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[commandership]

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some days later

[solmate]

I didn't know to ask.
Well, I did.
I asked Inej when she arrived.
She told me I became a martyr as most saints do.
Of course I know it was not her lie.
She was just repeating one of my own back to me.

[commandership]

[ truthfully, she debates deleting the message entirely. ignoring the mess she doesn't want to clean.

that's what you do best, she imagines genya might say, if she were here to cluck and roll her eyes — henpecking, nurturing beyond what zoya has ever been capable of giving. she would be right, in this case; despite how many political knots she has untangled, no matter how many nights she has leashed nikolai's monster, it's far easier for zoya to seal the doors, frost the windows, and freeze alina out in the cold.

a personal matter that needs no attention from her. she deals with a king's quarries, not the stupidity of the selfish man beneath the crown.

unfortunately, the sun has its own means of peeking through the windows, even on the most frigid days. zoya ignores it for a handful of hours, before her message comes — not a testament of her own willpower, she would claim, but knowing alina's persistence may rival her own.

it's better to deal with it now, before it festers. biting the bullet, so to speak. ]

And what is your excuse for not asking after Nikolai made his truths known to you?

[ between the lines of what she does not say, but what she is certain alina can gather: you'll have to do better than that. ]

[solmate]

It's not exactly easy dinner conversation.

[ Her weak attempt to avoid Zoya's striking criticism, although she knows it won't satisfy her. If anything, she thinks the excuses make it worse. Alina squirms, as if she's sat on a tack, grimacing like she's about to face Ana Kuya's switch. ]

He told me I found the third amplifier and I destroyed the fold.
Honestly, I was surprised to hear I lived past his birthday knowing what I planned to do.
And how many happy endings have you read in the Lives of Saints, recently?

[commandership]

You deflect as poorly as he does.

[ veiling it behind humor, as though glib excuses and poor distractions could soften the point of a knife. it's not a learned habit on alina's part, she's certain — but it grates zoya's nerves as it has always grated her nerves, needing to sink her claws in to rip past those layers until nikolai bleeds the truth.

starkov is no better. perhaps they had suited each other after all. ]

Did stealing this happy ending for yourself make you feel any better?

[ an ugly and jagged question to ask, knowing it will slice and carve, but zoya has never shied away from the grotesque truth. ]

[solmate]

No.
Worse actually.