The Knight and the Moth (Stonewater Kingdom, #1)

by Rachel Gillig

To the child in each of us, yearning to be special. Take my hand, you strange little creature, and together we shall walk beyond the wall.

All five were identical but for their left hands—each clasping a distinct stone object. One statue held a coin, another an inkwell. One bore an oar, another a chime, and the final a loom stone.

“The Omen who bore a stone coin, the child named the Artful Brigand. The Omen fitted with the inkwell was christened the Harried Scribe. The Omen who wielded a stone oar was called the Ardent Oarsman. The Faithful Forester carries the chime.” She pointed at the last arched window. “And the Heartsore Weaver employs her sacred loom stone.”

“But the sixth Omen bore no stone object. It revealed nothing of itself at all, appearing only as a pale moth on tender wing.

“They’re supposed to keep rules. You know, be good at love and faith and war and inane things like that.”

“Swords and armor are nothing to stone.”

“What about sprites? Or thieves, or, I don’t know—bad weather? It might rain.”

LOL

But you and me, our sisterhood of Diviners—we’re the moon.” She smiled. “We’re eternal.”

“Just as well. Sometimes, Bartholomew, I think her quite the bitch.” “Gargoyle!”

“I think contentedness,” I said bitterly, “is just a story we tell ourselves.”

“It is all the same, then. Contentedness. Truth and honesty and virtue. Omens. They are all stories, and we”—he gestured to the Seacht’s climbing walls—“tread the pages within them.”

“You want to throw me down,” Rory said, eyelids dropping as he whispered into my parted lips. “And I, prideful, disdainful, godless, want to drag you into the dirt with me.”

“Then again, someone rather wise once said, ‘Traum’s histories are forged by those who benefit from them, and seldom those who live them.’ ”

The gargoyle batted his eyes. “Oh, Bartholomew. He’s dreamy.”

“I’d have come for you. I’d have killed or stolen or done any ignoble thing to see you free of that place. You are more special than you realize. I don’t even know your name”—he drew in a breath—“and I would do anything for you.”

Nothing felt holy anymore, except maybe the dead.

“If you value your friend when he fights your battles for you—when he is rogue and ruthless—you must value him when he is gentle, too. Otherwise you do not value him at all.”

My armor may dent, my sword may break, but I will never diminish.

I knew what she was doing. Offering me a permanent place, now that the Diviners were gone. Telling me that I need not remain adrift—that I had a home with them if I wanted one.

It is easier, swearing ourselves to someone else’s cause than to sit with who we are without one.”

Maybe contentedness isn’t just a story.

“When you do the right thing for the wrong reason, no one praises you. When you do the wrong thing for the right reason, everyone does, even though what is right and wrong depends entirely on the story you’re living in. And no one says they need recognition or praise or love, but we all hunger for it. We all want to be special.”

Not everything had to hurt to be holy.

But nothing was eternal, and I could never go back home.

“What about me?” The gargoyle was seething. “Is no one going to kiss me?”

How, like a god, she said she loved us but hurt us.”