Gwyn Berdara Quotes

You two came looking for me.' 'Of course we did,' Emerie said, interlacing her hand with Gwyn's, then Nesta's, and squeezing tightly. 'It's what sisters do.

Her friends had made it... but she did not want to die. She wanted to live, and live well, and live happily.

Gwyn threw her arms around Nesta. 'I heard you might need us.' Nesta was so stunned to see the priestess that she returned the hug. Mor, a step behind, gave her a concerned nod, and then winnowed away. Emerie was the one to say to Gwyn, 'I can't believe you left the library.' Gwyn stroked Nesta's head. 'Some things are more important than fear.' She cleared her throat. 'But please don't remind me too much. I'm so nervous I really might vomit.' Even Nesta smiled at that.

Do it for the miniature pegasus,' Emerie said. Cassian had no idea what it meant, but Gwyn's lips twitched upward. Nesta laughed. The sound might as well have been a lightning strike to his head for how much it rocked him, that laugh. Free and light and so unlike anything he'd ever heard from her that even Azriel blinked. A true laugh. 'The miniature pegasus,' Nesta said, 'was an illusion. And is now back in his make-believe meadow.' 'He loved Gwyn most,' Emerie teased. 'Despite your efforts to woo him.

Sadistic monsters,' Gwyn hissed as the three friends limped toward the water station, defeat heavy on their shoulders. 'We try again tomorrow,' Emerie swore, sporting a black eye thanks tot the swinging log that had knocked her on her ass before Nesta could grab her. 'We keep trying until we wipe that smug look off their stupid perfect faces. Indeed, Azriel and Cassian had just leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and smiled at them the entire time. Gwyn threw Azriel a withering stare as she strode past him. 'See you tomorrow, Shadowsinger,' she tossed over a shoulder. Az stared after her, brows high with amusement. When he turned back, Nesta grinned. 'You have no idea what you just started,' she said. Az angled his head, hazel eyes narrowing as Gwyn reached the archway. 'Remember how Gwyn was with the ribbon?' Nesta winked and clapped the shadowsinger on the shoulder. 'You're the new ribbon, Az.

Your story is worth telling.

Tell yourself, I am the rock against which the surf crashes. Your thoughts are the surf. Let them crash over you.

I like her,' Nesta admitted. Cassian blinked. 'I don't think I've ever heard you say that about anyone.

I refuse to leave you here.' Emerie's pained face told Nesta enough: she understood. Saw the logic. Nesta said to Gwyn. 'It is the only way.' Gwyn screamed. 'IT IS NOT THE ONLY WAY!' And then she was sobbing. 'I will not abandon you to them. They will kill you.' 'You need to go,' Nesta said, even as her hands began shaking. 'Now.' 'No,' Gwyn wept. 'No, I won't. I'll face it with you.' Something deep in Nesta's chest cracked. Cracked open completely, and what lay within bloomed, full and bright and pure. She wrapped her arms around Gwyn. Let her friend sob into her chest. 'I'll face it with you,' Gwyn whispered, over and over again. 'Promise me we'll face it together.' Nesta couldn't stop her tears. The chill wind froze them on her cheeks. 'I promise,' she breathed, stroking Gwyn's matted hair. 'I promise.' Gwyn sobbed, and Nesta let herself sob with her, squeezing her tightly. Letting her stroking hand come to rest on Gwyn's neck. A pinch in the right spot, exactly on the pressure point Cassina had shown her, and it was done. Gwyn went down. Unconscious.

I sometimes wonder if I shall ever have the courage to go out there again. I fear every day that I won't.' Nesta's smile slid away. She considered her words before she said, 'I feel the same.

Let me make a wish for all of us,' she explained, gathering the three charms. A small gift- for the friends who had become like sisters. A chosen family. Like the one Feyre had found for herself. Nesta squeezed the charms in her palm, closing her eyes, and said: 'I wish for us to have the courage to go out into the world when we are ready, but to always be able to find our way back to each other. No matter what.' Gwyn and Emerie cheered at that. And when Nesta opened her eyes, palm unfurling, she could have sworn the coins glowed faintly.

What did you see?' 'Why?' Nesta asked. 'Do you see things in that darkness?' Her voice was thin. 'No, but some of the others do. They say the dark has trailed them. Right to their doors.' Gwyn shivered. 'I saw darkness,' Nesta managed to say. Her heart would not calm. 'Pure darkness.

Gwyn asked Az, her teal eyes bright, 'What do we get if we finish the course?' Az's shadows danced around him. 'Since there's no chance in hell any of you will finish the course, we didn't bother to get a prize.' Boos sounded. Gwyn lifted her chin in challenge. 'We look forward to proving you wrong.

Gwyn whispered, 'I am the rock against which the surf crashes,' Nesta straightened at the words, as if they were a prayer and a summons. Gwyn lifted the blade. 'Nothing can break me.' Cassian's throat tightened, and even from across the ring, he could see Nesta's eyes gleaming with pride and pain. Emerie said, 'Nothing can break us.

Please tell me all the chocolate is for us.' The House had stocked the table between the armchairs with piles of chocolate truffles and confections and bars of it. Along with cookies and small finger cakes. And a platter of cheeses and fruit. And carafes of water and various juices. Gwyn surveyed the table. 'Did you go to all this trouble?' 'Oh, no,' Emerie said, eyes glowing. 'Nesta's been holding out on us.' Nesta scoffed, but Emerie said, 'The House will get you anything you want. Just say it aloud.' At Gwyn's raised brows, Emerie said, 'I'd like a slice of pistachio cake, please.' A plateful of one appeared before her. As well as a bowl of whipped cream topped with raspberries. Gwyn blinked. 'You live in a magic house.' 'It likes to read,' Nesta admitted, patting a stack of the romances. 'We've bonded over that.' Gwyn whispered to the room, 'What's your favourite book?' One thumped on the table beside Emerie's cake, and Gwyn squawked in surprise. But then rubbed her hands together. 'Oh, this is delightful.' 'That smile means trouble,' Emerie said. Gwyn's grin just widened.

If you were to name a sword, what would you call it?' Gwyn answered, thought she hadn't been asked, 'Silver Majesty.' Emerie snorted, 'Really?' Gwyn demanded, 'What would you call it?' Emerie considered. 'Foe Slayer, or something. Something intimidating.' 'That's no better!' Nesta's mouth tugged upward at their teasing. Gwyn looked to her, teal eyes bright. 'Which one is worse: Foe Slayer or Silver Majesty?' 'Silver Majesty,' Nesta said, and Emerie crowed with triumph. Gwyn waved a hand, booing. 'What would you call it?' Cassian asked Nesta again. 'Why do you want to know?' 'Humour me.' She lifted a brow. But then said with all sincerity. 'Killer.' His brows flattened. Nesta shrugged. 'I don't know. Is it necessary to name a sword?' 'Just tell me: If you had to name a sword, what would you call it?' 'Are you getting her one as a Winter Solstice present?' Emerie asked. 'No.' Nesta hid her smile. She loved this- when the three of them ganged up on him, like lionesses around a very muscled, very attractive carcass. 'Then why keep asking?' Gwyn said. Cassian scowled, 'Curiosity.' But his jaw tightened. It wasn't that. There was something else. Why would he want her to name a sword?

Sadistic monsters,' Gwyn hissed as the three friends limped toward the water station, defeat heavy on their shoulders. 'We try again tomorrow,' Emerie swore, sporting a black eye thanks to the swinging log that had knocked her on her ass before Nesta could grab her. 'We keep trying until we wipe that smug look off their stupid perfect faces. Indeed, Azriel and Cassian had just leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and smiled at them the entire time. Gwyn threw Azriel a withering stare as she strode past him. 'See you tomorrow, Shadowsinger,' she tossed over a shoulder. Az stared after her, brows high with amusement. When he turned back, Nesta grinned. 'You have no idea what you just started,' she said. Az angled his head, hazel eyes narrowing as Gwyn reached the archway. 'Remember how Gwyn was with the ribbon?' Nesta winked and clapped the shadowsinger on the shoulder. 'You're the new ribbon, Az.

Two hours later, Nesta found herself fully clothed in a bathtub in the middle of the private library, the entire thing filled with bubbles. No water, just bubbles. In matching tubs on either side of her, Emerie and Gwyn were giggling. 'This is ridiculous,' Nesta said, even as her mouth curved upward. Each one of their requests had gotten more and more absurd, and Nesta might have felt like they were exploiting the House had it not been so... exuberant in answering their commands. Adding creative flourishes. Like the fact that each bubble held a tiny bird fluttering about inside. Silent fireworks still exploded in the far corner of the room, and a miniature pegasus- Nesta's request, made only when her friends goaded her into submitting one- fed on a small patch of grass by the shelf, content to ignore them. A cake taller than Cassian stood in the centre of the room, lit with a thousand candles. Six frogs danced circles around a red-and-white-spotted toadstool, the waltzes provided by Nesta's Symphonia. Emerie wore a diamond crown and six strings of pearls. Gwyn sported a broad-brimmed hat fit for any fine lady, perched at a rakish angle on her head. A lace parasol leaned against her other shoulder, and she twirled it idly as she surveyed the windows...

Cassian told me only twelve have made it this far,' Nesta murmured to her friends. 'We've already earned the title of Oristian just by being here.' Emerie stirred. 'We could stay up here today, wait it out overnight, and be done at dawn. To hell with any titles.' It was the wise thing to do. The safe thing to do. 'That path,' Nesta said, pointing to a small one along Ramiel's base, 'could also take us down south. No one would go that way, because it takes you away from the mountain.' 'So we'd come all this way and just hide?' Gwyn said, voice hoarse. 'You're hurt,' Nesta countered. 'And that is a mountain in front of us.' 'So rather than try and fail,' Gwyn demanded, 'you would take the safe road?' 'We would live,' Emerie said carefully. 'I'd love nothing more than to wipe the smirks off the lips of the males in my village, but not at this cost. Not if it costs us you, Gwyn. We need you to live.' Gwyn studied Ramiel's craggy, unforgiving slope. Not much snow graced its sides. Like the wind had whipped it all away. Or the storms had avoided its peak entirely. 'Is it living, though? To take the safe road?' 'You're the one who's been in a library for two years,' Emerie said. Gwyn didn't flinch. 'I have. And I am tired of it.' She surveyed the blood-soaked leather along her thigh. 'I don't want to take the safe road.' She pointed to the mountain, to the slender path upward. 'I want to take that road.' Her voice thickened. 'I want to take the road that no one dares travel, and I want to travel it with you two. No matter what may befall us. Not as Illyrians, not for their titles, but as something new. To prove to them, to everyone, that something new and different might triumph over their rules and restrictions.' A cold wind blew off Ramiel's sides. Whispering, murmuring. 'They call this climb the Breaking for a reason,' Emerie countered gravely. Nesta added, 'We haven't eaten in days. We're down to the last of our water. To climb that mountain-' 'I have been broken once before,' Gwyn said, her voice clear. 'I survived it. And I will not be broken again- not even by this mountain.

I am descended from Rabath, Lord of the Western Wind,” Merrill seethed. “Unlike Gwyneth Berdara, I am no lackey to be dismissed.” To hell with this witch. To hell with restraint and hiding. Nesta let enough of her power simmer to the surface that she knew her own eyes glowed. Let it crackle, even as she ignored its wild, unholy bellowing. Gwyn had backed away a step. Even Merrill blinked as Nesta said, “With a fancy title like that, surely such a petty grudge should be beneath you.” Nesta smiled, savage and cruel. Merrill only glanced between her and Gwyn before saying, “Get back to your work, nymph.

If marks of trauma lingered, any evidence was hidden by her robe. But Nesta knew well how invisible wounds could be. How they could scar as deeply and badly as any physical breaking.

I did. She's a piece of work.' Some might say the same of you. Nesta crossed her arms. 'Some might.' She'd have bet that Clotho was smiling beneath her hood, but the priestess wrote, Gwyneth, like you, has her own history of bravery and survival. I would ask that you give her the benefit of the doubt. Acid that felt an awful lot like regret burned in Nesta's veins.

I refuse to leave you here.' Emerie's pained face told Nesta enough: she understood. Saw the logic. Nesta said to Gwyn. 'It is the only way.' Gwyn screamed. 'IT IS NOT THE ONLY WAY!' And then she was sobbing. 'I will not abandon you to them. They will kill you.' 'You need to go,' Nesta said, even as her hands began shaking. 'Now.' 'No,' Gwyn wept. 'No, I won't. I'll face it with you.' Something deep in Nesta's chest cracked. Cracked open completely, and what lay within bloomed, full and bright and pure. She wrapped her arms around Gwyn. Let her friend sob into her chest. 'I'll face it with you,' Gwyn whispered, over and over again. 'Promise me we'll face it together.' Nesta couldn't stop her tears. The chill wind froze them on her cheeks. 'I promise,' she breathed, stroking Gwyn's matted hair. 'I promise.' Gwyn sobbed, and Nesta let herself sob with her, squeezing her tightly. Letting her stroking hand come to rest on Gwyn's neck. A pinch in the right spot, exactly on the pressure point Cassian had shown her, and it was done. Gwyn went down. Unconscious.

After the war, I was in a bad place. I still am, I suppose, but for more than a year after the war...' She couldn't look Gwyn in the eye. 'I did a lot of things I regret. Hurt people I regret harming. And I hurt myself. I drank day and night and I...' She didn't want to say the word to Gwyn- fucked- so she said, 'I took strangers to my bed. To punish myself, to drown myself.' She shrugged a shoulder. 'It's a long story, and not one worth telling, but through it all, I picked taverns and pleasure halls to frequent because of the music. I've always loved music.' She braced herself for the damning judgement. But only sorrow filled Gwyn's face. 'You've probably guessed that my residency in the House, my training, my work in the library is my sister's attempt to help me.' Her sister whom she had still not apologised to, whom she still didn't have the courage to face. 'And I... I think I might be glad Feyre did this for me. The drinking, the males- I don't miss any of it. But the music... that I miss.' Nesta waved a hand, as if she could banish the vulnerability she'd offered up. But she went on, 'And since I'm not particularly welcome in the city, I was hoping you meant it when you said I could come to one of your services. Just so I can hear some music again.' Gwyn's eyes shone, like the sunlight on a warm sea. Nesta's heart thundered, waiting for her reply. But Gwyn said, 'Your story is worth telling, you know.' Nesta began to object, but Gwyn insisted, 'It is. But yes- if you want music, then come to the services. We will be glad to have you. I will be glad to have you.' Until Gwyn learned how horrible she'd been. 'No,' Gwyn said, apparently reading the thought on her face. She grabbed Nesta's hand. 'You... I understand.' Nesta heard Gwyn's own heart begin thundering. 'I understand,' Gwyn repeated, 'what it is to... fail the people who mean the most. To live in fear of people finding out. I dread you and Emerie learning my history. I know that once you do, you'll never look at me the same again.' Gwyn squeezed Nesta's hand. Her story would come later. Nesta let her see it in her face, that when Gwyn was ready, nothing she could reveal would make her walk away. 'Come to the service this evening,' Gwyn said. 'Listen to the music.' She squeezed her hand again. 'You'll always be welcome to join me, Nesta.' Nesta hadn't realised how badly she'd needed to hear it. She squeezed Gwyn's hand back.

What's wrong?' Nesta pressed. Emerie's eyes turned bleak. 'It's... I swear, I can hear my father yelling down here.' Her hands trembled as she lifted one to brush a stand of hair behind an ear. 'I can hear him screaming at me, can hear the furniture breaking...' Nesta's blood went cold. She whipped her head to the downward slope to their right. No darkness lurked there, but they were low enough... 'This place is ancient and strange.' she said, even as she processed what Emerie had admitted. She had never spoken of her father beyond the wing clipping. But Nesta had gathered enough: the man had been a beast like Tomas Mandray's father. 'Let's go up a level, where the darkness doesn't whisper so loudly. I'm sure Gwyn will find us easily enough.

Gwyn did find them, the priestess panting and flushed as she handed out two rectangular parcels, each roughly the size of a large, thin book. 'One for each of you.' Nesta opened the brown paper and beheld a stack of pages filled with writing. At the top of the first page, it merely said, Chapter Twenty-One. She read the first few lines beneath it, then nearly dropped the pages. 'This- this is about us.' Gwyn beamed. 'I convinced Merrill to add us into the penultimate chapter. She even let me write it- with her own annotations, of course. But it's about the rebirth of the Valkyries. About what we're doing.' Nesta had no words. Emerie's hands were once more shaking as she leafed through the pages. 'You had this much to say about us?' Emerie said, choking on a laugh. Gwyn rubbed her hands together. 'With more to come.' Nesta read a line at random on the fifth page. Whether the sun beat hot on their brows or freezing rain turned their bones to ice, Nesta, Emerie, and Gwyneth arrived at practice each morning, ready to... The back of her throat ached; her eyes stung. 'We're in a book.' Gwyn's fingers slid into hers, squeezing tight. Nesta looked up to find her holding Emerie's free hand as well. Gwyn smiled again, her eyes bright. 'Our stories are worth telling.

What did you dream about?' Nesta's body locked up, but she launched back into motion, refusing to let the memories master her. 'I dreamed of the Cauldron. What it did to me.' Gwyn said, playing with her hair, 'I dream of my past, too.' But Gwyn's admission, Nesta's own, didn't weigh them down. Nesta's head had cleared slightly. And somehow, she found she could push herself harder. Perhaps in voicing those truths, they'd given them wings. And sent them soaring into the open sky above.

Finding objects to help our court protect the world is rather exciting. About as exciting as I'm willing to get these days, but it shall be an adventure.