The Knight and the Moth (The Stonewater Kingdom, #1)(2)

It was my first time, seeing the boy-king.

The procession dipped behind a roll in the tor. In ten minutes, it would pass directly beneath the wall where we, like expectant sparrows, perched.

One tapped her chin. “That’s a lot of knights just for a Divination.”

Four grinned. “Lucky for us.”

“I hear this king is a child,” Three said in her usual flat way, like she was reading the words instead of speaking them. “That he shakes at his own shadow. Perhaps he fancied protection in spooky old Aisling.”

“Swords and armor mean nothing here,” I whispered to the wind.

The others nodded.

“On that note—” One reached into the shapeless billows of her dress and extracted six stalks of straw. “Gather, shrews.”

We let out a collective groan, then shifted on the wall. When we’d finished moving, Two stood directly in front of One and her fistful of straw. The game was simple.

Don’t get the short straw.

Two examined the straws, plucking a long straw from the center of the bundle. One pulled from the edge—another long straw. They kept pulling until only a pair of straws remained. After a pause, One took her turn. Yanked her chosen straw free—

And grinned. “The short straw goes to you, Two.”

Two’s chin was high as she looked down the line of us. “Get over here, Three.”

The rounds of the game continued. Two defeated Three and smugly went to stand next to One while the rest of us bit our nails and waited for our turns. Three defeated Four, and so did Five.

By the time Four faced me, her final opponent, she was as rigid as a tin soldier.

Shuffling to a dance only we knew, we rotated along the wall, the sounds from the king’s procession growing louder. Four held the straws in a stranglehold and nodded at me. “You first.”

I studied the frayed yellow edges and chose a long straw.

So did Four. Horses whickered and knights laughed in the near distance. I chose again, another long straw. Another for Four, too.

“The final straws.” Three let out a low whistle. “Worried you’ll be too sick to flirt, Four?”

“Shut up.” Four jerked her chin at me. “Go on.”

I knew what she was thinking. It’s what all of us were thinking. Why we’d played the same game a hundred times before.

I don’t want to be the one to dream.

Wind stirred my cropped silver-blond hair, but my eyes did not leave the straws. The distinct pattern in their tattered yellow tips. “This one.”

The women all leaned forward, and the straws were revealed. Two let out a laugh. “You’re a lucky bitch, Four.”

I’d chosen the short straw.

Four’s laugh was coated in relief. “Just as well, Six. You’re the favorite. You never thrash in the water.”

I took the straw into my toughened palm, the little thing ugly and brittle, then plopped to a seat on the wall just as the procession’s first riders came into view.

The first, riding a pale warhorse with nary a grass stain upon its flank, was the king.

Benedict Castor did not ride with an iron spine the way I’d seen his predecessor, King Augur—gray of eye, gray of hair, cold and disinterested—did. Indeed, King Castor seemed slightly bent in his saddle, creaking in his armor as if unaccustomed to its grip, like a squire playing dress-up. His cheeks were round and his jaw naked. I wondered if he even needed to shave.

“Imagine,” Five said, “seventeen and chosen by the knighthood to protect the faith. Seventeen, and already a king.”

“Everything in the world to prove,” One murmured, looking down at him.

King Castor passed beneath us and did not look up, unaware that he was being watched. But when Four sighed, the king’s bannerman lifted his gaze. When he saw us upon the wall, his eyes went wide. Diviners, he mouthed, though no sound came out. Then, bolder, he called to the knights behind him. “Six maidens upon the wall. Diviners!”

There was a loud shuffle—whickering horses.

The knights rode into view. There were women as well as men within their ranks—all variant in appearance. Some had the distinguished pale hair of the Cliffs of Bellidine, or the sharp, angled features of those who lived near the Fervent Peaks. One knight, axe slung over her shoulder, had charcoal painted around her eyes, distinctive to the Chiming Wood.

“Diviner,” a knight called, raising the visor of his helmet. He was looking up at Four. “Beautiful mystic. I have slain sprites—defended the Omens and the faith. Pray, for my glad devotion, lend a kiss.”

More knights craned their necks, took off their helmets, to survey us better. Some said the knight’s creed in greeting, others threw gowan flowers and pleaded—oh, how they pleaded—for our attention, our words, our kisses, though the wall was too high and we were more satisfied to watch them beg than to offer up our lips.

I leaned forward and tried to see their eyes. The abbess and the five women with me upon the wall all wore shrouds. Besides visitors to the cathedral, the only eyes I regularly glimpsed belonged to the gargoyles. And they, fashioned of stone, were like looking upon the cathedral itself. Astounding to behold—and entirely lifeless.

The bells began to ring.

The king’s procession thinned, the last of the knights riding beneath us. The Diviners moved along the wall with practiced balance to follow, but I remained seated.