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

by Rachel Gillig

“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.”

“Are you still in pain?” He shivered. “Near you? Always.”

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

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

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.

“It is important for a squire to carry a knight’s weapons,” he said, the words so stoic I wondered if he’d practiced them on the flight back. “I will carry them for you, Bartholomew. I will shoulder any weight you give 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

and I would do anything for you.”

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

Rodrick Myndacious was exquisite—

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, Sybil Delling.”

“In the Seacht.” My hand found his shoulders, drawing him up closer. “Just before you

measured me for armor. When you sparred in the yard, dirty and unbridled.” I wrapped my legs around his waist. Put my mouth over that thrumming pulse in his neck. “You looked so ignoble.” I sucked his skin. Pressed my teeth into it. Said, almost frantic—“I thought I’d die if I couldn’t have you.”

“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.”

I ran my bareness over him. Watched him lose his sight for desire. “So have me.”

I was a chime, and he was sounding me. Again, again, again.

“Fuck me, and fuck the rules.”

“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.”

kept my eyes upon the vast, liminal sea. Thought of life and death and the Diviners. We’ll go to the Cliffs of Bellidine and look out over the Sighing Sea, all six of us. We’ll shout so loud and long that our echoes will sound behind us. We’ll lie under the stars on beds of pink thrift flowers and stain our teeth with wine. We’ll sleep, but never dream. I stood. Walked to the edge of the cliff. And shouted. It came from deep in my belly. A forlorn yell that sounded so loud and so long that it put a buzz in my ears, its echo devouring the Sighing Sea, the Cliffs of Bellidine. All of Traum, perhaps. And I thought, maybe the life of Sybil Delling was paid for with the death of Six’s dreams. That it wasn’t just the Omens that weren’t real, but the stories I’d told myself. That I had to suffer to earn a home at Aisling Cathedral—that I had to hide my face and name to be useful, to be strong, to be special. That the Diviners and I would spend our lives together—that our sisterhood was eternal. But nothing was eternal, and I could never go back home. Death fluttered over the world like a breeze, stirring our hair, and I knew it well. I’d quested through Traum. Battled Omens, sprites—loneliness and longing. I’d made the agonizing pilgrimage from Six to Sybil. That was death in and of itself. But, just on the other side of it, waiting behind gossamer— Was life, too. I reached into my hair. Took off my shroud. Held it out over the edge of the cliff. When the wind took it in its teet...

Everything about this just fucking beautiful

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

There was no question of which we would take from her—hands or throat. There was no question at all.