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

by Rachel Gillig

“It sounds awful when I say it out loud.” “True things often do.”

“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?”

“You’ll heal, Maude. You’ll get better, and you’ll be useful again and not feel so helpless—” 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.”

“The tor was the only home I ever knew. But I have stepped down from its height and seen the world with my own eyes. You can’t take something like that back. Even if I returned to the cathedral, nothing can be as it was.” His fangs pressed over his teeth as he smiled. “You can never really go home.”

Church

They did not make a spectacle of their king or their faith or their craft. No one was put low so that the Heartsore Weaver, the Omens, might be lifted. No hurt was tended for the sake of holiness. It felt unexpectedly hallowed.

She nodded. “Losing something is painful. Sometimes, finding what we’ve lost is just as agonizing.” I looked down at One, lifeless beneath the tapestry. Whispered, like I was telling her a story before bed, “You can never really go home.”