62 pages • 2 hours read
The Knight and the Moth
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Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and substance use.
Part 1: “Aisling Cathedral”
Part 1, Prologue Summary: “Aisling Cathedral”
An unnamed speaker promises to tell a character named Bartholomew a story that is as true as the speaker can recall. The speaker tells Bartholomew that he came upon the highest tor (rocky outcropping) in Traum, upon which rested a grand cathedral. In the cathedral, Bartholomew fell into the spring and learned to divine the signs of the gods, learned to dream, and learned to drown. The speaker doesn’t like to go back to this part of the story but wonders if the rest could exist without it.
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “Six Maidens Upon a Wall”
The protagonist, Six, is a prophetess known as a Diviner in Aisling Cathedral in the Stonewater Kingdom, located in the land of Traum. The kingdom is made up of five hamlets: Coulson Faire, the Seacht, the Fervent Peaks, the Chiming Wood, and the Cliffs of Bellidine. As a child, Six was brought to the cathedral’s abbess as one of six foundling girls raised to be Diviners and to prognosticate through visions. When they arrived, their names were taken, and they were given a number. They have never seen themselves or each other, as they are forced to wear gossamer shrouds over their eyes.
Six slips out of the cathedral’s ambulatory as a nearby sentient gargoyle lectures a fly caught in a spider’s web before freeing it.
