The Knave and the Moon — Chapter no 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE BURNING GROVE

The sun rose over the Chiming Wood, and the trees reached their branches toward the sky. They looked like fingers, stretching from darkness toward the day’s first light, yearning to touch salvation.

I was in the washroom again, sitting on a stool, and Rory leaned low, painting dark strokes of wet charcoal over my cheeks. A tradition in the Chiming Wood—to paint the likeness of a skeleton upon one’s face to deter birke. And while I did not need it, it felt good not to wear my veil. To feel the tip of the brush run over my face.

“Hold still,” Rory said, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth as he

focused.

“I am.”

“You’re frowning.” He ran the brush down the ridge of my nose.

“Putting lines in my masterful work.”

The corners of my mouth twitched. Rory dipped the brush back into the wet charcoal. I shut my eyes, and he painted, my browbone, my eyelids, and the hollows beneath. When he was done, I looked up.

“Pretty,” Rory whispered, his eyelashes fanning his cheeks as he looked

down at me.

“I want to paint your face, too.”

He let me, and I spent a full five minutes on each of his eyelids, painting

them, then smudging the charcoal with my finger, wearing it in. “Where are the rings for your ear?” I murmured.

He grinned. Fetched them. One by one I put them back where they belonged.

“There,” I murmured, looking at him. Charcoal around his eyes, morning light catching along the rings in his ear… The pretense had vanished, the knave gone without so much as a farewell. This—rough and roguish, warm gravel in his voice and a flush in his cheeks—was all Rory.

“We’re not strangers anymore.”

He took the brush from my hand. “Should I paint your mouth, too?”

Our gazes caught, the impact so sharp we both drew in a breath. “Yes.”

He inhaled through his nose, and ran the tip of the brush over my mouth, wetting my lips and painting them black. Then he did it again—dipped the brush and spread it over my mouth with arduous slowness.

The gargoyle limped into the room. “I think Bartholomew is painted well enough,” he said pleasantly. “Unless you are trying to do something else to her mouth.”

Rory withdrew, a crimson stain on his cheeks, perused his work, and said in a rough voice, “You’re perfect.”

“Not yet.” There was a clang, a bang, and then Maude was pushing into

the washroom, carrying something bulky.

My breastplate.

I jumped from my stool. “I thought Tory had it.”

Maude nodded. “Yes, well. Took some barking and a few promising threats, but I got the entire panoply—your clothes, too, should you wish them. Diviner robe, more gossamer—”

“I just want the armor.” How strange that looking upon something as hard as steel could soften something in me. “Help me put it on.”

All three of them tended me together, taking the breastplate and applying it to my body with the precision of sculptors molding clay. I stood a little taller, fortified a little better. When they did the straps, I shifted my weight. “I’d forgotten how heavy it was.”

The gargoyle tapped it directly over my heart. “Is it too much to bear?”

I met each of their gazes, Maude’s stoic and green, Rory’s and the gargoyle’s stone, and realized none of them had ever once peered into my eyes hoping to find themselves. They had always, always searched for me.

“Not right now.”

When I stepped out of Petula Hall onto the drive, the light of dawn kissed over the shoulders of my armor. Along the road, folk from the Wood came to watch, drawn by purple banners and the promise of the hunt. They lent their reverence, bowing their heads or staring awestruck at me and Rory and the gargoyle, wrapped in his pink robe and several blankets besides.

Diviner, they whispered. Champion, knave, gargoyle, Aisling. But to Maude —oh, how they smiled. The Bauer name, like the Chiming Wood itself, was a kind of home to the foresters. Men, women, and children flocked to it, lifting their axes, their hands, as she passed by, their ardor as visible as the charcoal around their eyes.

The king might have outgrown us, but devotion, loyalty, is as mighty a currency as gold—Benedict Castor the Third had always taken note of any abundance of wealth. When we joined Edora Eichel near the cusp of the trees behind her house, nobles and foresters and knights alike made room for us—even the gargoyle—and Benji did not confront us. He even tried to smile, that he might siphon some of our goodwill onto himself.

We gathered near the other foresters who’d come for the hunt. All wore weapons, leathers, breastplates, and charcoal upon their faces. Benji kept a sword and small pouch on his belt for the Artful Brigand’s coin, wore a shortbow and a quiver over his shoulders, and kept a net, like the ones they’d used in the Peaks for the feats of strength, on his belt. Still, no paint could hide the bruises Rory had dealt Benji last night. His eyes and ears were swollen, his lips split. Rory waved at him. Winked.

The king glowered, then placed his helmet over his head.

“Bitch,” the gargoyle muttered, smiling to himself.

“Hunters,” Edora called in greeting, her yellow robe catching the breeze.

“Champions, King Castor, Diviner—foresters. Welcome. We begin at the rising of the sun, for the birke are weakest in the light, as are all wicked and terrible things. Your weapon is yours to choose, the rules of the hunt plain —the first to return to my house carrying the limb of a dead birke shall win

the hunt.”

Samuel Eichel nodded. He, like the rest of the participants, wore a weapon on his belt—a sword. But then he reached for a leather pouch, extracting an entirely different weapon.

The Faithful Forester’s chime.

“It is my grandson’s honor to carry the chime that my family once found in our Wood,” Edora said. “With it, we learn the portents on the wind. We learn to feel what we cannot see—”

“The chime did not belong to your family,” Benji said, interrupting her.

“It was gifted to me by the abbess of Aisling Cathedral. Your grandson carries it now as a token of honor that I have bestowed upon him.”

He stepped up to the aged woman. “Your daughter Helena Eichel put me on my knees when last I came to your hamlet, just before she was consumed by sprites.” He unfurled his fist, displaying the Artful Brigand’s coin. “It is my pleasure to find a birke of the Wood in her name and butcher it—and my campaign shall not end there. It will carry on, Aisling Cathedral avenged and the hamlets cleansed of their infestation and blight. Every day shall be a hunt against sprites.”

The knights cheered, and the king’s voice hardened. “It is also my pleasure to accept your fealty to me, Edora Eichel, as I once pledged mine in the sacred grove.”

Wincing, Edora lowered herself to her knees in front of the king. When Benji spoke, his voice came out tinny, distorted in his helmet. “You have done fine work in your hamlet, hunting sprites. But the task is not done.

Never forget, it is not you who brings greatness to the hamlets, but me, the Omens, and my Diviner who speaks for them.”

Edora tried to get up but couldn’t, her wrinkled face lined with pain. The nobles gathered around her, but Maude got there first. She lent her hand, her strength, and when Edora rose, her eyes were not on the king or me or even the stone chime—but to the person who’d bestowed kindness upon her.

“Thank you,” she said.

Maude nodded, then turned to the crowd. “A tournament is a spectacle, and the hunt is a sport. But that does not mean you are entitled to view it.

The birke are dangerous, especially in numbers. Wait along the road where it is safe.”

All eyes were on her as she told of the safeties, and dangers, of the hunt.

Rory came up behind me as she spoke. “Benji is up to something,” he murmured. “Be on your guard.”

“It’s not about the hunt.” My eyes were on Samuel and the stone object in his hand. “It’s about that chime.”

Rory’s hand slid down my arm, something heavy slipping from his hand to mine. I didn’t have to look to know it was the stonemason’s hammer.

“You’ve got wool in case he rings it?”

I drew in a breath. Nodded.

Rory’s voice rumbled against my ear. “If you’re not out of there in two hours, I’m coming in after you.”

“No matter what happens”—I turned to the gargoyle—“you stay put. I don’t want there to be a single more crack in your body when I return.”

He looked up at me like he had no idea what I was saying, only that he

was certain it was wrong.

“Diviner.”

I turned. Tory Bassett was there, hand on my elbow. “A word.”

She took me to the edge of the trees, peering narrowly over my shoulder at Rory and the gargoyle, who made no attempt to hide their intention to eavesdrop.

I looked down my nose at Tory, noting the weapons on her belt. Spear, and dagger. “You’ll be joining the hunt, I presume.”

She nodded, her gaze skirting over my eyes, then landing on my breastplate and staying there. “You seem improved. Is your injury… Are

you…?”

“What do you want, Tory?”

It took her a moment to speak. “The wedding. I knew what Benedict had in mind—we all did. We’d stayed up that night, stripping the trees near Castle Luricht of beech leaves and antagonizing the sprites. The king wanted to make a show of how rotten sprites were after what they’d done to the cathedral—it seemed the right thing to do. A little excessive, but…”

Her gaze fell to her belt. “I hadn’t realized how many would attack, or the condition of their hunger. They came in a fury. I was trying to ward them off when you threw the king’s coin. My aim slipped.”

For all our time together, the only certain thing I knew about Tory Bassett was that her loyalty could be bought with the loom stone. Pith, I didn’t even like the woman. I put a hand to my abdomen, surprised by the

feeling of utter betrayal. “You threw the spear.”

Finally, she looked up. “I was trying to keep you safe. I still am, Diviner.”

Her dark eyes peered over my shoulder, and I turned. Down the tree line, wedged between Samuel and a party of foresters, Benji was watching us through the dark slit of his visor.

“I thought he would be furious with me when I injured you,” Tory whispered. “You almost died, and yet he was eerily heartened. I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that the only thing you ever truly needed protecting against, Diviner, was him.”

Caustic, I whispered, “The king only ever wants things that are useful.

When they are not, by impulse or calculation, he discards them. He did it to his own friends, then again to Dedrick, to Hamelin. Watch your back, Tory.”

I tightened my grip on my hammer. “It would be a shame to see him do away with the one decent knight in his company.”

“Decent?” Her thin lips curled. “Does that mean you forgive me?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. You fucking skewered me. But if you still have it in you to keep me safe”—I held out my free hand—“by all means, join me in the hunt.”

Tory looked down, her brows as tight and skeptical as ever.

“It’s not a holy object,” I told her. “Just a hand to shake.” A second chance.

Slowly, like it was an animal that might bite, Tory took my hand. Shook it. A purple flag waved, and Tory and I moved to the line of participants, wedging ourselves between foresters and the king.

“You really think you can take down a birke, boy-king?” I whispered to

Benji.

He didn’t reply.

I looked back one more time to Rory and Maude and the gargoyle— The purple banner waved again, and the hunters dispersed, Benji, then Samuel Eichel, slipping away with the rest into the dark stomach of the Chiming Wood.

I put the wool balls in my ears, clenched my hammer, and followed, Tory at my heels.

Branches swiping at my face and arms, brambles tangling and snapping along my legs, Tory and I ran through the Wood after Samuel Eichel. He was fast—faster than I’d expected, and while the other hunters crouched low and moved slowly, Samuel hurried, rushing through the Wood.

Left, then right, he weaved, moving up and down ravines and jumping over trees felled by earthquakes, his steps crunching over a sea of yellow leaves. Winded, growing more irritated by the moment, I had half a mind to shout at him, then knock that stupid chime from his hand, but then the Wood thickened, birches growing closer and closer together, and I lost sight

of him.

“Shit.”

“What?” Tory asked.

“Samuel’s gone.”

“What do you want with Samuel?”

“His chime.” I looked back at her. “I’m going to destroy it.”

Her mouth fell open, uncharacteristic shock smoothing out the furrow between her brows.

“You don’t have to come along,” I told her. “Then again.” I touched my abdomen. Made an exaggerated sound. “One might suggest that you owe me, Bassett.”

She didn’t, or couldn’t, argue with that.

The morning light dimmed, snuffed out by the canopy of leaves and branches above my head. The trees were taller, some so close together I had to turn sideways to get between them. Other animals hadn’t been so lucky —there were bones, antlers, of animals who had died between these trees.

I’d been here before. This grove was sacred to folk of the Wood. The exact same place we’d stolen the chime last time. The story doesn’t change, echoed the abbess’s voice in my mind.

The air grew denser, the sharp scent of nettles filled my nose.

Smoke was billowing ahead.

We cast around the sacred grove, searching for Samuel. Hadn’t there been a wooden dais, and stacks of idleweed around it? Hadn’t the sprites been drawn to it last time? I had no doubt if I found the burning idleweed, I

would find Samuel Eichel. But then a breeze flipped through the trees, pushing smoke in my face. I coughed, eyes burning.

There was no seeing ten feet in front of me. I put my hand out to catch

my bearings upon a birch tree—

And touched flesh.

“Pith.”

Tory jumped. “What?”

“Shut your eyes.” The tree—no, the birke—I’d touched was shivering, its pallid skin rippling. One by one the dark knots speckled over its flesh opened. The sprite looked at me, then Tory, with dozens of black eyes.

I hid my hammer behind my back and tried not to scream. “You won’t like these,” I said, pointing at my own stone eyes.

When the birke blinked, its eyelids made squelching sounds.

Tory was holding so tightly to her spear her gauntlets groaned.

“Diviner?”

“Shut up and stay still.” I cleared my throat. Looked up at the sprite. The creature was taller than all the surrounding trees. “I mean no disrespect,” I hedged, voice wobbling, “but would it be all right if I climbed you?”

The only answer I got was dozens of wet blinks.

Timidly, I reached out. Touched its flesh. When nothing happened, I put another hand on the birke, this time upon one of its bough-like limbs. It remained still. I did it again and again, until I found myself off the earthen ground and ten, twenty, thirty feet in the air.

The birke did nothing, save watch me with its dark, terrifying eyes.

Tory was a little speck on the ground. “Diviner?”

I pushed through yellow leaves, hauled myself onto one more branch, tasted fresh air. I was above the smoke now, the vantage clear enough to see yellow flames flickering in the distance, just north of me.

Pyres of idleweed, burning.

“I can see where Samuel’s gone.”

I climbed down, praying I was not putting my foot in some essential part of the birke’s body that might cause it to withdraw its graciousness. But the sprite did not move, and even when I dropped to the ground before it, panting and sweating and more terrified than I’d been in a long while, it did nothing to harm me. It just watched my stone eyes, and I its dark ones, both of us strange creatures in an even stranger land. “There are hunters about,” I

whispered. “Mind yourself.”

I took Tory by the arm. Laughed just a little when she let out a yelp, then led her north. “You can open your eyes now.”

The paths between the trees narrowed, bones that had been strung into crude chimes clacking as we passed. Fingers tight around my hammer, I kept my knees bent and my steps light, combing the smoke until the orange flames of the pyres grew stronger, the smell of idleweed bolder.

There. Between two burning pyres—a dais. It was broken, split down the middle.

In front of it lay the great birke Maude had killed. From its body, gowan flowers grew, tiny specks of white against oppressive smoke and its violent pyre.

Samuel Eichel stood atop the dais, holding his chime, waiting.

“If he rings that thing,” I warned Tory, “your mind will scatter. Put your hands over your ears.”

She already had her hands over her nose, trying to keep the idleweed smoke at bay. “You won’t hurt him, will you?”

“All I want is that chime.”

She nodded. “I’ll come up from behind.”

Tory crept away between trees, and I went forward.

Eyes shut, nostrils wide, Samuel remained on the dais, breathing in the idleweed while I did my best not to. He seemed strangely at ease for a man on a hunt, his gaze pointed inward and not outward as a predator’s ought to be.

I could see Tory now, paces behind him. If Samuel tried to flee, he’d run right into her. Closer and closer I drew, to the dais. And I should have seen it coming. Should have read the signs. But I was so concentrated on the

Faithful Forester’s chime— That I never saw the arrow.

It hit Tory just beneath the jaw, chainmail screaming as the arrowhead broke through her coif and into the flesh of her neck.

Light flickered, and the Artful Brigand’s coin flew, shooting past my head and stirring my hair. Benji appeared out of nothingness. Caught it.

Reached for my ear—and yanked out one of the balls of wool.

“Now, Samuel,” he shouted.

The sound of a chime echoed discordantly through the Wood. My

thoughts fell away like a crumbling floor, the knell knocking loose every terrible thought, every painful memory, I’d ever had.

I was a child, drowning in Aisling’s spring, bruises on my chest from where the abbess held me down. Then I was a woman in the Diviner’s cottage. One’s shape was still embedded in the mattress, but she was gone.

Then—Castle Luricht. I lay on the Artful Brigand’s floor, certain the only

thing I had left to live for was death.

The ringing of the chime ended.

Slowly, my mind picked itself back up.

I lay on my back on the broken pieces of the dais, coughing. Samuel stood above me. I could see wool in his ears. Benji was there, too. My hammer was in his hand, and the net on his belt was gone.

No. Not gone. It was wrapped around my arms, my legs, locking me in a misshapen heap upon the dais. I jerked against my constraints. Spat out obscene language and called Benji every horrible name I could think of.

The net held.

Benji took off his helmet. Removed wool from his ears. “Pith, Six.

Don’t struggle so.” He crouched. “I didn’t want it to be like this. I really did dream that you and I, the boy from Coulson Faire and his holy Diviner, would be different kinds of sovereigns. That Aisling’s power would fall to us. But no matter what I do, I seem destined to be like every other king in Traum. Temporary. Clearly I have gone about everything in the wrong way.”

He shook his head. “Folk already think sprites destroyed the cathedral.

When I tell the nobles those vile creatures are responsible for the earthquake, too, they will rally to my side, no matter what occurred in this tournament.” He lowered his voice. “And when they learn that a birke consumed their precious queen, the last Diviner… well. If they cannot gain faith in our spectacle, they will find it in my bloodied sword.”

He rose to his feet. Threw my hammer down upon the dais. “I’ll be sure to give Rory your final regards. Come, Samuel.” He gestured for his knight to take the wool from his ears. “Lead us out.”

Samuel didn’t move. He was peering over his shoulder, wool still in his ears, nostrils wide as he sucked idleweed into his lungs. Only now his gaze was not pointed inward, but outward.

To Tory. She lay on the ground behind the dais, still clutching her spear,

eyes wide and unseeing, an arrow in her neck and a puddle of blood beneath her.

Slowly, Samuel plucked the wool from his ears. “Sire?”

“I’ll explain after.” Benji rolled his eyes, muttering, “Superstitious nob,” under his breath. “Now, which way out of here?”

Samuel balked. “What about the Diviner?”

“Leave her.”

“You said your intention was to stop the Diviner from competing in the hunt. There are birke about.”

“That’s the point, I’m afraid.” Benji pushed past his knight.

“Benedict—”

“For the love of gods, Eichel—do as you’re fucking told or I’ll rip that chime out of your hand and give it to someone who will.”

Samuel did not move. He held the Faithful Forester’s chime to his breast. “This chime belonged to my mother, and yet you gave it to me like a gift, as if you had not been the one who took it from her when she perished.

But it was not a gift, was it? I see that now.”

He began to shake, and when he did, the chime whispered in tune.

“There have been so many signs, so much strangeness, starting all those weeks ago when we came to Aisling Cathedral for your Divination, King Castor. Five ill portents you garnered.” His brow lowered. “Just like your grandfather, the heretic.”

Benji’s eyes widened and his lips thinned. How disgusted he looked to find out just how flimsy loyalty, even when bought for a hefty sum, truly was. The king shoved Samuel, who fell backward, crashing into one of the pyres and knocking it asunder. Sparks flew and flames jumped, and in no time at all, birch leaves upon the earth lit in flames.

A fire began in the sacred grove.

I didn’t think. I just rolled off the dais, tumbling down the hill toward the edge of the blooming fire. Tory lay there, half of her face hidden by a pool of blood, her hand still gripping her weapon. I wiggled next to her, then rolled, pressing the net tethering my hands against the jagged blade at the end of Tory’s spear.

Meanwhile the king and his knight were still on the dais, flinging words.

“The wind tells us how to feel what we cannot see,” Samuel shouted, “and I’ve felt it for a while. It is not simply sprites or earthquakes that raze the

Stonewater Kingdom, Benedict, but you. Everywhere you go, death and destruction follow.” He gestured to the spreading fire. “You cannot even move through this sacred space without harming it. You are as my grandmother and the other nobles suspect: ill-fitted to rule. When we return to Eichel House, I shall tell everyone what you’ve done to Tory and the Diviner.”

Benji pulled an arrow from his quiver. Fit it to his bow— Samuel struck the chime.

My thoughts jumped away. But even as memories of the tor and Diviners and gargoyles juddered through my mind, a pain lingered in the corporeal world—a blistering agony along my wrists.

When my mind righted, I jerked up. The fire was spreading rapidly, engulfing the sacred grove. It had singed my clothes, my hair. My wrists were still pressed up against the blade of Tory’s spear, the net around them smoldering. I shut my eyes. Clenched my teeth. Harnessed all the strength I

had and yanked.

The net ripped. I was free.

Benji had thrown down his bow and drawn his sword, and so had Samuel. They were fighting now with stone objects and blades, struggling to handle both. But then Benji managed a decent throw. He catapulted through the air, flickering, then appearing behind Samuel. Just as he had to Dedrick, to Rory, he lifted his blade at his knight’s side. Swung— My hammer collided with his sword, its raucous clang louder even than the chime had been. Benji dropped his weapon. Looked over my head.

And let out a shriek. “Birke!”

A great creature with limbs like boughs, with sagging, pallid flesh and dozens of black eyes, moved through the grove, its roots wriggling as it

came toward us with alarming speed.

Benji levied his coin.

“No!” When I swung, hitting him over the breastplate, the king was thrown back. He fell into dirt. Looked up at the birke and the fire raging

around us. Lifted his coin once more— And flickered away.

I coughed, gasping, and so did Samuel. He took my arm, then raised his sword. “Stay behind me, Diviner. I will kill this wretched thing.”

I tried to shout after him, but smoke clogged my throat. Samuel Eichel

rushed forward. He believed in portents, and it must have taken a deal of bravery to throw himself into flames when there was not a single sign that he might make it out unscathed. But he was a man of the Chiming Wood— he had learned since boyhood to keep hitting the tree until it fell.

He struck the birke on its lowest bough, and the creature let out a creaking, crying sound. When it swung its limbs, catching Samuel around the waist, the impact was so great that Samuel was catapulted ten feet back, crashing into the blazing inferno that had once been the dais.

He began to scream.

I rushed forward. Got as close as the fire would let me. It wasn’t close enough. “Give me your hand, Samuel!”

Distant calls clashed against the cracking sound of burning wood, voices echoing in the distance. They were saying my name.

“Sybil! Where are you, Sybil?”

“Sybil!”

Maude, and Rory.

But I was still reaching for Samuel, and he was still caught in the flames. He fell to his knees, writhed, then collapsed upon the ground.

I got on my hands and knees. Threw my arm into the flames, my hammer extended. “Grab hold. I’ll pull you out.”

But he didn’t. He couldn’t. The last thing Samuel Eichel did before his screams stopped and his body went still was toss free the Faithful Forester’s chime. It fell in a heap at my feet, its last notes mournful. I lifted my hammer. Swung once more.

And shattered the chime into a thousand pieces.

“Sybil!”

They were calling me. Desperate.

I turned away from Samuel’s body. But for every direction I turned, there was no path, only flame. The birke was gone, and the air was so dark with smoke I couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe.

“Rory.” I gasped. “Rory—I’m here—I’m—”

A gust of wind cut through the scalding air. I winced against smoke, tears burning in my eyes.

And saw the gargoyle, hobbling through the fire.

His right wing was raised, and though flames licked up and down his body, destroying his robe, he did not flinch, for fire is nothing to stone. He

caught me around the middle and wrapped his arms around me. “Come, Bartholomew. I shall spirit us away like I did last time.”

He sprang into the air, beating his wing.

He did not make it far off the ground—hardly five or so feet. Still, laboring, he brought us out of smoke and into clean air, daylight washing over the both of us.

Maybe it wasn’t always such a bad thing that history repeated itself— that we all got a second chance. Hadn’t this happened before, just like this?

We’d flown from danger, destroyed the Omens, and we would destroy the stone objects and a wicked king, too. Perhaps things could be better than they’d been— The wind picked up, catching in all the fissures in the gargoyle’s body.

He faltered, new cracks spreading through his shoulder and back, climbing like veins into his remaining wing until it, like the entirety of his abdomen, was littered with chasms. He let out a cry, limestone dust filling the air, and between birch trees, like I once had in dreams— We fell.

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