A Court of Silver Flames
“I’ll be there.” Nesta shifted on her feet. “I think I need something like that.” At Gwyn’s quizzical look, Nesta said, “I …” She fumbled for the smoothest way to say it. “I …”
Gwyn slid her hands into the robe’s pockets, her face open—waiting.
Nesta finally said, letting herself voice the words, “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 judgment. 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 apologized 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 realized how badly she’d needed to hear it. She squeezed Gwyn’s hand back.
CHAPTER
52
The wooden pews that filled the massive, red-stoned cavern were packed with pale-hooded figures, their blue gems glimmering in the torchlight as they waited for the sunset service to begin. Nesta claimed a spot on a pew in the rear, earning a few curious looks from the hooded females who filed past, but no one spoke to her.
A dais lay at the far end of the space, though no altar sat upon it. A natural stone pillar rose from the ground, the top flattened into something like a podium. Nothing else. No effigies or idols, no gilded furniture.
A silver-haired figure stalked down the aisle, a cold wind at her heels, and the others gave her a wide berth. Nesta stiffened as Merrill’s twilight-colored eyes settled upon her and narrowed with recognition—and hatred. But the female kept moving, taking her place atop the dais, where Clotho had appeared. Still no Gwyn.
The last of the priestesses found whatever seat was available, and silence fell as a group of seven females stepped onto the dais beside Merrill and Clotho. Some were hooded; others were bareheaded. And one of those bareheaded priestesses—
Gwyn. Her eyes glowed with mischief and delight as they found Nesta’s, as if to say, Surprise.
Nesta couldn’t help but smile back.
A bell rang seven times somewhere nearby, echoing through the stones, through Nesta’s feet. Each peal was a summons, a call to focus. Everyone rose at the seventh peal. Nesta gazed at the sea of pale robes and blue stones as the entire room seemed to suck in a breath.
As that seventh bell finished pealing, music erupted.
Not from any instruments, but from all around. As if they were one voice, the priestesses began to sing, a wave of sparkling sound.
Nesta could only gape at the lovely melody, the voices from the front of the cavern leading it, lifting higher than the others. Gwyn sang, chin high, a faint glow seeming to radiate from her.
The music was pure, ancient, by turns whispering and bold, one moment like a tendril of mist, the next like a gilded ray of light. It finished, and Merrill spoke about the Mother and the Cauldron and the land and sun and water. She spoke of blessings and dreams and hope. Of mercy and love and growth.
Nesta half-heard it, waiting for the sound, the perfect, beautiful sound, to begin again. Gwyn seemed to be shimmering with pride and contentedness.
Merrill finished the prayer, and the group began another song.
It was like a braid, the song—a plait of seven voices, weaving in and out, individual strands that together formed a pattern. Halfway through it, a drum appeared in the hand of the singer on the far left. A harp began strumming in the hands of one on the far right. A lute sounded from the center.
She’d never heard such music. Like a spell, a dream given form. The entire room sang, each voice resonating through the stone.
But Gwyn’s voice rose above them all, clear and powerful and yet husky on some notes. A mezzo-soprano. The word floated from the depths of Nesta’s memory, voiced by a watery-eyed music tutor who’d quickly declared Nesta hopeless at singing or playing, but in possession of an unusually fine ear.
The song ended, and more prayers and words flowed from Merrill, Clotho silent beside her. Then another song started—this one merrier, faster than the other. As if the songs were a progression. This one was a lilting chant, the words tumbling over each other like water dancing down a mountainside, and Nesta’s foot tapped on the ground in time to the beat. Nesta could have sworn that beneath the hem of Gwyn’s robe, the priestess’s foot was doing the same. The words and the countermelodies danced around and around, until the walls hummed with the music, until the stone seemed to be singing it back.
They finished, and started another song—led into it by a rolling drumbeat, then a single voice. Then the harp joined, a second voice with it. Then the lute, along with a third. The three sang around and into each other, another braid of voices and melodies. They reached the second verse, and the other four joined in, the room with them.
Gwyn’s voice soared like a bird through the cavern as she started the third song with a solo, and Nesta closed her eyes, leaning into the music, shutting out one sense in order to luxuriate in the sound of her friend. Something beckoned in Gwyn’s song, in a way the others’ hadn’t. Like Gwyn was calling only to her, her voice full of sunshine and joy and unshakable determination. Nesta had never heard a voice like Gwyn’s—by turns trained and wild, as if there was so much sound fighting to break free of Gwyn that she couldn’t quite contain it all. As if the sound needed to be loose in the world.