The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig – Review

Published: May 20, 2025

Publisher: Orbit

Series: The Stonewater Kingdom #1

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Pages: 400 (Hardcover)

My Rating: 4.5 Stars

Synopsis:
Sybil Delling has spent nine years dreaming of having no dreams at all. Like the other foundling girls who traded a decade of service for a home in the great cathedral, Sybil is a Diviner. In her dreams she receives visions from six unearthly figures known as Omens. From them, she can predict terrible things before they occur, and lords and common folk alike travel across the kingdom of Traum’s windswept moors to learn their futures by her dreams.

Just as she and her sister Diviners near the end of their service, a mysterious knight arrives at the cathedral. Rude, heretical, and devilishly handsome, the knight Rodrick has no respect for Sybil’s visions. But when Sybil’s fellow Diviners begin to vanish one by one, she has no choice but to seek his help in finding them. For the world outside the cathedral’s cloister is wrought with peril. Only the gods have the answers she is seeking, and as much as she’d rather avoid Rodrick’s dark eyes and sharp tongue, only a heretic can defeat a god.

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Ever since I read The Shepherd King duology, I’ve been excited to see what Rachel Gillig would do next. The Knight and the Moth is the first in another gothic fantasy duology that has a delightful romantic subplot. Not quite enough to call it romantasy in my opinion, but I think it’s being labeled as such. 

The Knight and the Moth follows Sybil Delling, also known simply as Six, who is one of six Diviners residing at the magical spring of Aisling Cathedral. The Diviners are all orphan girls who give a decade of service to the Abbess where they drown in order to dream of the six Omens and predict the future for those who seek their guidance. All at a cost of course.  The new King of Traum comes to Aisling with his retinue to seek a divination and Six drowns to see a terrible future. With his retinue is Rodrick Myndacious (Rory), a knight of considerable skill, a skeptic of the omens, and reluctant party to what he considers to be nonsense. He accuses Six of knowing nothing of the outside world (true), and Six insists that he accompany the Diviners to a nearby village so they might experience something of the world beyond. 

Their decade of service nearing its end, the Diviners dream of their life after Aisling until one by one Six’s sisters begin to disappear. Though the Abbess sends gargoyle’s to search for them she seems remarkably unconcerned about the missing Diviners and so Six sets off on her own to find them with only the company of the bat-like gargoyle that so often accompanied her around Aisling and who calls everyone Bartholomew. The pair soon meet up with the King and Rory who encourage them to join in the quest to kill the Omens and take their magical objects.

The atmosphere in The Knight and the Moth was on point. Bleak moorland with a looming cathedral, a birch forest where the rustling leaves and the eye-like patterns on the bark put you on edge, wicked sprites hunting for travelers. Rachel Gillig absolutely knows what she’s doing when crafting imagery. Sybil and Rory are also a wonderful duo, sniping at one another even as they feel an inexorable draw toward the other. Admittedly, I also really dig the idea of Sybil seeing through this gauzy shroud and the parallel of Rory’s coal blackened eyes. Just some good, memorable imagery. 

Overall, The Knight and the Moth was deserving of the hype surrounding it and stands as another fine installment in Gillig’s catalog of work. This is the first in The Stonewater Kingdom duology and I have to admit, I think this would have been perfectly fine as a standalone if certain events at the end had played out slightly differently. I will likely read the second installment because I am curious, but I hope the story doesn’t suffer for the sake of a publishing contract. If you’re looking for a gothic fantasy with romantic tendencies or have a yearning for more lady knight books, I highly recommend The Knight and the Moth!