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October 4 - October 9, 2025
I’ll tell it to you as best I can and promise to be honest in my talebearing. If I’m not, that’s hardly my fault. To tell a story is in some part to tell a lie, isn’t it?
The only portent, the only prosperity—the only god of men—is coin.
“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?”
I cannot remember it ever being proven that gods are more honest than anyone else.”
“The cathedral, its Omens, its Diviners sit on high,” the gargoyle said plainly. “If you only ever look up at something, can you ever see it clearly?”
He must have known that I wanted to peel my skin off and scrub it under water, because he withdrew his scrutiny. Retreated to the cabinets. “It’s not true, you know,” he said. “You don’t have to be good, or useful, for someone to care about you.”
“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.”
“What is harrowing is hallowed, is it not, Diviner of Aisling?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry for the Diviners. I’m sorry the people who best understood what you’ve endured were taken from you, and that so much of living without them feels like dying. But if you hadn’t left that tor—” He said it with a deep familiarity. Like he’d thought to say it a million times, and the thinking of it had worn down all the sharp edges of saying it aloud. “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 have no use for stories.” My eyes grew unfocused behind my shroud. “Tragedy and desolation are right here with me.” “Yes.” He went back to humming to himself. “But I am here, too, Bartholomew.”
“Anger is a fine weapon, Diviner,” she said, quiet enough so the others wouldn’t hear. “So long as you don’t point it at yourself. Now have some soup.”
Nothing felt holy anymore, except maybe the dead.
“If you value your friend when he fights your battles for you—when he is rogue and ruthless—you must value him when he is gentle, too. Otherwise you do not value him at all.”
It is easier, swearing ourselves to someone else’s cause than to sit with who we are without one.”
“But I’ve sworn to Aisling, and I’ve sworn to the Omens, and I’ve sworn to my friends, who are now forever gone.” I drew in a long breath. “I think I would like to stop promising myself away, or else there will be nothing left of me to give, King Castor.”
“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.”
“If I was fixed on being the most useful version of myself”—she gestured at her bandages—“it would be all too easy to hate my body when it was not. I don’t. People who love you for your usefulness don’t love you at all.”
Not everything had to hurt to be holy.
“Oh.” I wiped tears from my cheeks and levied a threatening finger. “Don’t you dare say anything.” But the threat fell flat—I was smiling right back at them. Rory bridged the distance between us. Morning light warmed his face. His dark hair caught the wind, and when he looked at me with unmasked adoration, I felt an instant tightness in my chest. He leaned over in his usual idle way. Took my cheek in his hand. Said, “Just as well. I don’t have the words.”
And then they were like all the other things I’d dared to love. Gone.
It’s about a woman who tries her best, an errant knight who falls in love with her, and a precious limestone gargoyle. It’s about what we lose and what we gain, the arduous journey of self-discovery—the painful, beautiful burden of living.
