Filed To Story: The Knight and the Moth Book PDF Free by Rachel Gillig
He’d drawn fresh charcoal around his eyes and secured his black hair with a strip of leather. His clothes were clean, and there was even a whit of warmth in his cheeks. Daylight, and an obvious bath, had made a new man of him.
I had the rousing vision of crashing my hammer onto his skull.
“What you inferred after you gave me idleweed,” I said. “About me knowing nothing of Traum. Of fun. I’d like you to remedy that.”
The king hacked out a cough. “You gave her your idleweed? Isn’t that some sort of-I don’t know.” He continued to cough. “Sacrilege?”
“You dolt.” Maude reached behind Rory and smacked King Castor’s back until he stopped hacking. “Diviners can drink and smoke and fuck just like anyone else.”
An errant knight from another table chuckled-then pretended he, too, was in the throes of a coughing fit the moment he locked eyes with Rory.
I stared at the trio. Maude calling him dolt, Rory christening him
Benji. These knights were closer to the king than mere soldiers, despite the age disparity between them-Benji boyish, Rory a young man, and Maude at least ten years older than he was. They were intrepid, somehow. Conspiratorial, all in a row on their side of the table against me, alone on mine.
“Fun,” Rory deadpanned, tapping his spoon on the table. “What did you have in mind?”
I looked over my shoulder. Lowered my voice. “I want you to escort the Diviners off the tor for the evening.”
The king’s eyes widened, and so did Maude’s. But Rory-he just kept tapping his spoon, chipping away the veneer of my patience. “Be your escort.”
“That’s what I said.”
He shrugged. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“Just that.” He smiled. “You might have ridden other deferential knights hard and put them away wet-but I’m no one’s errand boy. Besides, we leave for Coulson Faire in an hour.”
The king went red, and Maude scrubbed a hand down her face. I heard a thump under the table, and Rory winced. “What he means, Diviner,” she said, “with the utmost respect, is we cannot oblige you. Every new king must visit the hamlets when his reign begins. There are ceremonies to attend. We are due at Castle Luricht this afternoon.”
I didn’t know much about Traum or its hamlets-but in this instance, I knew just enough. “Castle Luricht is within Coulson Faire and hardly any distance away. Your knights could easily make it back here by evening.”
Maude did not deny it. “I was under the impression it was forbidden for Diviners to leave Aisling Cathedral during their service.”
“It is also forbidden for anyone save the abbess, a gargoyle, or a Diviner to touch Aisling’s spring water. The same spring water I smelled here in the commons last night. When I ran into you three.”
Not a subtle accusation.
The king, Maude, Rory-they’d taken water from Aisling’s spring and didn’t want anyone to know. And while the why irked me, it was insubstantial to the what I could do with the information.
Blackmail, for instance.
My fingers danced along the necks of my hammer and chisel. “Do this for me, and I will forget to tell the gargoyles, who are known to be quite violent, mind you, that I ever saw that flagon of spring water.”
The trio watched me from their side of the table, their gazes all variant in color-black, green, blue-but the challenge in all three was the same. “Six Diviners, just… ambling down the road,” Maude said.
“Quite the spectacle,” Rory muttered.
“We’ll wear cloaks,” I bit back. “Obviously none of us want to be seen.”
The king leaned forward in his chair. “Forgive my curiosity,
Diviner. If you are disallowed to leave Aisling, all of Traum must surely be a stranger to you. What happens when your service is up? When you are no longer required to-“
“Drown?” Rory offered, spinning his spoon between his fingers.
“Dream,” Maude corrected.
“We all have tasks. Crafts we learn to bolster us when we depart.”
King Castor nodded at my hammer and chisel. “You’re to be a stoneworker?”
“Perhaps. If the pay is good.”
“The pay?” the king asked, incredulous. “The abbess doesn’t reimburse you for your time here?”
I bit down so hard my teeth hurt. “The Omens first appeared to a foundling, and every Diviner has been one since. That is why the money the abbess collects for Divination goes to the upkeep of the cathedral and the foundling houses we Diviners come from. She saved us from destitution. Gave us a home, a purpose-made us special.
That is our payment. I wouldn’t have lived half the life I have without her.”
Tap, tap, tap went Rory’s spoon on the table. “And you call wasting your time dreaming of signs living, Diviner?”
I slapped the spoon out of his hand. It clattered to the floor, and I leaned in, lifting the dull end of my chisel to his nose. “What would a highborn prick like you know about it?”
Rory held perfectly still. He lifted his gaze to my shroud. He was looking for my eyes. For a target.
But he couldn’t find one.
He wrapped his fist around the chisel’s stem, dropping his voice to that low, gravelly rasp. “Point this thing in my face again and it’s mine.”
“I’d sincerely enjoy watching you try to take it.”
I could feel the eyes in the room on us.
“Whatever Aisling or Diviners or the Omens have done to garner your hatred, well done.” My voice was shaking. “I’ve been duly insulted. Now-you’ve stolen Aisling’s spring water. I won’t ask why, and I won’t speak of it again, but I want something in return. So be a good little soldier, and escort. My. Diviners.”
King Castor and Maude and everyone else in the commons sat frozen, some mid-bite, transfixed by the Diviner and the knight putting on a proper show. The only noise that perforated the room was a loud clack, clack, then-
The feline gargoyle was there, putting its stone claw on my shoulder and glaring over my shoulder at Rory. It opened its mouth. Flashed its teeth.
Rory jerked his hand off my chisel, his entire face caught in an eye roll. “I’m not going to hurt anyone, you witless hunk of stone.” He leaned back in his chair, heaving his boots, which had been unmistakably polished, onto the table. “Sorry, Diviner-that was aimed at the gargoyle. I can see how you might be tempted to answer to that description.”
The gargoyle led me to the door, but I turned at the threshold. Faced the table one final time, hot with embarrassment. But for the Diviners, I would bear it.
“Please.”
It happened quickly. A tightening of muscle in Rory’s brow, a flare in his eyes. A genuine shred of something, peeking through all his derision.
It was gone as quick as it came.