Zoya Nazyalenski

"This is my home. I won't be chased out of it"

Zoya Nazyalenski, Siege and Storm

Zoya Nazyalenski is a member of the Grisha Triunvirate and a General of the Second Army of Ravka. She is a very powerful Squaller Grisha.

History (Previous)
Zoya was born in a small Ravkan village, Pachina, to Sabina Garin and her husband, a Suli man. She grew up in a poor household and painstakingly sought her distracted mother's affections, even going as far to steal peaches from a duke's estate to present to Sabina. At the age of nine, Zoya's parents agreed to wed her to a wealthy widower, Valentin Grankin. Despite having no wish to be married, Zoya agreed to the arrangement so as not to displease her mother.

Before the ceremony, Zoya's aunt Lilyana arrived from Novokribirsk in order to dissuade Sabina from proceeding with the wedding. Liliyana accused Sabina of selling her own child, and the argument was overheard by Zoya; soon, Sabina banished Liliyana from her house. On the night before the wedding, Zoya wept uncontrollably and prayed to the Saints so as to stop the proceedings.

When the day of Zoya's wedding arrived, Liliyana appeared in the chapel, demanding that Valentin Grankin stop the marriage and blaming the gathered spectators for doing nothing to impede the ceremony. However, Grankin only began to hit Lilyana with a walking stick, nearly beating Zoya's aunt to death. Before he could deal the killing blow, however, Zoya's Grisha powers emerged, a vast gust of wind striking Grankin and destroying the church. Afterwards, Liliyana took Zoya away to embark on the journey to Os Alta, where Zoya would be trained in the Little Palace. Upon learning that families of Grisha soldiers were heavily compensated, Zoya, at the age of ten, petitioned that her fee was paid to her aunt in Novokribirsk instead of her parents in Pachina. Beginning from her first day at the Little Palace, Zoya began learning combat, reading, as well as the Shu Language.

At the age of thirteen, Zoya accompanied the Darkling and several older Grisha students on a trip to Tsibeya to search for the white tigers of Ilmisk, where an amplifier was suspected to be located. The other students discovered and captured three tiger cubs and prepared to kill them as amplifiers. Zoya, hearing the cubs' mother outside of their camp, freed the baby tigers at night and attempted to herd them away. However, an aggressive male tiger approached and, in order to protect the cubs, Zoya concealed their bodies with her own. The male tiger left deep wounds on Zoya's back, but she was able to kill the tiger with Squaller wind. As a result, Zoya obtained the tiger's teeth as an amplifier, forming the heavy silver cuff she wears around her left wrist.

When Zoya was sixteen, she made her first journey across the Shadow Fold with the Darkling and other Grisha. Upon arriving in Novokribirsk, Zoya brought copious gifts to her aunt Liliyana and met Liliyana's ward, an orphan named Lada who became Zoya's adoptive niece.

Appearance
Zoya is a stunningly beautiful woman with long, thick black hair and deep, jewel-like blue eyes. She is half-suli from her father's heritage, so she is easily taned.

Zoya's kefta is Etherealki blue with the silver embroideries that represent Squallers.