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

by Rachel Gillig

I stood. Walked to the edge of the cliff. And shouted.

I cried. Just a little. When I turned, the gargoyle was there, smiling at me. So was Maude. Rory too.

He leaned over in his usual idle way. Took my cheek in his hand. Said, “Just as well. I don’t have the words.”

I kissed him, and he kissed me back harder, and we stood upon the cliff and what felt like the edge of the world, windblown and breathless and new.

“You needn’t all be here. I told you last night, I’m f—” “Say fine, and I’ll combust.”

“I’m not in anything,” I muttered. “And I’m not complaining,” Rory said. I slapped his arm and he grinned.

“And you have me.” My frown vanished. “I can’t ask you to leave the knighthood.” “Because you know I’d say yes?”

“You don’t have to.” His eyes were so dark. So soft. “I’ve already chosen.”

A knighthood is not a yoke. I’m no one’s drudge.” The corners of his mouth lifted. “But I’ll be your errand boy if you ask me nicely.”

I was falling in love.

“I hate tight, dark places.” “Let’s hope you never die,” the gargoyle said. “I hear graves are rather constrictive.” Rory’s eyelids drew low. “Helpful.”

the gargoyles on the tor… they’re sprites…” “No. They are not.”

“Little Bartholomew.”

He knew. He was the strangest, the wisest creature, in all of Traum. So much like a child. Because he was.

The batlike gargoyle stood before her, wings spread, baring his teeth, stone shards falling from his mouth. I’d never seen him so monstrous—so befitting of his namesake. A true guardian. Not of Aisling, not of the tor. Of me.

“Whatever craft is yours,” Rory snarled, “cruelty or violence, we have beaten you by it. Get down, you fucking coward. Your ending has come.”

“Am I all that you imagined?” I said, looking down at her. “Or am I so much more?”

“About fucking time.” He swung. His sword lodged in Rory’s side, into chainmail, into skin. Rory let out a sharp gasp— Benji caught his wrist. Took his coin. He shoved Rory to the ground and kicked him in his wound, then let the coin fly.

It hit the gargoyle, shattering his left wing, putting fissures up his arm and into his chest. He stumbled back. Blinked his stone eyes. Fell. I screamed.

the gargoyle lay upon the grass. Unmoving.

“Let them go first.” Rory’s fingers dug into my arm. “Sybil—” “Take care of the gargoyle, like you said.” I turned. Brought his bloodied knuckles to my mouth and kissed them. “Take care of yourself, too.”

Rory caught himself on the wall. I felt his gaze on my face, in the air, in the broken pieces of stone around us. He didn’t say it, but I knew. He’d do anything I asked of him. So I looked at him in his fathomless eyes. Watched as they lost their light. Told him, in a voice cold as stone, “Go.”

I am unwell

“Where are we going?” the gargoyle asked again. He looked back at me. “We can’t go without Bartholomew.”

He had to be hauled away by Maude, who was already doing the same to Rory. I heard his wailing sobs on the other side of the wall. “Bartholomew!”

And then they were like all the other things I’d dared to love. Gone.