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

by Rachel Gillig

But ever, I wonder. What horrible thing do they hide behind their shrouds?

I just knowwww this will fuck me up

He left me the way he’d found me. Alone with the unbearable truth.

I lay utterly still upon dirt, bleeding moon’s blood, praying for a way to sink my teeth into earth and stone and flesh and rip Traum open until the entire world was a gaping wound.

“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.”

He knew. He always seemed to open a door to himself the moment I needed somewhere to go.

Rory brought my bloodied thumb to his lips and said what I’d said to him—to thousands of others—from Aisling’s spring. “What name, with blood, would you give me?” I put my thumb to his lips. “My name is Sybil Delling.” His face broke open, as if I’d taken my chisel to his derision and shattered it.

I looked over my shoulder at Rory, standing by the cart. His legs were planted, hands clasped behind his back, like a good soldier. “Good night.” “Good night,” he murmured. “Sybil.”

“Why are you giving him the cold mouth?” “It’s ‘the cold shoulder,’ gargoyle.” He blinked. “What would he want with your shoulder?” “What would he want with my mouth?”

“Couldn’t have done it without you,” he’d murmured, eyes on his work. But then they’d lifted, darting over my mouth. His cheeks had gone red, and my heart had cantered, and I’d felt his do the same in the pulse of his thumb . . . two beats, arguing for dominance.

“For the sake of my sanity, put Bartholomew out of her misery. Tell her you’re in love with her.”

“In love with . . .” Oh, he was red now. Rory’s hands lowered to his sides, gauntlets tinging as he fidgeted, his eyes narrowing over the gargoyle, then me.

“An entire branch of idleweed?” I quipped. “Little sounds?” came his slow, mirthful reply.

Rory had his fellow knight by the face. He gripped Hamelin’s cheeks—pressed brutally. Hamelin coughed out smoke—and Rory sneered at him, slapping the idleweed branch from his hand. “Don’t fucking touch her again.”

“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.”

Over my stomach, my ribs, up my throat and onto my cheek until his fingers, rough and calloused, caught on my shroud. “This too,” I whispered. His muscles tensed, Rory’s entire body suddenly called to attention. “Sybil.”

Girllll development

He said it intently. Like he was imploring every part of me to take heed. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, Sybil Delling.”

“Don’t tell me what they look like.” I pressed onto my toes. Swallowed his shaking breath with my own. “Don’t say anything at all.” Rory’s smeared his thumb across my lips. “I’ll do anything you ask of me.” And then his mouth was on mine.

“Those too.” His thumb dipped into the waist of his pants. Rory held my eyes. Grinned. Then took his thumb back out. “You’re teasing me?” He shrugged. “Not very knightly of you.” His eyelids lowered. “Hmm.” I pressed upright onto my palms. “What if I took them off for you?”

“First, you unravel,” he rasped against my ear, then pressed me into his pillows with a ferocious kiss. And I thought I must be the stupidest woman alive, that I’d spent so much time fighting with him when I could have been fighting with his lips instead.

Soooo true

“I’ve thought about your thighs. How they felt when I measured them for armor. What it would be like, putting my mouth between them.” His hand withdrew, then snapped back—a quick smack across my bottom that made us both moan. “I’ve thought about your voice. I’ve stayed up, thinking about it. Wondering if it would be sharp or soft when I made you come.”

PARDON MEEEEE

“You could walk over me, Sybil Delling. Throw me down until I am dust. I don’t know what to call it, but I want it. I want you.”

Rory hissed out a breath. Lifted me over his lap. Nudged my entrance. His pupils were blown wide. “Tell me yes. Right now.” No litany, no profanity, was better than hearing him this desperate. “Yes.” He drew me down, down—down. I let out a reckless sound, and his grip at the nape of my neck tightened. We collided. Flesh to flesh. Pulse against pulse. Eye to eye.

Omg

I unraveled. I unraveled until I was the barest spool of thread, spinning in the wake of the little death.

He pulled out of me just in time. Pressed me down over his mattress. Spilled himself over my stomach. My breasts.

Am i reading this right

I saw my face bereft of gossamer. Pale skin and a flushed, swollen mouth. Silver eyebrows and hair—unkempt. A slightly crooked nose. Eyes.

The eyes I looked upon were not the eyes of a young woman. They were not the eyes of a human at all. They were pallid. White. Completely bereft of iris or pupil, like those of an unpainted statue. Hewn entirely of stone. Just like an Omen.

“What’s wrong?” I look like a monster.

“Then why are you looking at me differently?” “How could you say I was beautiful?” My whisper was a horrible rasp. “My eyes. I’m like them.”

My girllll

Rory was across the room in a moment. His tray hit the table with a raucous clatter and he ripped the shroud from my hands, tossing it onto the floor. He kissed me. Hard. “You don’t like me when I’m a good knight,” he said over my lips. “And you don’t like me when I’m bad.”

He grinned against my skin, then withdrew to look into my eyes. “You are beautiful, Sybil Delling. So fucking beautiful. You’re strong and smart and noble.”

left to get us food.” Another kiss, this time on my cheek. “I haven’t changed my mind about anything.” Another, on my neck. “I’m so far the opposite of repulsed or regretful about you that I’m lost.”

I neeeedhim so bad

“And the rules?” My pulse was a torrid rush. “The knighthood bans bed relations. You said so yourself.” “I never said anything like that.” I pulled his hair. Rory slouched forward, smiling. “It’s not a vow. Just an arbitrary rule. Fuck the rules, Sybil.” His eyelids grew heavy. “Fuck me, and fuck the rules.”

“It’s hard to see who I am when I am lost in what’s expected of me.”

If it would not pain her, I’d lay my head in Maude’s lap and let her tears fall onto my face, because it would cleanse something in me no spring water ever had. “I

“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.”

Next to him rode Rory. Only he wasn’t looking out over the view. He was watching me take it all in. I let out a heavy exhale. Held his gaze until I was burning.

“Pishposh.” The gargoyle stuck his nose to the wind. “I can always smell it when it’s going to rain. The thunder was but a collision of clouds.” It began to pour twenty minutes later.

I reached into my hair. Took off my shroud. Held it out over the edge of the cliff. When the wind took it in its teeth, I did not resist. I simply . . . let go.

He leaned over in his usual idle way. Took my cheek in his hand. Said, “Just as well. I don’t have the words.” I kissed him, and he kissed me back harder, and we stood upon the cliff and what felt like the edge of the world, windblown and breathless and new.

The knights stared at me. Travelers who stopped in the inn, too. They searched my stone eyes just as pointedly as they once had my shroud—with grotesque fascination or fear—until a murderous glower from Rory or Maude sent their gazes to the wall.

Then the figure was leaning over my bed, standing directly over the gargoyle. I couldn’t see its face. I couldn’t see anything. But then lightning flashed—the sky a blinding white. I caught a glimpse of a face hidden beneath the shadow of a hood. And screamed.

FUCK THAT

“Did she say anything?” Maude asked. “No.” “Likely wanted to eat you,” Benji muttered. “Did that really need to be said?” Rory snapped. “Anyway.”

“I’m not in anything,” I muttered. “And I’m not complaining,” Rory said. I slapped his arm and he grinned.

“I hate tight, dark places.” “Let’s hope you never die,” the gargoyle said. “I hear graves are rather constrictive.” Rory’s eyelids drew low. “Helpful.”

“Shall we draw straws to see who will go down first? Or will you just cheat and choose the short straw on purpose like you always do?” “I don’t always—”

Called ouuuut

sighed. Sat and swung my legs into the hole. “Let’s kill another Omen.” “Huzzah!” The gargoyle clapped. And gave me an excited shove.

“And abandon Bartholomew to the Omen who tried to smite her last night?” The gargoyle batted Rory away. “What kind of squire would that make me?” “A good squire is a silent squire.” “Says the knight without one.”