Filed To Story: The Knight and the Moth Book PDF Free by Rachel Gillig
“Can’t hear anything.” Maude put a hand to her bandaged side and winced. “If you dragged me up that hill again for nothing-“
“All I hear is the ocean,” I snapped.
Rory pulled me into the crook of his arm and stamped his palm over my lips. “Shhh. Listen.”
I made a note to bite him later and went quiet. At first there was nothing. Just the murmur of wind through grass and the hum of the sea and an invigorated owl, hooting in the distance. But just as I was about to sink my teeth into Rory’s palm, another sound called-closer than all those others.
Lapping water, coming from directly beneath us.
Rory and I both looked down at the stone next to the gargoyle’s feet and dropped to our knees. And I saw that the impression in the grass was slightly off. The stone had been moved, revealing a sliver of darkness in the ground.
“There’s something under it,” Benji said.
Rory dropped to a crouch. He grasped the stone. Made a low sound of effort I liked far too well.
“Oh, let me.” I added my fingers to his and lifted. The stone was heavy.
“No one’s as strong as you, is that it?” he said, straining.
We both lifted it in the end. But the effort to toss it aside was all mine.
Rory smirked. “Boastfulness is ignoble.”
“And you love it.” Maude joined us where the stone had been. In its place was a hole in the cliff, wide enough to fit my body. We gathered around it.
It was like looking down a long, dark throat.
The sound of lapping water was louder now. I could smell the salt of the sea. See the faintest reflection of water, twelve or so hands below us.
“My grandfather’s notebook didn’t say anything about caves beneath the Cliffs of Bellidine,” Benji said.
Maude sucked her teeth. “How do we even know the Heartsore Weaver’s inside?”
“This is what my dream looks like,” I murmured. “It’s dark, the only light coming from cracks above. I slam into a stone bench, and there’s a tapestry. That’s where I see the loom stone. Then”-I rubbed the prickles off the back of my neck-“there are footsteps. Heavy, like the ones I heard last night. A sharp clacking noise right behind me, but I never see who’s chasing me.”
The others stared.
“Well.” Benji’s throat worked as he swallowed. “That’s quite the dream.”
“It’s the most horrifying thing I’ve ever heard.” Rory was fidgeting so madly with his coin it was a wonder he didn’t accidentally propel himself through space. “I hate tight, dark places.”
“Let’s hope you never die,” the gargoyle said. “I hear graves are rather constrictive.”
Rory’s eyelids drew low. “Helpful.”
I looked down into the darkness. “How did you know this was here, gargoyle?”
“I told you, Bartholomew. I know everything I know exceedingly well.” He came to the lip of the hole. Sniffed the air. “Rather fusty.” He turned to me. “Shall we draw straws to see who will go down first? Or will you just cheat and choose the short straw on purpose like you always do?”
“I don’t always
-“
Benji’s voice was a taut string. “I’ll go.”
“Calm down, Your Majesty. Let your ignoble knight go first.” Even in the dim light, I could see the warmth in Rory’s face was gone. He looked down at the blackness with a jaw of iron. Sat down on the grass and threw his legs into the hole.
“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.”
He jumped.
Time held me by the throat. “Rory?”
His boots hit rocks, and he coughed.
“Rory!” Maude hollered.
“I’m right here.” His voice ricocheted off the walls of the cavern, near and far. “Come down-I’ll catch you.”
I sighed. Sat and swung my legs into the hole. “Let’s kill another Omen.”
“Huzzah!” The gargoyle clapped.
And gave me an excited shove.
The Knight and the Moth
THE HEARTSORE WEAVER
The air was close, smelling sharp like salt water and overripe like decay. I fell, heart in my throat, and then Rory was there, his strong arms folding around me. “I’ve got you.”
The gargoyle came next, though it took him a moment to squeeze his wings through the narrow hole. When he fell into the cavern, splashing Rory and me with water, he let out a raucous squeal. “And I thought flying was unsavory. But crawling in the earth like an insect-ugh, Bartholomew, look! A worm
!”
Rory put his hand over the gargoyle’s mouth. “The point of a hunt,” he said, “is to catch your prey unsuspectingly. Be quiet or send yourself back up that hole.”
“And abandon Bartholomew to the Omen who tried to smite her last night?” The gargoyle batted Rory away. “What kind of squire would that make me?”
“A good squire is a silent squire.”
“Says the knight without one.”
“Both of you, shut it.” I squinted against darkness. The gargoyle had been right. There were worms in the cavern. Luminous green and blue and purple worms that lit the darkness, clinging to dripping mossy walls, climbing over lichen, over rocks. And while the dissonance of lapping water blighted most of the sound around us, I heard a small hum. The barest hint of a noise, coming from the worms.
“They’re sprites,” I whispered. “Tiny silkworm sprites.”
Rory and the gargoyle raised their eyes to the looming walls of the cavern. Pitch-black, it stretched on and on, and would have been impossible to navigate at night without a lantern. But the sprites, their small glowing bodies, cast an ethereal glow, like stars punctuating a moonless sky, affording us a view of a wide, vast space.