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?

“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?”

Nothing but ink and the persuasive quill can devise what is true.

“Violence is a craft. So is compassion.

Knowledge is a wellspring, and I happily drink from it.”

“You think that because someone embraces innovation they must scorn the ancient and ethereal?”

My stock of joy was held in the future, ever out of reach.

“The cathedral, its Omens, its Diviners sit on high,” the gargoyle said plainly. “If you only ever look up at something, can you ever see it clearly?”

Traum’s histories are forged by those who benefit from them, and seldom those who live them.’”

No honor among thieves, and even less among gods.

The echoes of his chuckle still lingered in the air. “I’ve never laughed in my life.”

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

“It’s hard to see who I am when I am lost in what’s expected of me.”

But when you tell someone they are a god long enough, they stop believing they should have to give anything up. All they do is take.”