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

by Rachel Gillig

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

“You can be happy now, I suppose,” I said through tight lips. “Clearly not everyone in the Seacht falls prey to the old ways.” Rory pushed his hair out of his eyes. “That didn’t make me happy at all.”

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.”

Faith requires a display. The greater the spectacle, the greater the illusion.’”

“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.”

“I was wondering what it would be like. Watching you unravel.”

There was a world behind Rory’s dark eyes. It was as if he could see everything all at once when he looked at me, and it was far too much, but he wanted all of it.

“I don’t want him touching you like he did last night. I don’t want him within a fucking mile of you.

“It’s not lost on me how terrible I’ve been. Growing up under the Artful Brigand—” He said it in a gasping rush, like it was he who’d been underwater. “I’m discourteous and utterly poisoned by contempt. I know that.” His throat hitched. “And I don’t know how to behave around you. You make me so fucking nervous. But letting you fall underwater when all you ever did at Aisling was drown, I—”

“Where would you bite me, knight?” “Wherever you told me to, Diviner.”

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

“I’d have come for you. I’d have killed or stolen or done any ignoble thing to see you free of that place. You are more special than you realize. I don’t even know your name”—he drew in a breath—“and I would do anything for you.”

“Tragedy and desolation are right here with me.” “Yes.” He went back to humming to himself. “But I am here, too, Bartholomew.”

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

“You could walk over me, Sybil Delling. Throw me down until I am dust. I don’t know what to call it, but I want it. I want you.”