zoya and valeriya

After the light disappeared from the room, Valeriya was left speechless. This had to be a facade. There was no way in hell that she could be a sun summoner. Valeriya knew they were just a myth.

"What the hell is going on?" She whispered to David.

He pinched her hand for her use of language and she rolled her eyes.

"The Sun Summoner is real."

"But she's not grisha?"

"You're so dense."

"Guys, shut your bloody traps," another Materalki said from behind David.

The King stood and took a few steps forwards towards the Darkling, though his body never left the stage it was placed on. Valeriya didn't care too much about the politics of what the King was saying, so she ignored him and gleaned at the people behind him. The Queen looked as dreadful as ever, her face clearly modified by Genya to be free from wrinkles and to be looking as young as possible. Yuck.

Vasily looked just as awful - his resemblance to his father clear. Sure he could be considered hot, but his personality was slimy and terrible. The things he'd done to women disgusted her. Same with the King.

It always made her wonder how Nikolai was related to those monsters. Of course, there were rumors of him being a bastard, but they were just that. Rumors.

"Vale," David said, tapping her elbow, "It's time to go."

She looked up and noticed Alina walking through the - now informal - crowd of Grisha receiving hugs and pats on the back.

Zoya walked up to Alina and Valeriya internally groaned.

"It's such an honor to formally meet you," said Zoya, going against Valeriya's predictions of what the girl would do. Zoya hugged Alina and whispered something in her ear and Valeriya knew it was rude.

As much as Zoya was her best friend, she could be a bitch sometimes but it was usually either called for or because someone was threatening the rank she'd worked so hard for. Valeriya didn't hold it against her.

♕

Back at the Little Palace, Valeriya was alone with her thoughts. This was a dangerous combination, usually because she thought about Nikolai. Her mind was cruel with its theories as to why he'd stopped writing and her heart ached. She'd grown up with him, as his friend and as his subject. When he couldn't fall asleep at night, Valeriya was the Heartrender called to lull his heartbeat to sleep. She had a talent for it from a young age - normally finding it amusing to perform the trick on her teachers.

Soon Zoya appeared at her door, ready to torment her with training. Valeriya wasn't sure which was worse being hit by Zoya or by Botkin. She was pretty sure that the answer was Zoya.

"No powers Zoy," Valeriya said as the duo walked into the training center. It was a circle-shaped area with walls of stone, torches, and piles of hay dotted around.

Zoya raised her hands in mock surrender.

"I mean it! Last time you swept me off my feet when I was about to pin you!"

"In my defense-" Zoya began, giving Valeriya a look, "it's not too difficult."

Zoya winked and Valeriya shoved her. They ended up only sparing for a little while (though Zoya had managed to give Valeriya a couple of good bruises) because of Botkin.

Alina walked into the area with Nadia and Marie on either side. In Valeriya's opinion, those girls were just attention hogs (...to put it nicely...) and were probably only hanging on Alina because she was the center of all the current gossip in the Little Palace.

They led Alina to face Botkin, where the infamous trainer stared her down - making no introductions. He made so big showy speech that made Zoya stand sort of at attention and Valeriya slammed her head onto Zoya's shoulder and groaned.

"Do you know how to fight?" Botkin finally asked.

Now, this Valeriya was curious about. She lifted her head off of Zoya's shoulder.

The Sun Summoner thought for a moment before saying, "I've had some training."

Zoya cocked her head in curiosity before leaning towards Valeriya.

"What military training could an orphan have?"

Valeriya let out a stifled laugh before whispering back, "The same amount as a cartographer."

"Show me, pick an opponent," Botkin said. Valeriya and Zoya snapped their attention back to the situation at hand.

Alina confidently strode forward, looking directly at Zoya, Valeriya, and an Etheralki named Yulia. She pointed her finger forward, her glance focused on Zoya.

"Her."

author's note !

Hello everyone! Sorry, it's been so long, life has been crazy. I recently had shoulder surgery so I'm not working as often and I was finally able to get a chapter out.  I really do apologize about it being such a long time, but life and writer's block got in the way.  I hope to be able to update this again much sooner than last time.

On a much happier note, thank you all so much for the support that Ship In A Bottle has been getting!  It makes me smile every time I see that so many of you have read this book!  We are at 4.1K reads!  

Finally, now that there are so many of you wonderful readers, what countries are you guys from?  I'm in the U.S.A. <3