A Knight and The Moth by Rachel Gillig

Sybil Delling has taken her new role as Diviner seriously. She is to give up ten years of her life to the service of the Omens, the gods. By being chosen, she is able to dream of people’s futures, and many come and pay for these services. While Sybil is good at what she does, she hates the dreaming very much. It is like a nightmare for her, but she has done her job for more than nine years. Sybil lives with five other girls, also Diviners. The six of them do not know each other’s names. They only go by the names of One, Two, Three, and so on. Sybil is known as Six. They also wear a shroud over their eyes and have gargoyles that help keep the temple clean and protect them. The Diviners all answer to the Abbess, a mother-like figure, and Sybil is her favorite.

Sybil is chosen to be the Diviner for the new king who is coming to visit. King Benedict Castor arrives at the temple and shares his blood so Sybil can go into the holy spring water and dream. With him, he brings his knights, and Sybil immediately has a rough interaction with one of them who doesn't believe in what she is doing. Sybil starts her dream for the king (which first involves being drowned), and what she sees is not good—five bad omens for the young King Benedict. She tells him and then needs time to recover. On her way back from recovery, she runs into the same knight from earlier. She learns his name is Rodrick. He continues to tell her that what she is doing is meaningless, this time in front of the king and the other soldiers. Rodrick tells her that she needs to loosen up, offers her something to smoke and drink—it’s the holy spring water that she uses to divine from. No one else is supposed to drink from it, but when she smells it, she promptly throws up all over Rodrick. She runs away.

The next day, Sybil is still angry with Rodrick, and as she is talking to the other girls, she makes a plan. Their ten years of service are almost up. Sybil wants to go out and see more of the world, including the festival that is happening that night in town. Despite their rules of not leaving the cathedral, the girls agree to go out. So Sybil goes to Rodrick and the other soldiers to ask for their assistance and protection to sneak them out. Rodrick gives her a hard time and says he won’t. She even tries to blackmail him with the spring water, but he doesn’t care. She leaves angry again, but later that night, she finds a note from him that tells her they all need to be ready that night.

Rodrick and some other knights arrive back at the temple to take the girls out. They have their disguises, and Sybil is ready to explore. She goes as far as flirting with one of the knights, but it doesn’t go too far. At one point in the night, Sybil gets recognized as a Diviner and starts to get attacked, but Rodrick shows up and saves her and takes her back to the festival. There, King Benedict asks her for a dance. He has had one too many drinks and insists on a dare. Rodrick, or Rory as Benedict calls him, is to not make any movement or reaction to any of the three Diviners. If he moves or reacts, he has to get his life read by that Diviner. Sybil is the one to make him move, and that night, Sybil’s favorite gargoyle (who calls everyone Barthlowmew) drowns her to read for Rory. She sees a sixth omen—a moth—and nothing else. When she wakes, Rory has already left with everyone else, and it gives her an uneasy feeling. That feeling gets worse when, the next morning, Four has disappeared. They go out to look for her, thinking maybe she went with the king and his knights, but the next day, Two is gone. Sybil, not liking that, decides to visit the Abbess. She doesn’t show the same concern as Sybil. She dismisses her, and the next morning, Three is gone. Desperate, Sybil takes her gargoyle to go see the king. He is not in residence, and when she gets back to the cathedral, Five is gone. That night, One and Six are the only ones left, and One decides to take off her shroud. She gasps and asks what they did to her. She puts it back on. That night they try to stay awake, but they both fall asleep and One is gone.

That night, Six, all by herself, pinches herself to stay awake. When someone sneaks into her room, she panics until she realizes it is Rory. He heard that a Diviner came to the castle to ask for help, and he was sent by the king to find out why. Rory takes Six with him, but they have to fight all the other gargoyles to get out. One gargoyle—Six’s favorite—comes with them, saying that he needs to protect Six. To get out of the cathedral, Rory uses a special coin that rematerializes them through walls. When Six sees that, she believes it is one of the omen tokens, but she doesn’t want to ask about it. On their way out, they run into the Abbess, who says it is a shame that Six is doing this.

They make it to King Benedict. He is saddened to hear about the Diviners but offers Six a chance to come with him and his knights on their quest. He doesn’t give much information but says there is a chance she might find answers along the way. Six is introduced to another female knight, Maude Bauer, who she becomes friends with quickly. Their first stop is to an old scribe, who Six realizes has stone eyes. Benedict wants to challenge him for his ink pot. It’s then that Six realizes that he and Rory are going after the Omens. The scribe accepts, and with the help of Six, they defeat the scribe and get his ink pot. Six then wants some answers from Benedict and Rory. They are both working on killing the gods—Omens—thus making everything that Six has done for the past ten years of her life worthless. She runs away.

After processing all of that, she makes her way back to Benedict. He claims that his grandfather is the reason he is doing this. He has known that the Diviners are useless and fake, and Benedict wants his throne to be strong, so he needs to destroy them for his people. He officially offers her a job—to stay as a Diviner in looks but come with him as he goes to destroy the Omens and collect their tokens. She agrees, as long as she is allowed to keep looking for the other Diviners.

On their way to look for more Omens, they are ambushed. Rory tells Six to hide, but instead she takes her chisel and hammer (the only item she feels comfortable with) and waits in the trees for a moment she might be needed. She sees Benedict surrounded and realizes he is about to die. She goes off to help him and ends up saving the young king. Everyone, Maude and Rory included, is impressed with Six. Later on, Rory tells Six that she needs armor, so he helps fit her, which puts the two in a fun position.

They then find the next Omen, but in order to get his token, he will choose someone to fight him. He chooses Six, and she has three days to prepare for the fight. Rory takes it seriously. He trains her relentlessly. Maude even helps, even though she doesn’t believe that Six will be able to do it. The night before the duel, Rory takes Six to a hot spring to relax, where she reveals that she can’t swim. The two get a little bit closer, but Rory won’t let them go farther and tells Six she should go back and get sleep.

The next day is the duel, which happens to take place in the water. When the Omen comes for her, he claims that he drank blood from the last Diviner, and he can’t wait to do it to her as well. He will relish it, knowing that it will be the last time to drink a Diviner’s blood for ten years. While fighting, he also reveals that all of the missing five Diviners are dead, and now Six is frantic in her fight. At one point, her shroud gets thrown off, and she grabs the Omen and starts to drown herself and him. She manages to kill him, but Rory has to go in after her to save her. She starts to have a fever dream, half in her real body and half dreaming, and she can’t tell what is real. But she wakes with a new shroud over her eyes and very sore. She goes to Benedict, who now insists she call him Benji like everyone else does. While there, she finds a journal of his grandfather, who turns out knew a lot about the Diviners, and Benji hasn’t been sharing all the info with her. She leaves in anger, but Rory finds her and brings her back to heal. Gargoyle, the ever-perfect soldier, tells the two that they should just share their feelings for each other so they can be happy.

Benji wants to see Six again. In an attempt to fix their relationship, he offers her a full-time position as a knight. She agrees, and before the ceremony, she shares her real name with Rory. She knows that being a knight might take her life, and if she dies, she wants someone to know her true name. She is knighted, and even during the ceremony, Rory tells her she doesn’t have to agree to everything—she can pick what she wants to follow. That night, Sybil goes to Rory, and they kiss. He takes her shroud off and thinks she is beautiful. They spend the night together. She panics a little in the morning when he isn’t there, but Rory comes back and still says she is beautiful and wants to be with her.

Benji then wants to move on and continue their quest. They travel but are halted by a storm. Sybil starts to realize that Benji seems more confident than before and has even stopped drinking. He is finally becoming the king that his people need. At some point, Six tells Benji her true name—Sybil. That night, after another moment with Rory, she wakes to footsteps and a hooded figure in her room. It attacks her but runs away before anyone else can see it.

They decide to make a move for the Loom Stone, believing that was the Omen Sybil saw the night before. To get the Loom, they need to go down the tunnels. There are a lot of options, so they split up. Gargoyle, Sybil, and Rory go together, and their tunnel leads into water. They almost drown, and Rory even drops his coin. He decides to go back for it, but while he is under the water, Sybil is drawn to another. It is the figure from the night before—the Heart Stone Weaver. Next to her is One, dead. The Weaver says it was the best burial she could give the Diviner. The Weaver then tells a story of her past life as a Diviner. She dedicated her life, but the spring water turned her eyes to limestone, then spread to the rest of her body, turning her into a gargoyle. She then says there was one gargoyle who meant a lot to her—it was the very first Diviner. His name was Barthlowmew. She then says if Sybil wants the Loom, she will tell her where it is, as long as she promises to kill her. Sybil promises and kills her.

After that death, Rory and Gargoyle find her. Sybil asks Gargoyle to tell his story, the one he believes is really Six’s story. He was the first Diviner and good at what he did, until he rebelled and the Abbess retaliated. He was denied spring water, thus turning him into a gargoyle and forced to bring other female Diviners to her.

With the Weaver’s information, they go back to where it all started—the cathedral, which is where the Loom is. The Abbess is there waiting for her, and she has the Loom. She admits to killing all the Diviners. She says that even if Sybil kills her, she will always find a way back to the spring to continue the work. Sybil kills her, turning her to dust until there is nothing left, and gets the last Omen. But Sybil realizes that the spring water itself is the last object, not the Loom. She and Rory destroy the cathedral so the spring will be buried.

On their way out of the cathedral, Maude and Benji are also there. Benji strikes Rory and turns to Maude. He realizes that he no longer has the allegiance of Rory—he will do anything for Sybil. He also knows that what he is about to do next will make it so Maude will no longer follow him either. Benji puts his new plan in place. He expects Sybil (or Six, as Benji calls her) to marry him. They will continue to tell the people that the religion is alive and well, and that there is only one Diviner left—Six. Having her at his side will make him look strong and put a lot of people on his side. Sybil agrees, as long as Maude, Rory, and Gargoyle can leave. He agrees, and she is separated from the only people that she truly loves.