The Knight and the Moth (The Stonewater Kingdom, #1)(72)

And send me sprawling with a single push. “Come on, Diviner. Move those flat feet.”

When he sent me sprawling a second time, I slapped the ground.

“Again.”

But I couldn’t catch him. And the rage of that made me even clumsier.

“Are you embarrassed to be bad at something?” Rory asked. “Or just embarrassed to be bad at it in front of me?”

“Fuck you.”

“Don’t take it so personally.” He flickered away.

This time I didn’t chase him. “But it is personal. The craft of Divination is a lie, and for ten years, I was its most devoted student. If there are no gods, then being their harbinger means nothing. I was never important—being scared and tired and ill was for nothing. I drowned for nothing.” My hands, my voice, shook. “And now the Diviners are gone, and it is up to me to find them, because no one else is searching. It’s all personal, this business with the Omens. You of all people should know that.”

Rory had stopped throwing his coin. He stood opposite me, hair in his eyes, soaked by rain, the muscles in his jaw bunching.

I sprang forward.

The coin never had the chance to leave his hand. I was already there, crashing into him, arms around his waist, shoulder in his diaphragm. I bared my teeth, muscles screaming.

And hurtled the both of us onto the ground.

I didn’t know where to put my hands. But there was a beast in me, and when Rory hit the stone with a sharp exhale, coin in his fist, I slammed his wrist to the ground, clambered over his body until I was astride his chest, took my other hand—

And pressed it over his throat. “Can’t you understand it’s all been personal?”

Neither of us did anything but pant, our breaths muting—or transmuting—the ire between us. I looked down at him through a rain-soaked shroud and he up at me through impossibly dark eyes, and for that moment we were his coin—two sides, perfectly balanced. His speed, my strength, like it was chance, only chance, that had determined which of us had come out on top.

Rory’s throat hitched under my palm. His wild pulse was everywhere. In his neck, his chest—in my own body.

“All right,” he said, his voice grating out of him. “It’s personal. If I was any good at talking to you, maybe I’d have already said that, because it’s personal for me, too.” His eyes dropped to my mouth. “It wasn’t for nothing, Diviner. You are important. You’re…”

He stopped himself. Looked down at my arm over his neck. Grinned. “You should know, if you’re going for the throat—”

Rory caught my arm with his free hand and wrenched me forward until it was my forearm, not my palm, pressing against his neck. “Up close is better. More control, less room for him to hit you or knock you aside.” Embers stoked his voice. “Lean forward.”

My thighs flexed around his ribs. “I’ll choke you.”

“As if you haven’t imagined a thousand ways to strangle me.” He bucked his hips and my weight shifted forward, my chest falling flat over his, my forearm pressing into his throat.

“Good.” Rory’s breath caught. “Just like that.”

Rain sluiced from my hair, falling down my nose, over the curve of my mouth, then dropping onto his. I looked down at his lips, and he up at mine, the distance between us eclipsing like a celestial movement, staggering and inevitable. I could feel the plane of his body—and the moment it hardened. Rory flushed. Slowly, his left hand rose to my face. He hooked my chin with his thumb and pressed, parting my lips directly over his. Then he was pushing up, his mouth ghosting over mine—

“You two still sparring?” someone called over the rain. “Or have we shifted tactics?”

I jerked back. Benji and Maude stood paces away. The gargoyle was there, too, poking raindrops out of the air. “I say, Bartholomew,” he said distractedly. “Are you quite well?”

I peeled myself off Rory faster than I’d run my warm-ups. “I’m fine.”

“I meant that Bartholomew.” The gargoyle flicked a stone finger at Rory. “The knave looks undone.”

Rory was still lying on the ground, breathing hard, eyes unfocused. I watched his chest rise and fall, and then he was scraping a hand over his face, rising to his feet, and coming to stand next to Maude and the king.

I noticed then how rigid Maude stood. How low her brows were over her green eyes. “Three days isn’t much time.”

Benji was red around the nose and wearing an extra cloak, like he hadn’t yet warmed from being in the water during the ceremony. “We’ll get her ready.” From his pocket, he withdrew the Harried Scribe’s inkwell. Smiled at me. “By any means.”

Maude’s features twisted in a knot. “That’s her weapon? Scalding ink against an oar?”

I could hear the doubt in her voice. It felt like a sign—a portent. A terrible omen.

“I’ve a better idea.” Rory held out his hand under her nose, the Artful Brigand’s coin waiting in his palm.

He turned his gaze to me. There was still a hint of red in his cheeks. “Do you know how to skip a stone, Diviner? Throw it flat?”

“Yes.”

He beckoned me forward. When I reached into his palm and took the coin, I was surprised by how heavy it was.