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

by Rachel Gillig

He was smiling—sickeningly handsome. His sneers, it seemed, he reserved only for me.

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

Oh he loves her

“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?”

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

“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.”

He drew closer, water sloshing around us, and I was aware of his body, mine—and the bareness of them beneath the spring’s surface. “The thing is—I think I’d do anything you asked of me.”

“Pishposh.” The gargoyle stuck his nose to the wind. “I can always smell it when it’s going to rain. The thunder was but a collision of clouds.” It began to pour twenty minutes later.

cackling

“I am a battlefield of admiration.” He nodded at the horizon. “I cannot decide which I like best. The sunrise, or the sunset. They are like life, and her quiet companion, death.”