Everyone turned to me. “I—”

Benji’s brows perked.

“That is…” I cleared my throat. “It is true. What is harrowing is hallowed.” I pitched my voice low in my finest impression of the abbess. “May you, here in the Fervent Peaks, be witness to the wonders of the Omens. Pupils of their portents. Ever but visitors to their greatness.”

The nobles nodded. Avice Fischer raised her hands to the starry sky. “Ever but visitors.”

“Ever but visitors,” Benji repeated.

“Ever but visitors,” the knighthood echoed.

Everyone began to move. We descended crude stairs cut into the rock, so wet and precarious I had to catch the gargoyle’s arm to keep from slipping. I heard a low, steady roar.

The waterfall. The basin.

There were no torches down by the water—only moonlight lit our way. More than one knight stumbled over rocks as we came to the lip of the basin. When we stopped, the knighthood spread into a line. One by one, the five fishermen threw their nets into the basin.

Benji began to strip his armor.

First off was his helmet. Then his gauntlets. His vambraces and pauldrons and breastplate. He set the pieces of his armor on the ground, and one by one the knights picked them up, as if guarding pieces of him.

When Benji wore only his padded shirt and pants, he looked like a boy who’d snuck out of bed to meet his first lover under the night sky. But his face was pale, the ruddy quality of his cheeks diminished. He had none of a lover’s mischief or ardor—all I could see was dread in his eyes.

He stripped his shirt, then lastly his pants, shivering.

“What the hell is he doing?”

“Prostrating himself.” Maude’s voice was hard, and so were her eyes.

The king stood before his knighthood and the Fervent Peaks’ nobles, stark naked. I wanted to turn my head. Wanted to look anywhere but at his cold, vulnerable flesh. And I wondered—

Is this how he felt, watching me in my wet robe, standing in the spring at Aisling?

Benji got into the basin. The fishermen’s nets were there. Wordless, he swam out to them. Wrapped himself within them.

“That water must be freezing,” the gargoyle said.

“This is what the king is,” Maude murmured. “Subservient—bereft of any creed except to be a witness, a pupil, a visitor to the Omens. A symbol of faith.”

I shook my head. “The nobles make a spectacle of him.”

“The hamlets care about their spectacles. Their gods, their ceremonies. And Benji wants to please them. So for now, that means making a show of playing along.” She never took her gaze from the king. I hadn’t noticed before, but the straps of her armor were loose. As if she needed to be able to tear it off at any moment. “He won’t freeze. He’s stronger than he looks.”

“How long will the ceremony last?”

“He’ll be in that water an hour.”

I wrapped my arms around myself, cold to my bones. Then—a warm presence moved to stand behind me, and a hand pressed against the small of my back. I knew without looking who it was.

Rory carried a silver flask. Even with its stopper in, I caught the faint scent of its contents. Sweet rot—Aisling’s spring water.

Rory dropped his mouth to my ear. “Time to be a good little soldier.”

I shivered. Turned to the gargoyle. “I’ll return shortly.”

Rory took my arm. An unreal whooshing feeling seized my body, and Rory and I went utterly invisible. When we reappeared, we stood away from the basin. Rory set the silver flask upon a stack of shale rocks, undid its stopper, then grasped my arm again, and his coin flew.

We landed high upon a ridge between rocks. It had an impressive vista and kept us deep in shadow, directly above the shale where he’d placed the flask.

“Our little lure.” Rory let go of me. Settled against rocks. “Now, we wait.”

Our lookout was cloaked in mist. I wrapped the wool cloak Maude had given me under my chin and watched my breath steam out of me.

“So.” Rory pulled a stem of idleweed from his cloak, fumbled for flint rock he did not have, then begrudgingly tucked it back. “What do you think of the Peaks?”

I shushed him with a hiss. “We’re trying to be covert.”

He snorted. “Right. Sorry.”

I looked out over the vista.

After a long pause, Rory’s voice quieted. “Thanks for what you did back there,” he said. “For saving Benji the way you did.” He blew out a breath. “You make a better knight than most.”

“Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not.”

I kept silent. Then—“Back at the Seacht. When the water sprite bit my hand. You said compassion is a craft. That when it comes to sprites, you try to exact it.” My brow knit. “That’s not a knightly virtue, is it? It’s one of yours.”

“Who said I had virtue?”

I glowered through darkness.

Rory blew out a breath. “No sprite ever took advantage of me when I was a foundling boy. No sprite ever beat me. Used me.” I couldn’t see his eyes. But I knew they were on me. “No sprite told me I was special, then hurt me.”

I understood exactly what he meant, and wished I didn’t.

A light rain began, and I drew my cloak closer around me.

“I see you’re still not wearing those boots I gave you,” Rory said. “Worried I might take it as a sign of encouragement?”

My gaze shot to his dark silhouette. “Maude got me those.”

“Did she?”

I said nothing, and he chuckled. “Rest easy, Diviner—I’m well aware I repulse you. No need to get frostbite on your toes to prove it. They’re just boots.”

I stayed quiet.

“You’re really not going to talk to me?”

“Wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

“I’m full of wrong ideas.” Rory paused. “Is this about what happened in the forge?”

“Nothing happened in the forge.”

Silence unspooled between us, pulled taut by the sound of our breathing. It was only because it was too dark out for me to see his expression, or he mine, that I asked, “Are you married?”

Rory coughed. “Come again?”

“Four fiddled with a married knight. Not on purpose—he didn’t tell her he was wed. And I thought… maybe some of you were married and not saying so when you came to Aisling, because you thought you were there for our enjoyment, or we for yours.”

I heard the slow sound of his exhale. “And if I was married? That would, what? Bother you?”

There was a monster in my gut, scratching its way up my throat. “Are you?”

He took his time answering, like he knew I was suffering and wanted to savor it. “No, Diviner. I’m not.”

The monster withdrew, nicking my dignity before settling once more into the pit of my stomach. “Is there anyone you fancy? A fellow knight, maybe?”

“That’s not done,” Rory murmured. “No bed relations within the knighthood.”

“You said the rules have exceptions. That you becoming a knight is proof of it.”

“Yes, well, there are a few tenets even I haven’t broken. I don’t fancy another knight.” I could hear a smile in his voice. “Now be quiet. We’re trying to be covert.”

I settled against the rock and set my gaze once more upon the flask of spring water below. Somewhere an owl was hooting. I could hear the waterfall roaring in the distance, a steady purr against the night’s stillness—

“Was there ever someone you fancied?” Rory asked. “Someone who came to the tor and caught your eye?”

I grinned into the dark. “Why? Would that bother you?”

He didn’t answer.

“I’ve had a few dalliances. Nothing stuck.”

“Why not?”

“Same as your knighthood. Aisling bars bedfellows. Any flirtation I had was over before it started. And knowing that nothing would last, I could never—”

I stopped short, swallowing embarrassment.

“Never what?”

“Nothing.”

He didn’t let it go. “Never…?”

“I could never get comfortable. Never feel what you’re meant to feel. You know—losing oneself with someone else. The unraveling.” My face was so warm it hurt. “The little death.”