Centuries

Chapter 14

"How the hell did you get here?"

I asked Zoya while pulling her in for a hug. Although she was always mean to me I still missed her.

"David sent me to you when we figured out something went wrong, I also needed to bring a way to get back, also when are we this definitely isn't Kribirsk."

I explained to Zoya that I landed hundreds of years away from where I was supposed to.

"This is actually perfect," Zoya said eagerly "if the Darkling isn't leading the second army he'll be even easier to kill."

Right. I would still have to kill him. I knew I would, the thought was at the back of my mind a lot but I didn't give it much thought. I didn't want to.

"Zoya, the fold hasn't even been created. We can't kill him, we still need him to create the second army." I said a little too desperately.

"Why can't you do it, you're powerful enough?" Zoya questioned

She had a point. I hadn't revealed my power yet but when I did I could easily rise to power just as the Darkling did. That didn't change that he still had a vital role in the war right now. I frantically explained this to her. She raised an eyebrow and  said

"Okay we can keep him alive for three weeks and then I'm getting us out of here."

I didn't want to risk anyone overhearing our conversation so I decided to go to sleep and come up with an exclamation for how Zoya got here. If I got away without questioning surely she could too. Hopefully the Darkling was stupid enough  to not look into it much.

The next morning we left early without eating breakfast since the Darkling wanted to get back to camp as fast as possible. It made it easier for Zoya to sneak in with us. I could tell the Darkling wasn't at his best when he didn't notice her until we were just approaching the camp.

"Where did you come from?" He asked

Although it was a reasonable question Zoya glared at him.

"Does it matter? saved your asses yesterday."

The Darkling was visibly confused from Zoya's hostility, I interrupted before Zoya killed him.

"She was captured, then I found her and took her with us." I cut in

"And you didn't think of mentioning that yesterday?"

"...We were busy." I offered,

the Darkling sighed and asked Zoya where she was stationed before she was captured. We really should've thought this through more. When she didn't speak I cut in again.

"She could have hit her head and forgot where she was."

Zoya flashed me a glare and I just shrugged. The Darkling obviously didn't believe us but he must've known that having a powerful squaller with us wouldn't cause any harm.

After about an hour of hiking in awkward silence we reached the base. It seemed while we were gone people had begun creating a fence around us judging by the logs in the ground that were surrounding the camp. We were only gone for two days so they must've worked quickly.

Willow was walking a bit ahead of us and got stopped by guards that also weren't there before.

"What's all this?" She demanded

"General's orders, while you were gone two drüskelle were caught sneaking into camp. This is to keep them out."

It seemed like sound logic but if General Janazain was behind this it wasn't a good thing. The guard let us through and I went to unpack. The weather was far warmer so I took the amplifier off of my neck. I was partly relieved that I didn't get caught with my power but at the same time I was tired of hiding. I was almost caught with it thanks to Willow finding me.

"Saints there you are Alina, General Janazain just claimed the scouts who lied to us were three grisha and he just had them killed."

That was exactly why I still had my power secret.

"Couldn't Aleksander have said something, he knows it's a lie."

I didn't want to rely on him but he could easily prove General Janazain wrong.
I followed Willow out of the tent while she explained that the Darkling tried to stop him but it was too late and they were killed in their sleep so nobody would know.

The camp was strangely quiet. Whether it was because there were less people or everyone was afraid I couldn't really tell.
I needed to find Zoya before she showed how powerful she truly was. She should've stayed where she was. I didn't want anyone else to die because of me.

I found her outside helping build the fence. She had changed into a uniform like everyone else's and had a pin identifying her as a squaller.

"This is a huge downgrade from a kefta. Maybe we should let the Darkling live." She complained.

"Be quiet," I hissed, "three grisha were just killed. You need to be extremely careful. Don't let anyone know how powerful you really are."

I expected her to argue with me but she just nodded and went back to helping Kate with the fence. Not really knowing what to do, I helped them. I thought Zoya was safe and nobody would pay much attention to her, new soldiers came all the time. But I spotted General Janazain spying on us while we were working.