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

by Rachel Gillig

To tell a story is in some part to tell a lie, isn’t it?

And what a useless thing pity is, for a guest is always a kind of trespasser.

and that I was better than all of them.” I bit my lip. “It sounds awful when I say it out loud.” “True things often do.” “I don’t believe I am better

“Or that she, too, does not like saying true things out loud.”

a martyr. And maybe I am. But didn’t I become that way because her love cost as much?” The gargoyle took my hand. “That is a very sad story, Bartholomew. I wonder… how does it end?” “I don’t know. I

Faith requires a display. The greater the spectacle, the greater the illusion.’”

“You don’t like it when I’m a bad knight,” he muttered, “and you don’t like it when I’m a good one.”

“Her care came with conditions. You bent yourself to fit them, and now… now you see yourself as this terrible burden. Like you’re nothing if you’re not the best, the most useful version of yourself.”

“It’s not true, you know,” he said. “You don’t have to be good, or useful, for someone to care about you.”

time. Got stronger. Smarter. Meaner, too. Or maybe he just stopped thinking mistreatment was something he deserved.”

“Do something, Bartholomew!” The gargoyle was wringing his hands, dancing nervously on his toes. “Bite off his leg if you must!”

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

“I’m full of wrong ideas.” Rory paused.

“Do with it?” He frowned, as if he did not understand the question. “Measure time by its growth, I suppose.”

“Not so different from the abbess, are you? From an Omen.” Benji flinched. “It sounds horrible when you put it like that.” “True things often do.”

“Tragedy and desolation are right here with me.” “Yes.” He went back to humming to himself. “But I am here, too, Bartholomew.”

“That is unkind and unworthy, Bartholomew.” He’d been quietly crying in the corner of the room, and now appeared the spirit of righteous anger. “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.”

“But if you wanted to—I would not blame you. It is easier, swearing ourselves to someone else’s cause than to sit with who we are without one.”

“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.”

“When a babe learns to walk. When friends gather around a sickbed, or deathbed, and sew a patch onto the family blanket. A couple’s kiss on their wedding day, and the night that follows. We do not look for love, or heartbreak, because they, like the truest god, are ever with us.” She smiled. “And it’s a privilege to know them.”

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

then they were like all the other things I’d dared to love. Gone.