the wind changes, Jaime wrinkles his freckled nose in disgust. "The breeze stinks of decay. A reminder of how dangerous this place is."

"I've got a plan to get us in, my love," I tell him. "This kind of thing is standard stuff for professional adventurers like me. Watch how I bluff my way in."

At the gate we are confronted by a gut in chainmail with an iron helmet. He steps forward, barring the way with his pike. "Who would enter Port Glikridge uninveted?" He waves his pike in my direction. "I see that you are one of the undead. Sate the nature of your business or go back the way you came."

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I dump my travel bag onto the ground. "I have some silver chalices that I stole from a temple. Please tell me Sir, where should I go for the best price."

I feel the guard is gazing at me suspiciously through the visor of his helmet. "Let me have a look at those chalices."

"Oh the chalices are cursed and can only be examined by a mage," I say. "It would be bad for any living man who is not a mage to even look at them. I'm immune to their curse because I am undead."

"A likely story I'm sure. But the city is full of thieves and liars, so you shouldn't be out of place. Want my advice? Try not to stand out."

I put my bony hands on my hips. "Sir, I am a walking, talking skeleton! I will stand out wherever I go."

I pick up my bag, link arms with Jaime, and we go through the main gates. The streets of the port are narrow and cobbled. Old and decrepit buildings line them closely, with their upper stories overhanging menacingly.

"Where do we find Oleus?" ponders Jaime. He's holding the scroll with the message that the Mayor wrote for Oleus. A pity the Mayor didn't know his friend's precise address! A cityport is a big place.

I see an old tavern nearby with a faded sign saying THE BLUE LOBSTER. "Let's ask for directions in there."

The old wooden doors open into a dingy, smoke filled room. There are eight round tables in the centre of the room with some shifty looking guys. I stride over to the bar. Behind the bar stands an old, bald innkeeper, rubbing a mug with a filthy rag and making it steadily dirtier.

The innkeeper glowers at me. "Abomination! We don't accept the undead in here!"

He puts his fingers to his mouth and gives a loud whistle. A trapdoor behind the bar flies open and a huge green troll squeezes up through the trapdoor from the cellar below. The troll swings his club in the air.

The guys in the tavern stand and form a ring around me and the troll yelling "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

"Hey, hey, no, please I don't wanna fight!" I start to protest. But the troll knocks me with his club, using such force that my skeletal body breaks to bits.

OK, great. I've just broken into six pieces, two legs, two arms, my skull and my torso. My head is flying across the room and a large, muscular guy with a scar down his face grabs me.

"Got it. This is a tropy!" He jeers.

I bite his fingers. "Let me go!"

He yells, drops me, and I hover near the ceiling and then fly across the room, to where my arms and legs have the troll pinned down. Each of my limbs is holding one of the poor troll's limbs against the floor and my ribcage is battering his head.

Jaime's distracted at the moment on the edge of the crowd. There's an unkempt, burly man looming over him. "Hey there, pretty boy! Wanna come someplace private?"

I hurl myself through the air towards the burly man, just an inch from his face. "THAT'S MY BOYFRIEND!" I bellow.

He shrieks and runs off. Oops. I think that the burly guy's wet himself.

The other guys nearby edge away from Jaime.

I float back to the troll and hover by his ear. "Please, we shouldn't be fighting. Go back to your cellar, OK?"

The troll grunts.

I think of putting myself back together and my limbs and torso rise up into the air and my bones all knit back together.

The troll is no longer pinned down. He shuffles off back into his cellar.

All the onlookers quietly go back to their tables. Jaime comes over to hold my hand. I glare at the innkeeper. For anger you probably need glands. But I am just a lot of bones and yet am indignant. I glare at the innkeeper.

"Is it normal in these parts to be so inhospitable?" Jaime asks the innkeeper. "This is the woman I love. We came to this city to get married."

"Sorry, sorry. Why don't you have drinks and vittles' on the house and some privacy?" mumbles the innkeeper, looking down so as not to meet my gaze.

There is a private booth in the far corner where we sit on a couch while the innkeeper brings over drinks and a plate of snacks.

"Sir, do you know where we can find a priest named Oleus?" I ask the innkeeper.

"Dunno why you want ter see that wily old wizard," says the innkeeper. He knows enough magic to keep even the toughest away. He lives due north of here. In a hut under Broston Bridge, the main bridge that leads to the old part of the city and the harbour. You just have to keep going north, go through the marketplace and you will see the bridge."

The innkeeper shuffles off.

There's a curtain that hides us from the view of the rest of the tavern. Jaime eats. I find I can't drink, it just goes straight through my ribs. Oops.

I lean against Jaime and he puts his arms around me.

"It's a weird day my love," I murmur. "And I'm afraid it may get weirder. I just really hope we can get married at the end of this."

"Don't fret, Bright Eyes," says Jaime. "What's important is that I love you more than anything else in the world."

He kisses my bony face and teeth and I give a little moan of ecstasy. I love his kisses and the closeness of his soft, fleshy body. I feel warmth in my bones and get really excited. Really, really excited. Ecstatic even. So excited and ecstatic and full of energy that I'm giddy with delight and my skull floats off and over the curtain.

One of the guys who had watched me fight the troll is muttering to another: "Did you hear the moaning? What's the boy doing with that pile of bones?"

I float up onto his shoulder. "I am right here you know."

The both yell and leap up and he knocks me spinning into the air.

"Oh come on, you've already seen what I can do! Look, I'm sorry I startled you, sorry…"

I'm starting another commotion, so Jaime and I think it best to just leave.

Back out in the street, I notice there's someone dressed in rags with filthy hair lying face down in the gutter. I would guess that it's an older guy of quite short stature. Is he drunk? Or ill?

I scuttle over to him.

"Are you OK?"

"Careful," says Jaime.

I kneel down and touch the shoulder of the figure in the gutter. "Can you hear me?"

With a jolt, the figure sits bolt upright! Even I am a bit horrified to see that its face is semi-decayed. It's a living corpse and it grabs at my bony arms!