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

by Rachel Gillig

“Is that common in the king’s service?” the gargoyle pondered. “An abysmal lack of knowledge?”

Rory looked back at me, lip curling. “A knight and his lady.” “That,” I snapped, slipping from the saddle, “may be the worst thing you’ve said of me.” “That you know of.”

“I’ll likely regret saying this—but keep your hands out of my pants.”

He held his silence like a ransom.

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.”

“None save you, mourning dove.”

“In all your stories of things you might do when you left Aisling, Bartholomew, did you ever tell one like today’s?” I managed a weak laugh. “Not by a mile.”

For the next quarter hour, every time you feel the compulsion to say something peculiar, smother it.” He sank into his chair and sulked. “You ask a great deal of me.”

“I’m fitting you with armor.”

“I wanted to show you that I wasn’t too good for a knight—just too good for you.”

His hands had stilled. When he spoke, his voice was low. Tight. “What stopped you?”

“Turns out fucking someone just to spite you leaves a l...

“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.”

“You want to throw me down,” Rory said, eyelids dropping as he whispered into my parted lips. “And I, prideful, disdainful, godless, want to drag you into the dirt with me.”

“If you wanted to get me alone, Diviner, all you had to do is ask.”

The gargoyle batted his eyes. “Oh, Bartholomew. He’s dreamy.”

“You’re really not going to talk to me?” “Wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea.” “I’m full of wrong ideas.”

“Pith, you think there’s something wrong with me—” “I don’t.” Rory’s voice was gravel. “I was wondering what it would be like. Watching you unravel.”

Rory’s head tipped back, like he was praying to the night sky for patience he did not possess.

“I am not afraid of you. Because without me, you would be nothing.”

“Hit me, Diviner. Hit me as hard as you can.”

No honor among thieves, and even less among gods.

I drowned for nothing.”

I looked down at his lips, and he up at mine, the distance between us eclipsing like a celestial movement, staggering and inevitable.

“I fear she will die without ever having lived.”

I pulled my blankets over my ears and faced the wall, thinking on dying and killing and living, and how I was unsuited for all three.

I was losing my faith in everything. But the two of us meeting… it felt almost divine.

He waited at the gate of every place he touched until I granted him entry.

Errant knight Rodrick Myndacious, prideful, disdainful, godless, believed in me.

He was a thief, stealing my breath, my reason.

“The thing is—I think I’d do anything you asked of me.”

I dreamed of a knight with gold in his ears and charcoal around his eyes, who did all the ignoble things I asked of him.

“It is not like me to be the bearer of bad tidings,” the gargoyle said. “Bartholomew does not know how to swim. But worry not—” He looked up at me. Smiled proudly. “She has always excelled at drowning.”

He’d never be a very good knight, but every time he looked at the woman, he had the distinct faith”—his eyes roved my face—“that things could be better than they’d been.”

“Wake up, sweetheart. Wake. Up.”

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

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

He sauntered off, humming, as if he hadn’t just massacred my pride in the village square.

“Don’t fucking touch her again.”

But if the creature was a monster, it was because it was made that way.

It is easier, swearing ourselves to someone else’s cause than to sit with who we are without one.”

When Rory brought his lips to my forehead, kissing it with unbearable softness, speaking the language of pain and reprieve into me, that frail little soul began to fortify.

Rory’s hand went still. “You can change your mind.” I let go. “I haven’t.”

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, Sybil Delling.”

We stood nigh eye to eye, perfectly balanced, he naked in his wonder, me in my defenselessness—and both of us in our desire.

“I’ll do anything you ask of me.”

“If you don’t bed me now, I’m going to scream.”

“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.”

“I’ve thought such unknightly things.”

“You are beautiful, Sybil Delling. So fucking beautiful. You’re strong and smart and noble.” He grasped the nape of my neck, and I wondered if he liked to touch me there because he could aim my gaze. “But I think I like it best when you’re wrong.”