Some questions, once asked, cannot be unasked.Every soul in the Five Kingdoms chooses a Lifemark at majority. Most choose a craft, a calling, a trade they were born to love. Velaya chooses something far more dangerous. Vibrating with the compulsion that strikes every young adult on the day they come of age, Velaya arrives at the Lifemark Athenaeum. She is armed with a crumpled scroll, her lover’s quiet faith, and her mentor’s hidden hope—and her usual barrelful of questions. Inside, among the hundreds of callings, she finds exactly what she is: a seeker, born to ask why. But she has been warned to doubt the obvious choice. And then she finds something else entirely. A Monk of the Lifemark is a story about the cost of asking the right question — and the rare few brave enough to pay it.