continued from here. / @malaflamed ( celaena sardothien. )
“CAREFUL, SARDOTHIEN, I can just easily send you back where you came from.” Zoya can’t, not really, not with Nikolai counting on her to fulfill this mission, not with so much hinging on this girl’s ability to find and persuade Alina Starkov. But Celaena doesn’t know that, and perhaps it irks Zoya that she’s being told to shut up by some upstart assassin who she’s had to drag out from the dank bowels of Endovier. “I was getting there but then you started retching.” The General crinkles her nose and pretends to brush off invisible lint from the rich fabric of her kefta. After a moment, she proceeds with her explanation.
“Alina really did kill him,” let there be no confusion regarding that, Zoya thinks, who’s grown quite protective of the Sun Summoner and her reputation over the years. “But the bastard refuses to stay dead. We caught him, and he subsequently escaped. And now all of our grisha are deployed to help bring him back, and the Triumvirate has to ensure that no Fjerdan or Shu or Kerch spy will ever find out that he’s out there, before all our flimsy democratic relations with our neighbors are... well, ruined.”
If it is up to her, Zoya would venture out to Keramzin herself, but she is needed in the capital. So are Genya and David. Nikolai came up with the brilliant idea of unearthing Celaena where the Darkling had buried her, knowing that her story and her abilities make a powerful tool to coax Alina out of her retirement. “We need her and her powers to compound our strength -- and yours. If we have any hope of defeating the Black Heretic for good,” Zoya looks up to meet the inferni’s fierce, undaunted gaze. “-- you’ll have to go out there and find her for us.”