Chapter Text
Alina is crouching behind a rock, hands pressed flat against the grainy stone, as she listens to the soldiers calling to each other. They bustle around the wooded area looking for her, for the missing Sun Summoner. Her feet are aching and bruised and her arms are littered with cuts from branches, despite the thin barrier of fabric from the coat she'd stolen. Her hair’s a nest with twigs and leaves tangled into the strands of it, and all she finds herself thinking over and over again is, 'This isn’t how things were supposed to go.'
The past few months are a blur— had felt like a blur even as they were happening. She wishes she could just turn back the clock to the orphanage in Keramzin, playing hide and seek with her best friend and living life off scraps. Back when there was no world resting on her shoulders and no centuries-old General trying to capture her for a power she never wanted in the first place.
But, of course, the universe has other plans.
A branch snaps behind her and Alina whirls around with her hands out, ready to wield the light of the sun in her palms if necessary, but finds something— or rather, someone— entirely unexpected.
Rays of soft summer sunlight bleed in through the canopy of trees overhead, haloing the fierce figure standing before her— a turbulent storm amidst a sunny blue sky and chipper birdsong. It’s like two vastly different paintings merged into one and it shouldn’t fit. It shouldn’t steal the breath from her lungs, it shouldn't make her yearn to move closer, to trace each brush of dried paint with her dirt-stained fingers, but it does.
Peering down at her with sea-steeped irises, a finger pressed to her frowning lips as wind whips through her coal-stained curls, is Zoya Nazyalensky.
And, Saints, the universe truly does have other plans for Alina Starkov. She just has no idea what those plans are, or how those plans found her, or why those plans are crouched before her, not calling the Darkling’s men over and revealing Alina’s location the way a good soldier should, but simply listening. Wrapped in her pristine navy kefta, Zoya scans the area like a hawk surveying its surroundings, ensuring that the coast is clear.
Once the soldiers' voices fade and Zoya is certain they are alone again, her gaze shifts back to the befuddled mess of a girl sat before her. She regards Alina with a look only slightly less severe than that of one she might wear, say, scraping horse dung off the bottom of her boot, and mutters a quick, “Come on,” turning on her heel and leaving Alina no choice but to follow.
☼☁︎
Nearly an hour later, neither of them have said a word and Alina is just beginning to think that they never will when Zoya comes to a sudden halt.
“What? What is it?” Alina whispers, searching the woods for signs of danger and balling her hands into fists at her chest. Zoya swivels her head just enough to glance at Alina out of the corner of her eye with an almost amused look as she leans in, lifting her brows and whispering back, “Nothing.”
She rights herself and walks around a few paces to lean her body against a large boulder and cross her arms nonchalantly as she continues at a normal voice level, “I just figured you might want to sit for a minute. Now that we’re not in any immediate danger, that is.”
Alina sends her a suspicious look, hesitating in place. Zoya rolls her eyes and sighs with exasperation as she drawls on, “Oh, Saints, will you relax? If I wanted you dead, I would’ve done so myself when I found you and if I wanted to turn you over to the Darkling I would’ve done it when we were surrounded by his guards. We’re stopping because, frankly, you look terrible. You can barely hold yourself up and the pace you’re walking at is dismal. And because I heard fresh running water about half a mile that way and I’m bloody thirsty!”
“Okay, okay, I get it!” Alina interjects with her arms raised in surrender as she sits down on a rock a few paces opposite Zoya. Even if the Squaller is lying, Alina’s not sure she could’ve kept going with the way her muscles are screaming at her, so she doesn’t really have many options here.
“Fine. Then- Then if you’re not here to kill me or turn me in… why are you here?” Alina asks hesitantly as she removes one of her boots and shakes the twigs and pebbles that have collected inside it onto the forest floor. Zoya sighs and looks out at the trees to the left of her, arms still crossed and brows furrowed like she’s trying to decide what to say or how she should say it.
“I… don’t know, if I’m being completely honest. This wasn’t exactly planned." Zoya hesitates a moment, glancing down at her boots. When she speaks again, her voice is fainter than before.
"I went to see him. Kirrigan, I mean. Last night in his office. I knew...," Zoya clears her throat, shifting her crossed arms tighter over her chest. "I knew that's likely where you were, I saw you leave the demonstration with him. The warning bells were sounded. The Second Army warning bells. I wanted to- to make sure to... do my job."
Alina pieces together her meaning, without Zoya needing to elaborate any further. Saints forbid the Commander admit she wanted to ensure that the Sun Summoner wasn't in danger. Alina resists the urge to roll her eyes.
"It was clear he’d left in a haste and hadn’t put his things away properly. His plans were laid out on the table and… I read them. Some of them at least.”
She pauses and looks over at Alina who is listening intently before pushing herself off the boulder and going to sit on a slightly lower rock next to the one Alina’s perched on. The proximity is a bit startling, but Alina attempts to appear unaffected. Zoya exhales a slow breath through her nose and runs her hands back and forth over her thighs in a nervous, self-soothing manner that Alina’s never seen her do before.
“He plans to expand the Fold,” Zoya begins, and Alina lets out a soft, “Ah,” of recognition because she’s aware of this. After all, it’s the reason she ran from the Little Palace in the first place.
“And, he wants to start… with Novokribirsk. Invite a bunch of foreign diplomats onto a skiff across the Fold and use your power as protection from the volcra while he sicks the shadows onto the city as some show of strength and intimidation.”
“I would never do that, that’s why I left-”
“I know,” Zoya replies before she can finish, and Alina falls silent beside her.
“I know that. But I also know him. He won’t stop until he has you and, when he does, he’ll use your power whether you want him to or not. It’s what he does. He uses people for his own greed, no matter the consequences, no matter the person. I just... I couldn’t stand by and let him this time. Not with so much at stake, not with Novokribirsk on the line. My aunt… the only family I have left, she lives there. I won’t let her death be another means to his end.”
Zoya’s eyes have shifted from staring into the distance to boring into Alina’s own and she can somehow sense that Zoya’s telling the truth. She’s never seen her this way, fidgeting with nerves, eyes present and steady, but also wide and swimming with something indecipherable. Her face is drained of its usual color and her voice low, strained from stress. It dawns on Alina then, filling her with icy cold dread and an unexpected concern, that Zoya is afraid.
Alina used to believe the girl incapable of that emotion. That was, until one stormy night a few weeks ago. Zoya was different then though. She wasn’t herself that night. Or, she was, but she hadn’t exactly been in control then. She’d been somewhere else entirely, but now, she’s here, with Alina, both physically and mentally. She’s here and she’s not showing her fear because she’s trapped in a nightmare, trapped in the pain of another time, she’s showing it because she’s choosing to. Because she feels like she can.
Here she is, shaking hands failing to steady despite her efforts, a merciless bite on her bottom lip to keep it from trembling, and silent shallow breathing that would go unnoticed if Alina couldn’t see the way her chest stutters in and out beneath her kefta. It’s fear, yes, but it’s Zoya’s version of it and it comes with layers and layers of indiscernible walls Alina shamelessly wishes she had the time to sort through or the energy to scale over. She doesn’t feel shut out by all her armour though. To anyone else those walls would be stone, but here and now, for Alina, for only Alina, they are glass. They’re there, but Zoya is letting her peer inside, look beyond, and for Alina, for now, it’s enough.
“I went to find you. Last night, after I left his office. I hadn’t yet decided if I was going there to warn you or kill you when I overheard the castle guards talking in low voices outside in the courtyard. They said that the Sun Summoner had escaped and General Kirrigan had ordered every Grisha soldier that could be spared to join his search for her."
Zoya pauses, her mouth struggling to settle on the next sentence. Her gaze shifts to the ground again, perfect posture deflating minutely. Zoya swallows and Alina gets the sense there's something she's not saying. It's different than the fear she'd seen her display only moments ago. There's regret but there's also something deeper, more troubling, more familiar to Alina. Shame.
"I fled the palace soon after that," Zoya mumbles before straightening her spine and turning her head towards Alina. "I didn’t know how or what I was going to do, I just knew that I couldn’t let him get to you first.”
Their eyes lock and Alina inhales deeply, trying to disguise the initial sharpness of her breath. She turns her head and squeezes her eyes shut in a feeble attempt to expunge the mounting dread from inside her gut by shutting out her surroundings.
“So- So, you left, and you came to find me and now you’re here and you have no plan other than your temporary plan from last night in which you were debating between warning me and killing me? Well… that’s certainly a comfort,” Alina rambles out and Zoya huffs beside her in what Alina thinks is either amusement or irritation. She sincerely hopes it’s the former as the latter might end up with her dead in the middle of a forest with nobody for miles to find her lifeless body.
“Yes, well... though I would love to enact the many different ways I’ve imagined shutting you up for good over the past few months, that would be incredibly stupid of me seeing as you’re the only shot any of us have at actually defeating the Darkling. I rather think I’ve made enough foolish decisions in the past 24 hours to last me at least until next year, don’t you?”
“As much as I’d really prefer it if you didn’t kill me, I have to inform you that your faith is entirely misplaced. I’m good with light shows or if you need an extra torch for finding a lost item under your bed, but… destroying the Fold?” Alina shakes her head incredulously and Zoya is looking at her with that same indecipherable expression she’d worn when she'd found her earlier. Alina has the nagging feeling that she’s not going to take no for an answer.
Then again, when has she ever known Zoya Nazyalensky to accept defeat.
☼☁︎
“I’m sorry, Botkin assigned who to give me fighting lessons?! Is he mad?! She’s going to murder me! I’ll be a body in a bag before the first lesson even begins!” Alina shouted, waving her arms around dramatically as she paced back and forth across her chambers. Genya was sat on the bed, following her with her eyes as if watching a ball passed from one end of the room to the other.
“Oh, would you stop being so dramatic? Zoya is not that bad, you two just got off on the wrong foot!” Genya implored optimistically. Alina snapped her gaze over to her, scowling in her direction as Genya fought to keep the smile her lips so desperately wished to form from showing on her face.
“The wrong foot? The wrong foot?! She blasted me into a fucking wall!” Alina roared, stomping up to Genya who slithered out from beneath her sharp gaze and stood with a finger raised in hesitant protest. “Well, I mean, just- in her defense, you did sock her across the jaw-”
“WE WERE IN COMBAT TRAINING! I WAS TRAINING WITH-” Alina threw two punches through the air, “COMBAT!” Genya couldn't hold her laugh in any longer and burst into a fit of giggles, her hand flying over her mouth.
Alina gasped and pointed at her in (mostly) mock offense as she scolded, “Genya! You traitor, this isn’t funny!”
“No- No, I know, it’s just… it’s a little funny,” Genya faltered as she shook with laughter and Alina failed to fight the smile from showing on her face as she swatted Genya’s shoulder (“Ow, what was that for?!”) and stalked over to her bed, flopping down face first onto the mattress.
She groaned into the fabric of her pillow, listening to Genya’s uproarious laughter beside her and praying to every possible Saint she could think of to just strike her dead where she lies.
They, unfortunately, did not grant with her wish and, as she made her way to the training yard two days later, Alina vowed to convert to the worship of Djel as revenge. She never really believed in those stupid Saints anyway. Though she wasn't sure a tree god was really any more believable, not to mention the whole 'hating Grisha' thing.
She'd thought that, maybe, she'd just do what the Kerch do and worship the god of money. ‘Yeah… yeah,’ she thought, ‘Who gives a toss about nature or martyrdom? Saints and tree god are out, Ghezen is in.’ She came to this satisfying conclusion, smiling proudly to herself, just before she heard footsteps approaching from behind her. Zoya Nazyalensky was walking in her direction and Ghezen had failed her too.
“Crap,” she grumbled under her breath. Damn you, Ghezen, how was money meant to help her now? Well, actually, maybe if she’d had more money, this classist bitch wouldn’t have hated her Keramzin-raised guts quite so much, she pondered. Then again, with the way Zoya was glaring daggers into her fucking skull, she wasn't entirely sure the girl wouldn’t simply find some other reason to hate her.
“Three laps round the path, 30 push-ups, and up that rope to ring the bell and back down again,” Zoya instructed, pulling a pocket watch from her army-fashioned kefta.
“Sorry... What?” Alina gaped at her. Zoya looked up from the small metal clock in her hands to add, “Do you want to make it 50?”
Alina shook her head vigorously and Zoya gestured to the running trail as she demanded harshly, “Then go!”
Despite the fact that she would've really rather repeatedly slam her head into a wall made of Fabrikator steel, Alina pushed herself as hard as she could to complete Zoya’s rigorous exercise tasks because, frankly, she's stubborn and prideful and didn’t want Nazyalensky to believe that she’d won.
So, when she collapsed onto her back, chest heaving, body drenched in sweat (why do they have to wear these big bulky keftas to train in anyways?), and thinking that she might just fucking die if she didn’t receive a glass of water that instant, she only felt slightly ashamed at the lack of dignity.
When she opened her eyes, Zoya was standing over her, stopwatch in hand, and an unimpressed expression on her face. Alina had to physically restrain herself from grabbing a fist-full of dirt and tossing it right into her judgmental snake eyes.
Saints, she really hated those stupid eyes and how they always seemed to see right through Alina— stripping away her defenses and leaving her bare and vulnerable for Zoya to pick apart every insecurity, every fear, every feeling to use it against her whenever she pleased. It was infuriating, and terrifying, and exhausting, and it was all of those things and worse because it was also dangerous.
Because Alina hated it for all of those reasons and more, and so, it was treacherous. It was a treacherous thing when Zoya Nazyalensky looked at her the way she did and Alina hated it, not because of all the things it made her feel, but because of all the things it shouldn’t have. It shouldn’t have left her feeling heady and breathless— yearning for it whenever it wasn’t trained on her. Eyes shouldn’t do that to a person, right? Shouldn’t cleanse them of all that they know and all that they are and burrow into their bones, into their lungs, like fangs sinking into freshly bit skin or an explosion of cobalt fire swirling and blazing and licking its flames through a maze of tunnels to find and devour the lost and lonely girl hiding at the labyrinth’s center.
Alina hated her eyes because, the moment they'd finished burning into her soul, she was left choking on ash, coughing it up as if it was something she could ever be rid of, as if it was something she could scrape from her throat and fling at her feet. As if, as if, as if. As if it hadn't incinerated every inch of her, as if the ash wasn't caked on her tongue, her ribs— blowing through her veins like a desert wind, a sandstorm swirling in her lungs. Nothing but a charred carcass laid bare on the blackened sands of the Fold where the only light that lives is dim and blue and snuffed out with the wave of a Squaller hand, with a wave of her Squaller hand.
She wanted to hate it because of all the fury, the exhaustion, the fear, and the helplessness it caused her. She didn’t want to hate it for the actual reason, the true reason: That she liked it.
Because Alina liked it. She liked the azure fire, the sunken teeth, the way it cleansed her just so it could have a blank canvas to defile, to mark, to taint, to tarnish. She even liked the cinders left in its wake, because they were a reminder of the blue, blue flames, and the dark, dark eyes.
So yes, she wanted to toss the dirt from the ground right into Zoya’s stupid fucking eyes. She wanted revenge, for Zoya to feel how she felt— choking on dirt, on sand, on dust, on ash and begging for more.
Fuck. She’d definitely been staring too long.
“Get up,” Zoya commanded stiffly, turning and expecting Alina to follow. Alina, of course, did not follow because, fuck that. Instead, she hiked herself up, leaning back onto her elbows as she asked in an annoyed tone, “Why? I’ve done all you asked.”
Zoya looked over her shoulder, her brow arched and a cold smirk on her face. “That was just the warm up, Sun Summoner. Now, it’s time to see what you can really do,” Zoya baited, and as much as Alina wanted to curl up in her bed and never see the light of day again, she wanted to wipe that smug look off Nazyalensky’s face a whole lot more.
And if it meant having Zoya’s eyes trained on her for a bit longer… Well. Zoya didn’t need to know that. So, Alina hurled herself up, stifling a groan at the way her body immediately resisted, and dragged her feet over to where Zoya was standing next to the target dummies.
“Right. Assume your fighting stance,” she directed and Alina obeyed her order at a purposefully lazy pace. Zoya traced Alina's body with her gaze, frowning.
“Saints willing, I am going to rip the air from Botkin’s lungs,” Zoya gritted out under her breath as she took a few steps toward Alina.
“No, okay-” Zoya huffed in frustration, moving her hands around haltingly, seemingly unable to decide what to fix first. “Sol ye tselai, okay, first of all,” she began, grabbing Alina’s wrists and shaking them roughly. “What is this? Your arms need to be strong and sturdy. I shouldn’t be able to move them so easily.”
Alina stiffened her arms as much as she could as Zoya continued to try and maneuver them. Once she was at least partially satisfied with their firmness, she crouched down to Alina’s boots.
“Second of all,” she shoved Alina’s left foot back by gripping her ankle and Alina nearly lost her balance. “Your feet shouldn’t be parallel to each other. If someone pushes you, you’ve nothing to fall back on but ground. One foot, preferably your non-dominant foot, should always be behind you,” she explained, tilting her chin up to look at Alina from her place below. Alina nodded her understanding and prayed to her previously forsaken Saints that it would be enough for Zoya stand back up so the Squaller's face would no longer be inches from Alina's hips.
The Saints complied, but she learned to be more careful what she wished for in future as Zoya was now only inches, not from Alina’s hips, but from her face. She felt extremely grateful at the moment that Zoya was an Etherealnik and not a Corporalnik, as Alina was quite certain her heart had been beating out of her bloody chest.
Zoya placed her hands on Alina’s waist, pivoting her position roughly and without warning, as her gaze remained unwavering on Alina's own. “Your hips should face the side and point in the same direction as your back foot.”
She removed her hands from Alina’s waist and wrapped them around her wrists again, listing them in front of her face instead of her chest.
“These go here, so you can protect your head, first and foremost,” she informed. Her voice was softer, not necessarily kind, but there was less venom in it. Alina nodded once more as Zoya stepped back and to the side of her.
“Right. Give it a go, then,” she instructed, gesturing to the dummy in front of them and Alina shifted on her feet for a moment before colliding her fist with the burlap fabric wrapped over the hay-stuffed mannequin.
She heard Zoya sigh from beside her and whisper, “Saints have mercy,” before she caught movement in her peripheral vision. Alina turned to find Zoya had unbuttoned her kefta and was shrugging it off her shoulders, placing it on a straw-dusted wooden bench to the right of her.
The midday breeze flapped against the loose white blouse she’d been wearing and tugged the collar over her left shoulder, revealing sharply cut collarbones beneath bronze skin. Zoya’s hair was pulled into a twist updo, but strands of it had fallen out to frame her features, harsh and piercing at most times, but almost delicate then, in the light of the low-hanging sun.
Zoya sidled up next to her and told her to watch, demonstrating a perfect, powerful punch right at the center of the target. Alina hadn't paid much attention to her hands, however, because her focus had remained lost to Zoya’s features: the determined set of her jaw, the raised bridge of her nose— the line of it somehow both jagged and soft— the focused furrowing of her brows and the little ‘11’ it creased in the skin between them, the way the edges of her eyes narrowed with precision.
This proved a very unhelpful analysis when Zoya had asked her to copy what she’d just shown and Alina simply repeated her poor form all over again.
“No- okay,” Zoya sighed impatiently, moving in behind her. She wrapped her arms around Alina to cover her fists with her own fingers and slowly pushed Alina’s dominant hand forward, giving her a list of things to remember as she does so (right next to Alina’s ear which is really not helping with her focus).
“You lead with this leg,” Zoya instructed, reaching down and tapping Alina’s thigh with the tips of her fingers before bringing them back up to Alina's fist. “And don’t forget to always pull that attack arm back in as quickly as you send it out. Otherwise, your opponent can grab onto it and use it to throw you off balance or worse, they’ll break it.”
Zoya backed away again and gestured for Alina to try once more. That time, Alina made sure to keep in mind what Nazyalensky had told her.
“That’s better, but you’re still lingering a bit with that punch. You’ve got to pull it back faster,” Zoya repeated. Alina tried again, but Zoya caught her fist as she went in for a second punch, moving in closer like Alina might hurt herself.
“Woah, woah- okay. That was better, but these here?” She wrapped her hands around Alina’s fists and tapped on Alina’s thumbs. She lowered her chin to meet Alina's eye as she said, “They need to be tucked, like this.” Zoya moved Alina’s thumbs out of harms way and Alina swallowed. “So that you won’t break them. Broken thumbs are a real pain, especially when you don’t have a Healer nearby to help.”
Alina didn't nod or say anything as she stared at Zoya with probably pathetically softened eyes. Her lips were parted slightly and loose strands from her braid floated in the evening breeze. She'd looked a bit like she’d been struck by some divine beauty, like her gaze had befallen a Saint and she'd felt a bit like it, too.
Zoya’s features shifted slowly, like clouds passing and reforming in the sky, changing from shapes Alina thought she understood to ones that left her search for meaning fruitless and entirely inconclusive. Something between them had shifted, too, in a similar fashion, and it left them breathless and dazed when they'd finally parted at the end of the lesson.
A new development. A layer shed, and a layer added.
On the walk back to her chambers, Zoya had found herself thinking over and over again, 'This isn’t how things were supposed to go.'