The Knight and the Moth (The 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.

I’ll tell it to you as best I can and promise to be honest in my talebearing. If I’m not, that’s hardly my fault. To tell a story is in some part to tell a lie, isn’t it?

A coin, an inkwell, an oar, a chime, and a loom stone. The sixth and final window was centered on the east wall—an enormous rose window, fixed with thousands of pieces of stained glass. Its design was different than the others, depicting no stone object, but rather a flower with five peculiar petals that, when I studied them, looked all the world like the delicate wings of a moth.

She put up a hand, stopping me. “If I was fixed on being the most useful version of myself”—she gestured at her bandages—“it would be all too easy to hate my body when it was not. I don’t. People who love you for your usefulness don’t love you at all.”

“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.”

Rory reached for my face—took off my shroud. When it fell away, I couldn’t bear the reverence that flickered through his eyes.

“I am a battlefield of admiration.” He nodded at the horizon. “I cannot decide which I like best. The sunrise, or the sunset. They are like life, and her quiet companion, death.”

And I thought, maybe the life of Sybil Delling was paid for with the death of Six’s dreams. That it wasn’t just the Omens that weren’t real, but the stories I’d told myself. That I had to suffer to earn a home at Aisling Cathedral—that I had to hide my face and name to be useful, to be strong, to be special. That the Diviners and I would spend our lives together—that our sisterhood was eternal.

I knew exactly how to read the signs—knew exactly what was going to happen to me. It was happening right now. I was falling in love.

“Bartholomew!” came the gargoyle’s echoing cry. The Heartsore Weaver’s breath went out. “That’s it. The foundling upon the tor. The first Diviner.” The newborn moths fluttered, their pale wings beating over stone.

The Heartsore Weaver watched them with unseeing eyes, her last words quiet as a prayer. “Little Bartholomew.”

“So you see, Bartholomew. Firstly by happenstance, then with great intent, you and I created gods.”

Did you know that, Bartholomew? That all the dreams you had were by my own design?

“How she guarded the tor like a dragon. How she was made as large as a cathedral herself, commanding the Omens, the spring, and the foundlings she raised to dream within it. How, like a god, she said she loved us but hurt us.”

“The rest of the story could not exist without us.”

was not exact as I had been with the Heartsore Weaver. This was an annihilation, and Aisling would bear the mark of it.

“Wait—wait.” The gargoyle began to sob, more pieces of stone falling from his body. “I’m her squire. We cannot be apart.”

“What is a god, if not that?”