Filed To Story: The Knight and the Moth Book PDF Free by Rachel Gillig
Petula Hall, still in my armor. I thought maybe I’d check in on Benji, but when I ambled past his door, my feet kept moving.
Taking me where I needed to go.
The door I stopped at had no light dancing under its threshold to invite me. Still, I knocked three times against the wood.
No one answered.
I pressed my brow upon the aged grain. “Myndacious?”
Again, no answer.
Maybe he was asleep. But just as I was about to go-
“Sybil.”
I breathed against the door. Clasped the cold iron knob. Turned it.
Rory was seated upon a long bed, a weary candle lit upon an adjacent table. He wasn’t in his armor anymore-just a pale shirt and trousers. His elbows rested on his knees, his hands dropped between his legs, fingers flexing as I stepped into the room. “Are you all right?”
I closed the door behind me. “I just wanted…”
He waited.
“I just wanted to see you.”
His throat hitched. Then-“Come here.”
The candle caught my visage, casting a long shadow upon the floor. I stepped into the room, walking until there were no more steps to take-until my armored toes were pointed at Rory’s bare ones. Slowly, my hand dropped into his black hair, my fingers tangling in the silken mess.
He looked up, gravel in his voice. “You’re still in your armor.”
“I didn’t let the gargoyle take it off.”
“Why?”
“I feel stronger with it on.”
Rory held me in his gaze. I thought he might lecture me on martyrdom or strength-on the impossible weight of living.
He rose to his feet instead. Put his hands to my face-held my cheeks with an imploring pressure. “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.
“It’s heavy,” I murmured. “My armor.”
“I know.” He took a step back, eyes dropping to my mouth. “Let me help you.”
He began with my pauldrons.
Clasps were undone-armored plates removed first from my shoulders, then arms. Rory released my hands from their gauntlets. Next came my breastplate. When that had joined the pile of armor upon the floor, Rory dropped to his knees and began to work the clasps at my thighs-the cuisses, the poleyns. The greaves upon my shins fell with a clang, and then it was just the intricate web of plates-the sabbaton-over my boots.
Rory discarded them all, then removed my boots, too. When he looked up at me from his knees, it was the same way I’d looked up while being knighted. There wasn’t a sword between us, but he was just as vulnerable as I’d been.
When the armor was off, Rory rose to his feet. “Sit on the bed.”
The backs of my legs hit the mattress. I sat, and Rory’s eyelids grew heavy. “Arms up.”
He grasped my chainmail at my ribs, the web of iron hissing as he pulled it. By slow measures, it shifted. When it finally surrendered and fell to the floor, Rory and I were both breathing hard.
My armor lay like a vanquished enemy at our feet. Just like in the Fervent Peaks when I’d moved through the hot spring’s feverish water, I felt weightless.
I rose to my feet. “All of it.”
Rory’s gaze trailed up the buttons of my under armor, his brow knitting as he searched for more armor that wasn’t there. I took his hand and brought it up my body. Over my stomach, my ribs, up my throat and onto my cheek until his fingers, rough and calloused, caught on my shroud.
“This too,” I whispered.
His muscles tensed, Rory’s entire body suddenly called to attention. “Sybil.”
“I’ll wear it publicly, like Benji wants. Prove that I’m influential. Mythical. Fearsome. Only-“
He kept still. Waiting for me to finish.
“Only I don’t think those things matter to me anymore.” I stepped closer, our faces inches apart. “Please, Rory. Take it off. I want someone to see me.” I whispered against his lips. “I want it to be you.”
Rory’s touch was slow. Gentle. He slid his pointer finger under my shroud, grazing my cheekbone-the delicate line of my lower lashes.
We both let out a shaking breath.
I guided his hand over my cheek, behind my ear, to the knot at the back of my head. Rory worked it, keeping his eyes on my face the entire time. The candle’s meager light cast shadows over him, his dark eyes two pools of ink. They trailed over my cheeks, my nose. Over my lips once-twice-
The knot loosened. I reached out of instinct, pinning my shroud to my cheek before it could fall.
Rory’s hand went still. “You can change your mind.”
I let go. “I haven’t.”
Rory’s lips parted, but he didn’t say anything. His fingers got back to work on the knot. It loosened, loosened-
And then my shroud was falling, silent, onto the pile of armor.
I didn’t watch it drop. My eyes remained lifted, fixed in the darkness of Rory’s.
His inhale was sharp. For an excruciating moment, I couldn’t read his face-couldn’t decipher his eyes. “What?”
“I just…” His breaths came faster. “I don’t think I have the words.”
“Am I that unsightly?”