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.”

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

“A knight’s craft is love. Faith. War. Now, because the knights are not here, I will not swear you to the same vows of faith we three took. There will be no talk of the Omens. No self-effacement. Rather, I will put upon you the weight of responsibility due to the valorous of the Stonewater Kingdom, and you will tell me if you agree to its burden.”

“You needn’t wear the title if it no longer fits you,” Rory murmured. “You needn’t do anything you do not wish to.”

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

Your armor may dent, your sword may break, but may you never diminish.”

“What happens at Aisling Cathedral is not your fault. The Omens and the terrible things they’ve done are not your fault. Lost Diviners, past and present, are not your fault. You have no failures or falsehoods to amend for, no vows to tether you, no strength to prove.” He soothed my hair, as if to comb away the knots of my despair. “Especially to me.”

My body had always been strong—and ever just enough. But whatever my soul was made of was frail. Like birch bark, like gossamer, like the wings of a moth. When Rory brought his lips to my forehead, kissing it with unbearable softness, speaking the language of pain and reprieve into me, that frail little soul began to fortify.

Maybe contentedness isn’t just a story.

“I’m so far the opposite of repulsed or regretful about you that I’m lost.”

We grow up, searching our guardians for what is right and what is true, thinking they have all the answers, like they already understand the signs of life. But they don’t. No one does.”

“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.”

And all while I looked for the gargoyle, through crofts, through sheep-speckled fields and hills of thrift flowers, climbing higher and higher, I was thinking on lost things. On death. On how I’d searched the hamlets, like I searched now, and hadn’t found a single one of my darling Diviners to put back into my arms. How fate was cruel, life frail, and how lonely it felt, in the vastness of Traum, that the only person I’d come close to finding was myself.

“I am a battlefield of admiration.” He nodded at the horizon. “I cannot decide which I like best. The sunrise, or the sunset. They are like life, and her quiet companion, death.”

“Endlessly.” He stretched his wings. Yawned. “The tor was the only home I ever knew. But I have stepped down from its height and seen the world with my own eyes. You can’t take something like that back. Even if I returned to the cathedral, nothing can be as it was.” His fangs pressed over his teeth as he smiled. “You can never really go home.”

What comes after, I don’t know, only that I’ve learned not to promise a future that may not come to be.”

only love, only heartbreak, can weave the thread of all that came, and all that is yet to come.”

There is something to be said about love. Be it for ardor or sorrow, love is like the Heartsore Weaver—like an Omen. Its signs are everywhere. We may seek it, create it, feel it, ignore it, or lose it, but it is always there. Love is like our loom stone—it keeps us rooted to the world. To one another.”

We do not look for love, or heartbreak, because they, like the truest god, are ever with us.” She smiled. “And it’s a privilege to know them.”

“Rory, wait.” I caught his shoulder. “I can do it—” “I know you can, Sybil.” He took my hand off his shoulder and brought it to his mouth. Pressed his lips over my armored knuckles. “But for fuck’s sake. Permit me.”