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

by Rachel Gillig

“Swords and armor,” came a voice, “are nothing to stone.”

Only life did not go back to normal. I knew the second I woke the next morning that something wasn’t right. The Diviners’ cottage felt colder, quieter. And Four, vibrant, determined Four— Was gone.

“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?”

We didn’t reach Coulson Faire or Castle Luricht. After a day of dreaming for the merchants and lords and layfolk who came to Aisling, we Diviners, wrung out but resolute, ate our dinner in the commons. Made like we were going to bed when the sun set in the sky. Waited in our cottage for the fall of darkness. Stole to our door. And found it locked. The next morning, the air was colder still. I sat up and combed the room. Held in a scream. Two was gone.

A lock did not stop Two from vanishing.

Rory snatched my hand. Threw something from his pocket into the air. “Move.” There was a whirring sound, something small and circular passing over my head and through the door, then Rory and I were moving after it. I winced, bracing to collide with the wood, but my body—my body was nothing—and I didn’t feel a thing as I passed through the door, out of the cottage, into the night. Rory caught whatever he’d thrown and stowed it back in his pocket, the two of us corporeal once more. He let go of my hand like it had scorched him.

Rory muttered to himself, fidgeting with something in his left hand. I caught a proper glimpse of it before he stowed it in his pocket. The coin. The thing he’d been throwing. It was larger than a normal coin. Oblong and made of stone. One side was smooth, the other rough. I lost a step. I’d seen that exact coin before. Many, many times. But only in my dreams.

All I could think about was Rory’s coin. The Artful Brigand’s coin.

But this was no dream. 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.

An old man, with draping silken robes and long, gnarled fingers. He stood stooped, but his eyes were lifted. Lifted—and made entirely out of stone. In his hand was the inkwell from my dreams.

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.”

“I have disdain in me, yes.” Rory’s brows drew together, lips parted slightly enough for me to hear the shaky sound of his exhale. “But none for you.”

I know not how the Diviners see the Omens in their dreams. It is a very strange kind of transportive magic. Indeed, there is very little I understand about Aisling Cathedral’s fetid spring. But the Artful Brigand, the beast, told young Rodrick Myndacious one essential thing: There is eternal magic in the water upon the tor, and those who drink it are just that: eternal.

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

“You touch my feet, you die.”

When I slept, I didn’t dream of Aisling Cathedral’s looming edifice or Diviners swathed in gossamer. I didn’t even dream of the Ardent Oarsman. 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.

“Once, there was a foundling boy who didn’t believe in anything. He grew up, became a worldly knight, and still he struggled to believe. He bore hardly any hope, and a mountain of disdain. And that should have been the end.” He took my hand, squeezed it, tightening my hold on my hammer. “But then he came to a cathedral upon a tor, and met a woman there. And all the tales he’d troubled himself with about cruelty, about unfairness and godlessness… he started to forget. He was afforded another chance, as if by magic, to believe in something. 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.”

A dandelion seed flew up the gargoyle’s nose. He leaned back. Cried out. Sneezed in Rory’s face. I barked a laugh, and Rory shut his eyes. “That’s why you called me over? To sneeze on me?”

“When you do the right thing for the wrong reason, no one praises you. When you do the wrong thing for the right reason, everyone does, even though what is right and wrong depends entirely on the story you’re living in. And no one says they need recognition or praise or love, but we all hunger for it. We all want to be special.”

With hammer, with chisel, I hit her until she was dust. Until Traum was free of its false gods. Until her last breath came—not loud like the peal of a bell, but frail. Still I kept striking her. I struck and I struck and I struck. Until the final Omen was dead.