A court of water and worlds

Chapter #36

"Look at them!" Gwyn whisper-squealed.
"I'm so ready to tease her about this later," Nesta said to Gwyn.
They were currently watching Mor and Emrie clean up the training room.
"they. just. kissed'' Nesta said wide eyed, whipping her head towards Gwyn.
"This was all us," Gwyn said, pointing to her and Nesta.
"We literally made this relationship."
Nesta nodded in agreement.
Emrie looked towards them and Gwyn and Nesta quickly looked away.
"Ok well I have to go. Merril will have my head if I'm late," Gwyn said, putting her sword away.
"Have a fun time with that," Nesta said and Flora came running over.
"Don't leave without me," Flora said to Gwyn, she sounded out of breath.
Flora had recently become friends with some of the new priestesses.
There were many new ones due to all the wing clipping and other horrible things done at the Illyrian camps.
She and Flora made their way back to their rooms.
Gwyn changed and went up to the library to meet Merrill.
"I need you to go down to level four and get all books having to do with world openings, world openers, and objects from other worlds," Merrill said and Gwyn wrote all of that down on her notepad and went off to find the books.
She found what she could and brought them back up to Merrill.
She was sent back down to level six to get two more books when she saw a head of gold brown curls.
She thought it was Nesta so she tossed a book at her back to get her attention.
The girl yelped and turned around, it was Elain.
She furrowed her brow in confusion, then locked eyes with Gwyn.
"O cauldron, Elain I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—-
Gwyn stuttered, "I thought you were Nesta," she finally got out.
Mother, she was so embarrassed.
"It's ok," Elain said smiling, "people used to mistake me for Nesta and Feyre all the time back in our old village."
"Still I feel terrible," Gwyn said, her face turning red with shame.
"It's ok Gwyn, it's not like you threw a Komodo Dragon at me," Elain said straight faced.
Gwyn stared at her for a second.
What?
Gwyn snorted, "What is a Komodo Dragon?" She asked, trying to stifle her laugh.
Elain's face turned red, "o, it's an animal part of the monitor lizard family," Elain said and Gwyn laughed.
"I've never heard of them before," Gwyn said, suddenly interested in these animals.
"Are they real animals?" Gwyn asked and Elain nodded.
Gwyn saw a little light appear in Elain's eyes as she told her about these lizard creatures.
Apparently they are six feet long. Gwyn wanted to ask if they had any relations to dragons but then she remembered Merril.
"Sorry Elain I have to bring these books to Merrill, but did you need anything before I go?"
"O, umm," she stuttered. "I decided to take you up on your offer."
Gwyn nodded and asked, "ok, what are you looking for?"
Elain thought for a moment then said, "Koschei, I wanted to do some research on him."
Gwyn nodded, heading over to a bookshelf.
She scanned for books starting with K in the other worldly section.
She pulled out one Novela sized book.
She handed it to Elain and She frowned.
"This is all?" Elain asked in a disappointed voice.
"Yes, sadly this is all we have on him, although he is mentioned in other stories, I could probably get you a list tomorrow," Gwyn said and she saw Elain's eyes get brighter.
"That would be great," Elain said, taking the book from Gwyn.
"If you find anything interesting about him, let me know," Gwyn said, and added, "I already read that book and couldn't find anything, but maybe it needs a new set of eyes."
Elain nodded and said, "thank you."
Gwyn picked her books for Merrill off of the table and Elain looked at the cover.
"Other worldly Objects," Elain read.
"Yeah Merrill is doing research on the multiverse," Gwyn said and added, "I will get the other books for you tomorrow but it was nice to see you."
"You too," Elain said with a small smile.
Gwyn rushed back up to Merrill's office and as expected got scolded for being late.
Before she went to bed she found the books for Elain and set them on the hold counter, then headed back to her room.
Gwyn desperately wanted to sleep. She got in bed and—-
Gwyn closed the trap door and put the table over it.
There was not enough time for her to hide.
A soldier walked in, "I found another one," he said in a gruff voice."
He went to grab Gwyn and she tried to do something, anything she tried to access her magic but it always seemed to disappear when she needed it most.
He slammed her face first into a wall and held her there.
Pain laced through her face.
"Where are the children?!" He yelled and Gwyn started shaking.
She didn't move her lips.
"Where are they!" He continued and Gwyn felt tears streaming down her face.
More soldiers came into the room and flanked Gwyn from both sides.
They brought three screaming priestesses in and then Gwyn saw her.
Catrin.
A guard was holding a sword to Catrin's throat.
Gwyn was panicking, she couldn't breath.
"Where are the children?!" The soldier yelled at Gwyn.
She wanted to crumple up on the floor and die, she was shaking so bad.
"We will kill them if you do not tell us," the man continued.
"Don't say a word," Gwyn heard Catrin yell and Gwyn memorized every sound that each letter Catrin said made.
Then everything was in slow motion and Gwyn watched as her sister's throat was cut. She watched each ounce of blood drip down from her neck—-
Gwyn shot out of bed with cold sweat on her brow.
She got out of bed, put on her leathers and went up to the training room.
——
"I can do it," Gwyn said more to herself than Azriel.
Once again she had found him in the training room even though it was two in the morning.
They were currently throwing daggers.
Something Gwyn still hadn't mastered.
She released the dagger and watched it bounce off the target.
She sighed dramatically.
"Here," Azriel said, "watch."
He unsheathed a dagger and Gwyn watched as he held the blade and cocked his arm back.
He was doing the movements slowly so Gwyn could see.
He released the dagger and it hit the middle of the target.
He turned to her and handed her another dagger.
Gwyn rolled her eyes, "you make it look so easy," she said, taking the dagger from him.
"I've had a lot of practice," he said "one day you be able to do it as easily as me—
"Better than you," Gwyn cut him off.
He huffed a laugh and she threw the dagger, self correcting her hold on it to make the spin better.
It hit the target.
Far from the middle, but it still hit the target.
She turned to Azriel and a wide smile broke across her face.
"I did it!" She said and he smiled back at her.
"Yes but it is still inconsistent, so tomorrow at practice you need to keep working on it," he said and Gwyn frowned and he added, "but I'm proud that you actually made it on the board."
She smiled again and went to collect the daggers from the target.
"Did you do any fun spy work today?" Gwyn asked, taking one dagger out of the target.
"If I did, I couldn't tell you about it," Azriel said walking over to her.
"No need to be so secretive, who would I tell anyway," she said, taking out another.
"If I recall yesterday you told me you were plotting to take down night court," Azriel said and Gwyn opened her mouth to make a retort but she grabbed onto the last knife and felt a light burst through her.
She pulled it out, holding it, studying it.
Her eyes traveled from the dagger to her hand and arm.
They were glowing, she was glowing.
What the hell?!
She had never felt so powerful before, she felt like life was coursing through her veins.
"Gwyn," she heard Azriel say, but his voice sounded like it was far away.
"Gwyn!" Someone pried the dagger from her hand.
When she released it she felt the power leave her system.
She opened her eyes and saw Azriel holding the dagger.
"What the hell just happened?" Azriel asked, looking at Gwyn.
"Are you ok?" He asked and Gwyn nodded.
"Remember a long time ago when I had a dream and I like, slept-walked into your room?" She asked and Azriel nodded.
"Well," she fumbled for words, "that was the dagger in my dream, that's exactly how it felt when I touched it," she said, breathing heavily.
"What's so special about that dagger?" Gwyn asked Azriel who was just staring at her.
He sheathed the dagger and looked up at her like she was some sort of god.
"It was made," He said not taking his eyes off of her.
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I just have to say that I like friends ok, and I really feel like some of these characters have potential to be friends like Elain and Gwyn, and others...
I feel like putting Elain and Gwyn in the same room is funny because they could really talk for hours. Like, elain would say one interesting fact and Gwyn would ask a million questions on it.