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

by Rachel Gillig

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?

His armor was not the same silvery iron as his knights’ but gilt, as if he were the sun and they a cluster of lesser stars.

They grunted, but rarely spoke. Save this one.

The utter gall of men.”

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.

Traum was full of monstrous creatures. Sprites, who roamed the hamlets. Folk tried to fight them, but the hamlets were not unified, floundering without gods, without divine principles, without a ruler. And when none of those things exist—” There are inevitable tragedies, I recited to myself.

“One dark, lonely night, a foundling child left its hamlet and climbed a looming tor in search of food. The tor did not offer much life save whispering grass and gowan flowers and pale moths. But then—a spring! A strange spring at the top of the tor, leaching from a great stone. The child came to the lip of the water—drank deeply.” She drew in an affected breath. “And was swept into a dream.”

It made me proud that a foundling—like me—should be the most important figure in Traum’s most sanctified story.

“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. Some say it shows itself the moment you are born, others believe it comes just before you die. Which is true”—she opened her palms, like two pans of a scale—“we cannot know. We may read their signs, but it is not our place to question the gods. The moth is mercurial, distant—never to be known, even by Diviners.”

A great cathedral was built upon the spring’s tor, and more foundling children were brought there to dream, and they became daughters of Aisling, revered Diviners. A king was crowned, and Traum’s five hamlets were unified by belief, thusly named the Stonewater Kingdom. The king’s knights were tasked with defending the faith as well as they defended the hamlets against sprites.”

She pressed down on my clavicle, hard enough to bruise. I sank into cold, terrible water. I shut my eyes, opened my mouth. Sucked water into my lungs and choked. My body spasmed once, twice—a ripple in the spring. Then I did what I’d always done since my very first day at Aisling Cathedral. I drowned.

But I was hazy after a Divination. Sometimes for hours. A gargoyle would carry me away from watching eyes to the sacristy, and I would lie in a foggy, sedated state. When my mind sharpened, I was always sick.

It was not known how sick Aisling’s spring water made us.

Divine in public, human in private.

I was the most uncomplaining Diviner, ever good in the eyes of the abbess—Aisling Cathedral’s best daughter. But when it came to being worldly or vulnerable or even fun, I was an abysmal failure.

“Swords and armor are nothing to stone.”

Be ready by nightfall. —R (The idleweed is to spare my fucking boots. Don’t smoke it all.)

No one is as decent as they think. Not even us. Not even the abbess.”

Knights are shooting stars, Six. They come and go. But you and me, our sisterhood of Diviners—we’re the moon.” She smiled. “We’re eternal.”

Why didn’t the Omens speak to me like this? In a melody or a spin or the heartbeat of a drum? Not in the spring, in dreams, where I was in pain and afraid, but like this, loose and infinite, when my soul was split open and thrown skyward in delight.

We swore it under the sacred smoke of idleweed!”

“The pretty one.” Rory’s eyes flitted to me. But the King’s finger, the knighthood’s collective gaze, was trained on Four.

But even without hammer, without chisel— I knew how to mind a stone wall.

Sometimes, Bartholomew, I think her quite the bitch.” “Gargoyle!” “I am simply saying what is on my heart. Who would fault me for that?”

“To tell a story is in some part to tell a lie, isn’t it? And I know only one story besides.” His voice quieted. “The one with the tragic beginning, and the desolate, interminable middle.”

“I believe in the Omens as much as you do.” The muscles in his jaw bunched. “But I have no faith in them.”

“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?”

He sniffled. “The abbess promised you’d be the one to stay with me.”

“Tell me at least you have something for your feet.” “Like what?” “Like what—like shoes, you twit. Boots. Slippers. Clogs fashioned by your stupid chisel. Anything.”

The shed remained closed. “What the honest fuck are these doors made of?” “If only we had a tool that could help us, oh, I don’t know—move through walls?”

“Is my voice too quiet?” He hauled in a breath. Shouted in my face. “Take me with you, Bartholomew! I don’t want to start over again and again and watch children dream and never see beyond this place. I don’t want to be in the middle of the story anymore. Please.” He wrenched open the shed door. “Take me with you.”

“Huzzah!” He clapped his stone hands. “Oh, what fun. A whirlwind adventure—”

At its feet, a small object sat in the grass. A coin.

This was a coin, wholly corporeal, with the ability to destroy—to shatter stone gargoyles—or transport its users through doors, through walls. I’d never heard of magic like that in Traum. Hardly believed it. But I’d seen it. And if the Artful Brigand’s coin lived on the other side of dreams, perhaps he did, too. Which meant Rory was— Oh gods. The foulest knight in Traum… was an Omen.

“Parchment.” My eyes were wide. “They’re making parchment.” “Oh, Bartholomew.” The gargoyle took my hand. “For writing stories.”

The gargoyle puffed his chest out with pride. “Bartholomew is a daughter of Aisling, a harbinger of gods—the most dedicated dreamer I know.” He patted my shoulder. “But no, I’m sorry to say she is not especially useful. I, on the other hand—”

I crossed my arms. “You’re being cryptic. It’s obnoxious.” “Hey.” Rory tapped my wrist. “Uncross those and listen.

“Very well. If my presence will ease her suffering, I shall weather my own.”

“Our business may get… animated. Stay close.” My brows shot up. “Animated how?” “Will there be kissing?” the gargoyle asked. “What—no.”

“A king’s quest to claim all five stone objects and take the power of the Omens for himself.

His mouth opened, a wide, black hole, and then he was tossing my hair into his mouth. Groaning in ugly ecstasy. “You belong to Aisling. To the Omens. That’s what I know, and what I know is ever the truth.”

“Everyone has a name,” I murmured. “Even foundlings.” Then, with sudden, biting clarity, “If you were truly a god, you would know it.”

The Scribe lay out upon the ground, prostrating like an overturned book, like a supplicant. He stuck out a mottled tongue. And began to lick my blood from the floor.

The coin belonged to the Artful Brigand.” He withdrew the coin from his pocket, turning it slowly between his fingers. “It belonged to him right up until five days ago when we went to Castle Luricht, challenged him to his craft, and used it to kill him. As to the accusation—I’m not one of your precious gods, Diviner.” His eyes flickered in the darkness. “I’m the one who’s killing them.”

“The Omens’ creeds are about truth. I always assumed them virtuous. Eternal—immortal.” I looked out over the canal. “But it seems they are none of those things.”

The Diviners are gone. And the Omens are a lie.

“They are the only pieces of magic in all of Traum. It is my desire to wield them all.”

“And the sixth figure. The one with the foundling, who made the stone objects. That’s the sixth Omen. The one with no name.” My throat tightened. “The one we call the moth.” “Indeed. Though if anyone were to know her name, surely it would be you.” He paused. “She’s your abbess, after all.”

To rule the tor is to rule Traum.’”