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

by Rachel Gillig

“Which is more intricate?” he mused. “The designs of men, trying to reach gods, or that of gods, trying to reach men?” My hammer collided with a chunk of granite. “What is either to the intricacies of women, who reach both?”

“You seem contented,” I said, peering over my shoulder. “Being away from Aisling.” “Perhaps I am.” He pondered. “What does it feel like to be contented, Bartholomew?” As if I knew. The only happiness I’d felt was with the Diviners, in the tales of what we might do when we left the tor. My stock of joy was held in the future, ever out of reach. “I think contentedness,” I said bitterly, “is just a story we tell ourselves.”

“I wanted to get under your skin,” he said quietly. “I saw you on the wall that first day at Aisling, all in white, looking down your nose at me, so patronizing and pious. I wanted—” He peered over his shoulder at me. “I don’t know. To sully you, maybe. To rip the shroud from your eyes so you’d know what I knew—that nothing is holy. That the Omens were a lie. That you were no better than me.”

My vision blurred. Sorrow, I realized. That was the agony behind my eyes. Sorrow, who came like a shepherdess, leading a flock of tears. “I wish I was still a girl, made special for dreaming upon the tor.”

Not everything had to hurt to be holy. Bad, to be good. But damn me if I wanted it to sometimes.