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

by Rachel Gillig

“The whole world is a wood, Bartholomew, and everyone in it is fashioned of birch bark. Frail as paper.”

Sadness, like birch bark, had all the appearance of frailty. And yet… The tree prevailed.

“You know, Bartholomew,” the gargoyle said, just before we joined the others in the library. “It would be all right if you did not want to become a knight.” I turned. “What makes you say that?” “I don’t know why I say the things I do.” I’d given him my hammer and chisel to hold. He weighed them in his palms, his brows lowering in contemplation. “Only, you did not ask to become a Diviner, yet you swore all your worth to Aisling. It would be a sad story, were you to do that again.” His stone eyes rose to my face. “But if you wanted to—I would not blame you. It is easier, swearing ourselves to someone else’s cause than to sit with who we are without one.”

“I think I would like to stop promising myself away, or else there will be nothing left of me to give, King Castor.”

I want someone to see me.” I whispered against his lips. “I want it to be you.”

I had been forever changed by drowning in the spring upon the chancel. The eyes I looked upon were not the eyes of a young woman. They were not the eyes of a human at all.

“It’s hard to see who I am when I am lost in what’s expected of me.”

“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.”

“I think,” he said when my breath had finally soothed, “that we were never meant to stay so long behind that stone wall, Bartholomew.”

“Divination is a gift we give ourselves—that we might avoid the pain that comes from living, from loving, if we see it coming.

She began to hum. Tuneless, cacophonous.

Like the gargoyle

“Where is your loom stone?” I asked again, my voice dangerously soft. “That, I fear, is a long story.” “I have time.” She grinned then, shadows cutting across her inhuman face. “More than you realize.”

“I knew her before she was abbess of anything.” The Heartsore Weaver’s gaze dropped to my hammer and chisel. “When she was but a stonemason who wore a shroud over her face.

Many years later, she came to see me again, asking for five more robes. This time, there was no foundling child at her heels, but a stone gargoyle.”

“Moth, she calls herself. An insect made holy for mastering death—but she is not holy. She’s the sixth Omen. Abbess of the tor. But you know her true name. There is not a man, woman, child, or sprite who does not. It wails on the wind. Looms, like her eponym cathedral, casting shadows, darkening this land.” And then she was right in front of me, her stone eyes locking onto mine. “Aisling.”

“My loom stone rests where it was made. Upon the tor. I returned it to Aisling when my body twisted beyond all recognition. When I became but one of her many stone creatures. An inhuman gargoyle.” She coughed, and dust flew. “Just like that first Diviner I’d made a robe for.”

Is the gargoyle Bartholomew/the first foundling boy?

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

“To be a gargoyle…” she rasped, “is a very strange thing. The ones upon the tor do not tell the stories of who they are—indeed they hardly speak—I think, because they do not remember what it is to be human. Or maybe they are too afraid to disobey their master. But not that first one. He was a most peculiar boy. What was his name? The first gargoyle she made?” Her breaths were labored. “I saw him not two days ago upon my cliff… came to see him last night, but you frightened me away. What was his name…”

“Bartholomew!” came the gargoyle’s echoing cry. The Heartsore Weaver’s breath went out. “That’s it. The foundling upon the tor. The first Diviner.” The newborn moths fluttered, their pale wings beating over stone. The Heartsore Weaver watched them with unseeing eyes, her last words quiet as a prayer. “Little Bartholomew.”

“The story,” I murmured. “The one you’ve tried to tell me. The one with the tragic beginning, and the desolate, interminable middle.” He knew. He was the strangest, the wisest creature, in all of Traum. So much like a child. Because he was. The gargoyle folded his hands in front of him, watching the moths. “Would you like to hear it?” “Yes.” He nodded. “I cannot tell it all myself. I do not remember it all. But I will tell you the story the way she told it to me—in her own words.” He steadied himself. Made his voice even, smooth. Like the abbess’s. It began with a whisper. “You know this story, Bartholomew, though you do not remember it. 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?

When you looked up at the rose window, the light kissed stained glass. Your craft was obedience. You said the names of gods and how to read their signs. You learned how to dream— “And how to drown.”

“Lie in the spring, Bartholomew. What signs do you see, Bartholomew? Don’t mix up your words, Bartholomew. Don’t cry or be sick, Bartholomew. Ignore all the pain, Bartholomew. Never complain, Bartholomew. Stop humming, Bartholomew. Swallow the blood, Bartholomew. Would that you were a daughter, Bartholomew. Soon I’ll replace you, Bartholomew. I’ll forget and erase you, Bartholomew. Bartholomew. Bartholomew. Bartholomew—”

How, like a god, she said she loved us but hurt us.”

“My dream. Of the moth. That wasn’t a sign from gods. You were the one to drown me… it was you, Bartholomew.” My tears fell. “You, trying to tell me your story.”

“To live again after death is strange magic, and an even stranger fate. Would that things were different, Bartholomew. Would that we had never been reborn. But if we hadn’t… well. I have wondered, and pondered, and now I am sure. For better, for worse— “The rest of the story could not exist without us.”