The Knight and the Moth (The Stonewater Kingdom, #1)(5)

“Drink,” the abbess commanded.

I opened my mouth, and the king’s blood poured over my tongue, viscous and warm. It tasted vile. Blood always did.

I swallowed, straining against the urge to be sick.

The abbess began her oration. “Traum is an old name for an even older land. Its history is as outlandish, as lurid, as a dream. But in many ways, its true history began upon this very tor—”

She paused, turning to the king. “Though perhaps a Castor like yourself would not like to hear the story I tell before a Divination. Shall we simply proceed with the dream?”

King Castor shuffled his feet. “I would like to do things the proper way. Please, go on.”

The abbess touched my cheek, a familiar act of silent affection, then continued. “We know Traum and its hamlets like our own five fingers. Coulson Faire, the hamlet of merchants. The scholarly city-heart—the Seacht—the hamlet of scribes. The Fervent Peaks, near the mouth of our river, the hamlet of fishers. The cosseted birch forest, the Chiming Wood, where the foresters dwell. The florid Cliffs of Bellidine, occupied by weavers.”

The abbess sighed. “The old stories vary, of course, but in one way they are all alike. Traum was full of monstrous creatures. Sprites, who roamed the hamlets. Folk tried to fight them, but the hamlets were not unified, floundering without gods, without divine principles, without a ruler. And when none of those things exist—”

There are inevitable tragedies, I recited to myself.

“There are inevitable tragedies.” The abbess’s voice echoed. “Food and coin and children were stolen from the hamlets by sprites. Murder was committed. Crops died, boats crashed, wool was infested by beetles. Soon, Traum’s people were like sprites themselves—wild creatures, strange and ravenous and entirely without virtue.”

“Sounds like a good time to me,” one of the knights muttered.

King Castor managed a shaky grin. I glowered at him from behind my shroud.

The abbess continued. “The deaths grew, and so did discord between the hamlets.”

Until one night.

“Until one night. One dark, lonely night, when the air was so cold it painted the sky an incomparable purple hue, six gods visited Traum.”

A scoff echoed through the cathedral.

Armor rattled and low voices sounded, then one of the knights was pushing away from a pew, his steps loud on the stone floor. He shoved the cathedral door open, evening light flittering through dark hair and over three gold bands in his right ear.

The knight from the road. He cast one baleful look over his shoulder—

Then kicked the ancient wood door shut behind him.

The abbess waited for the echoes of his departure to settle, then continued, unperturbed. “One dark, lonely night, a foundling child left its hamlet and climbed a looming tor in search of food. The tor did not offer much life save whispering grass and gowan flowers and pale moths. But then—a spring! A strange spring at the top of the tor, leaching from a great stone. The child came to the lip of the water—drank deeply.” She drew in an affected breath. “And was swept into a dream.”

I’d heard the story so many times I could see it in my mind. A child, like I’d been when I’d come to Aisling Cathedral, lying in dark water before transfixed onlookers. It made me proud that a foundling—like me—should be the most important figure in Traum’s most sanctified story.

Even if that child didn’t have a name.

The abbess carried on. “When the child woke, sick and weak, it told passersby a vivid tale of six unearthly figures who had visited its wakeless mind—shadowy figures who bore stone objects, each object possessing unique power. The child’s tale grew legs, and folk of the hamlets came to the tor to see the spring. Again and again, the child drank the water and dreamed. In time, the child learned that the movements of the stone objects were presages. And so, the gods who wielded them were named.”

“Omens,” I whispered.

“Omens,” the abbess repeated. She lifted a finger, pointing to the windows on high, and every soul in the cathedral raised their eyes to the stained glass. “The Omen who bore a stone coin, the child named the Artful Brigand. The Omen fitted with the inkwell was christened the Harried Scribe. The Omen who wielded a stone oar was called the Ardent Oarsman. The Faithful Forester carries the chime.” She pointed at the last arched window. “And the Heartsore Weaver employs her sacred loom stone.”

The abbess directed her finger to the final window—the great rose window. “But the sixth Omen bore no stone object. It revealed nothing of itself at all, appearing only as a pale moth on tender wing. Some say it shows itself the moment you are born, others believe it comes just before you die. Which is true”—she opened her palms, like two pans of a scale—“we cannot know. We may read their signs, but it is not our place to question the gods. The moth is mercurial, distant—never to be known, even by Diviners.”

She put a gloved hand to her chest. “Of course, there are those of us who have long believed the Omens are vaster than the dreamscape they occupy. That the moth and the others exist—hidden in the hamlets, killing horrible sprites and swaying the fate of Traum with their magical stone objects. Ever present—always watching.”

Saliva pooled in my mouth, heavy and tasting of iron. It was almost time.