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

by Rachel Gillig

To tell a story is in some part to tell a lie, isn’t it?

“Point this thing in my face again and it’s mine.” “I’d sincerely enjoy watching you try to take it.”

So be a good little soldier, and escort. My. Diviners.”

“It is all the same, then. Contentedness. Truth and honesty and virtue. Omens. They are all stories, and we”—he gestured to the Seacht’s climbing walls—“tread the pages within them.”

“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.”

“Is a road still a road if no one rode upon it?”

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

“Just the way you like me.” Rory nipped the pad of my thumb. “Now run it again.”

Errant knight Rodrick Myndacious, prideful, disdainful, godless, believed in me.

“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.

“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.”

It felt like a fever, looking at him. I was dizzy and thoughtless for it.