The Knight and the Moth (The Stonewater Kingdom, #1)(69)

Cold and entirely inhospitable, the hall bore only three adornments. A pool, hewn into the stone floor, brimming with water. A throne, gray and lifeless as everything else—

And a mountain of gold.

There were piles of it, stretching like pillars to the lofty ceilings. Coins, gold trinkets. I even saw the rich colors of jewels. A king’s fortune, as vast as the Harried Scribe’s library—all of it covered by a thick layer of dust.

“Quite the banquet hall you have,” Rory said, the room throwing his echo back at him. “Though reaching it proved a bit of a task.”

“I built it myself.” The Ardent Oarsman rounded his pool and stood on one side while Rory and the gargoyle and I remained on the other. “Culled granite and shale from the Peaks. It took time—I’m no stone mason.” His eerie eyes fell to the hammer and chisel on my belt. “But I learned a few things from my time upon the tor.”

His gaze rose to my face. “Was it you who left the spring water for me to find?”

I nodded, staring at his heaps of gold. The shale sprites lay down at its base, like dragons protecting their plunder. “Where did you get all your coin?”

The Ardent Oarsman laughed. A rough, barking sound. “To be feared, to be venerated, to be an Omen, bears great influence—and influence is owed affluence. Aisling’s gargoyles bring me many riches.”

I turned to the batlike gargoyle, but he merely shook his head. “’Twas not I.”

“What will you do with it?” I asked the Oarsman. “Your great wealth?”

“Do with it?” He frowned, as if he did not understand the question. “Measure time by its growth, I suppose.”

Rory scoffed.

But the Ardent Oarsman kept his gaze, unmoving, unblinking, on me. “But you are not like that, are you, Diviner? You have not been brought to me like one of Aisling’s treasures. You’ve simply…” He opened his arms. “Come. Like a little insect, beckoned by a flame.”

“I’ve already said why we’ve come.” Rory’s voice was hot iron. “The new king is taking up the mantle.”

The Ardent Oarsman ignored him. His focus had drifted, now aimed upon the stone oar in his hand. He smiled at it, showing those horrible teeth, and lowered its handle into the pool. Shut his eyes.

And vanished.

He appeared directly in front of me. Took me by the throat—ripped me away from Rory and the gargoyle.

I screamed, a sickening rush stirring my stomach, and then I was vanishing with the Oarsman, his oar propelling us back across the pool. When my feet hit the ground, his stony grip fell from my throat to my waist, and then he was pulling me backward, onto his body—

Slamming the both of us into his throne.

The sprites rose to their feet and screeched.

“Stay your hand, knight,” he called in a booming voice. Then, as if only just seeing the coin locked in Rory’s grip, the Ardent Oarsman barked a laugh. “Where did you get that?”

“Nipped it off an Omen.” I thought I’d seen hate in Rory’s eyes before. I hadn’t. Not like this. “The Artful Brigand is dead. You’re about to join him.”

The Oarsman snapped his teeth, caging me against him. “Throw that coin and I will take a bite out of your Diviner’s throat, and my pets will do the same to you.” He nodded at the shale sprites. “One word from me, and they’ll eviscerate you. Starving things are loyal when fed.” For some reason, that made him laugh. “I would know.”

The gargoyle’s wings were spread, his bottom lip trembling as he watched the Oarsman’s hand return to my throat. And Rory—

Rory was looking at me. Raw and desperate and intent, like he was trying to tell me something. His gaze flickered to my belt.

The Oarsman loomed over me. “I can smell it on you,” he rasped. Hard fingers prodded my hips, my ribs and stomach. “Aisling’s spring water.” His stone eyes were devoid of life. And yet he looked at me with so much hunger. “How much have you swallowed, dreaming in that cathedral of yours?”

The Omen lowered his mouth to my neck. Ran his cold, wet tongue up my throat. He lifted a gnarled finger to my shroud—

I slammed my chisel into his leg.

An inhuman scream echoed through the hall. Blood spilled onto the throne, onto the floor, and then I was fleeing, sprinting around the pool, throwing myself between Rory and the gargoyle, the three of us bracing for the sprites to attack.

They didn’t. The Ardent Oarsman hadn’t commanded them. He was too busy wiping his own blood onto his hand. Bringing it to his mouth.

Licking it clean.

My words came from the dark dregs at the bottom of my stomach. “Tell me the truth. Tell me that you are not a god—that Aisling is a lie. Tell me what has become of my Diviners.”

“Not a god?” He stood from his throne, blood pooling upon the stone seat. “My oar is magic. I dip it in my basin, and can change the tide. Folk look to my waters for portents, for food, for vigor. I am Traum’s life force, her Tenor River, her strength—unceasing and unyielding. What is ungodly about that?”

I felt as I had with the Harried Scribe—as I had in every dream. The animal urge to run. But Rory’s hand found mine, and the gargoyle took the other, and suddenly we were bigger than the looming Omen in front of us. “Tell me where the Diviners are, Oarsman,” I said again.