The Knight and the Moth (The Stonewater Kingdom, #1)(11)

“Why?”

“Benji would like to know.”

“Who?”

“Benedict Castor.” His eyelids lowered in annoyance. “The king.”

Brazen, this knight. The title of king might not carry the same influence as the abbess’s, or even as a Diviner’s, but he was still majesty or sire. Nothing as dull and flippant as Benji.

My stomach made an appalling squelching sound. “Yes. I’ve been in the cathedral.”

The knight’s gaze, his face, proved a challenging translation. His eyes were unfathomably dark, catching moonlight and gifting it back as he surveyed me. All I could read of him was that he did not like my shroud. He’d glance at it, frown, then look at a spot above my head, like he’d rather talk to the air than a half-obscured face. “Is it the blood or the spring water that makes you vomit?”

“None of your business.”

He took another drag off the branch he was smoking, then held it out to me. “Here.”

“What is it?”

“Petrified idleweed. It’ll help with the nausea. With the discomfort.”

I smiled, hostility seated on my lips as my gaze flitted to the bruises along his side. “I’m not the one enduring discomfort. Beyond this conversation, at least.”

He smiled back, equally hostile. His teeth were white, straight—except the front bottom three, which were crowded. A pallid row of disorganized soldiers. Were he to bite me, I imagined the indent would be as unique as his fingerprint.

What a horrible thought.

“With the nausea, then.” Smoke plumed from his nostrils. Again, he offered the idleweed. “Or it is a bad portent—smoking under a silver moon?”

“Not everything is a sign.”

“Could have fooled me. I can’t go anywhere in this wretched kingdom without hearing about how a coin fell or ink spilled or water moved or the wind chimed or a fucking thread snapped.” He shook his head. Laughed without warmth. “It’s clever, Aisling’s system. The stone objects the Omens are known for are common, their portents vague. The margin for error and misinterpretation is so wide my horse would die of starvation trying to get from one end to the other. And yet this cathedral, this hallowed ground, is the only place in Traum where people can justify that wasting one’s life looking for signs is a life well spent. They pay hard-earned coin to do so.”

The shock of his irreverence whipped through the air. I felt its sting upon my cheek. This kind of blasphemy was something the knighthood was supposed to root out of the hamlets, not cultivate within their ranks. Not in my ten years at Aisling had someone dared speak to me this way. What a vile man, unworthy of his station. I’d known it from the moment I’d clapped eyes on him that he was crude. Indecent.

The foulest knight in all of Traum.

My entire body bristled. “It’s not a waste. Divination takes away the pain of the unknown. Knowing if you are headed for something good or ill-fated is like peering into the future. It’s magic what the Omens do. What I do.” I leaned against the gate and ripped the idleweed from his hand. “Show some fucking deference.”

He watched me through eyes so dark I’d lost sight of his pupils. When he spoke, low and deep, it was like two voices sounding at once. That warm, rich tone—and a deep rasp, like knuckles dragged over gravel. “What’s your name?”

I brought the idleweed to my lips and drew in a tentative inhale. The smoke burned down my throat, sharp and hot. “What’s your name?”

“Rodrick Myndacious.” He winced, like he’d strung an out-of-tune fiddle. “Rory.”

My eyes watered. The smoke in my lungs had gone itchy. A cough that refused to be dampened bubbled in my throat. I put a sleeve to my mouth and hacked.

The corner of Rory’s mouth twitched.

“Six.”

His brows lifted. “Six.”

Oh. A fuzzy feeling was settling into me. The nausea in my stomach had uncoiled. Another puff of the idleweed and it was gone. Another, and the hollowness in my limbs was replaced by a warm, blanketing haze—

“That’s plenty.” Rory plucked the idleweed, which was just about gone, from my mouth. He dragged it over his bottom lip, took a final pull, and dropped it onto the path. “Six is a number, not a name.”

“We don’t deign to speak our real names.”

“Just like you don’t show your eyes?” His gaze flickered over my shroud. “Why is that, by the way? No one seems to know.”

I kept my lips sealed.

“So, it’s a secret.” He nodded. “And I suppose it’s also a secret why no one but high and holy Diviners are allowed to drink Aisling’s spring water.”

I thought of the flagon in King Castor’s hands. “It’s been attempted. Only a few years ago, a merchant from Coulson Faire was so desperate to see the Omens’ signs he rushed down the nave and drank from the spring like a pig from a trough. The gargoyles clocked him over the head and dragged him into the courtyard. He didn’t dream, of course, but he did vomit until he was sobbing. So, tell your king to go ahead and drink his stolen spring water. Just take care to mind your boots.”

Rory glowered, and I rolled my shoulders. “Only Diviners dream,” I said.

“But what is a Diviner, really? A foundling?” He looked me up and down. “The abbess strips you of name, face, clothes, distinction—cloisters you to the cathedral grounds, where you are destined to drink blood and drown and dream. You know of the Omens and signs and how to look down your nose at everyone, but nothing of what really goes on in the hamlets. Nothing of the real Traum that awaits you the moment your tenure is up—which, given your age, can’t be too long now.” He sucked his teeth and grinned at me in a way that was not at all friendly. “Careful, Number Six. Someone will accuse you of having too much fun up here on this god-awful hill.”