This is the edited version of this story. As I go through I will be editing and adding more chapters. I have taken in all of your reviews and requests and will hopefully be clarifying some of the confusing points. I hope you enjoy the story! Read and Review!

~13th Writer.

POV: Rose

We were all called into the auditorium for some big announcement that Kirova had. Usually the guardians lined the walls and stood at the doors but today there were two at each door and the rest were on stage. I wasn't allowed to be onstage because Lissa was sitting in the audience and with me being a part of the royal guard I got to sit with her. Whether this was good or bad yet I was still unsure. Alberta and Dimitri stood among the guardians that were on stage; in fact they stood right in the middle. Dimitri didn't sit in the audience with us because there was no real threat of Christian being hurt in the audience. Well, that and there were also about twelve of the royal guard members sitting within five feet of him.

I looked up to see Dimitri give me a quick questioning look as to ask if I knew what this was about. I gave him a quick shrug in response and turned to the rest of my friends who were sitting in the front row with me to ask them if they knew but just as I was about to speak Kirova appeared on stage.

"Quiet down so that we can get started please," she waited for a moment until everyone had stopped. "Thank you. I have come to announce that in two weeks we will have a competition between the senior novices and the guardians who wish to participate. Starting tomorrow all classes except for combat for Dhampirs and offensive magic for the Moroi will be cancelled. It is up to your mentors whether or not the private practices will be cancelled or changed. Sign-ups will be during all lunches, before and after school. Rules will be posted in the cafeteria and auditorium in three days. Until then I suggest you get back to your classes or dorms. You are all dismissed."

Everyone seemed to stand up at the same time. Even the guardians seemed in a rush to leave. Understandably, because some of them had classes and mentees to get to but those were another story all together. When Lissa stood up however, everyone immediately sat down and only four other people continued to move, Christian, Dimitri, Eddie and I. Even the rest of the royal guard took their positions along the walls. Dimitri and I looked at each other. There was no way in hell we were letting these two out of our sight. Over the past few months Christian and Dimitri had become best friends, and after what happened to Ivan, I knew that Dimitri would never let his guard down around his Moroi again. And then there was Eddie and me. After Eddie went on trial – and was found innocent (as he should have been in the first place) – he became my second in command in the Royal Guard. And to me, Lissa was more than just the queen, more than just my best friend and ex-bond mate, she was my sister. The only one I had and there was no way that after the attack on St. Vladimir's when I was in school, that I was going to let her out of my sight while we were here, not unless I absolutely had to – which was unlikely – and I knew that Eddie was thinking the exact same thing. I gave silent instructions to Dimitri & Eddie, then moved to take point. Eddie was second, in between Christian and Lissa, with Dimitri bringing up the back.

We walked out and took Lissa and Christian to their room at the very top of the Moroi administrative building. The entire top floor was for Lissa and Christian while the one directly underneath was for Dimitri and me. Eddie had decided that he would just take a normal room in the guardian building with the rest of the royal guard and school Guardians.

"So what's on your schedules for today?" Lissa asked, walking over to her plush white couch. She was lucky and didn't have to work today, unlike me.

"Well Eddie and I have a combat class to teach in half an hour, then I think Dimitri, Eddie and I were going to train. But after I was thinking that maybe we could go relax. Take a car and go into town to get some mani-pedis and massage later?" I watched a huge smile break across her face. She could never refuse a spa day.

"Of course, that sounds amazing," she had a large grin across her face as she flopped backwards onto her bed. "What are you boys going to do later?" She said looking mainly at Eddie. I knew she was worried. Compared to Christian and Dimitri, he was kind of the odd man out.

"Well um," Eddie blushed ever so slightly. "Actually I've got a date later," he finished the sentence with a touch more pride than he had started with. I looked at him with a smirk but still in a slightly questioning way. He simply smiled back. As soon as he did, I knew exactly with whom he had a date.

"And I think we're just going to hang out tonight. Not really doing much of anything I suppose," Christian said referring to himself and Dimitri. I looked at him for a second and saw through his lie. I then turned to Dimitri for an answer. However, he too shrugged me off. What was that about?

"Okay well we've got to go set up the gym. Are you coming Rose?" I only half registered that Eddie was talking to me. I was still much too focused on Dimitri and Christian. "Rose! We only have twenty minutes left." Eddie was one on the best teachers at the school. Even on the first day we all knew why. He didn't want any of his students to end up the same way he did in Spokane; helpless. Or worse he didn't want them to end up like Mason had. Mason had been his best friend but his life was cut short after he tried to heroically take down two strigoi to save me. I had ended up taking out both strigoi in vengance and completing my first two kills. Mason may have been Eddie's best friend but he was mine too. Well, it was more complicated than that; he was my kind-of boyfriend at the time. We weren't exactly an item; back then I was secretly in love with Dimitri and I couldn't return Mason's love. He died thinking that we had a chance, it was one of my biggest regrets.

But that experience changed Eddie – it changed all of us. Now Eddie was one of the best teachers in this school and wanted every one of his students to be better than him. Of course every guardian wanted their students to be the best, but he really wanted them to never have to experience the feeling of losing the people you cared about most.

After we said our goodbyes and were out of the room, I started my interrogation. "So, you're going on a date?" I said. "With whom," I already knew but I wanted to see if he would tell me himself. He had become much more secretive as of late.

"No one, really" he was hiding it from me. Why was he doing that? We always told each other everything.

"Come on I know you want to tell me," he held open the door to the gym for me. When we got inside I looked at the clock: we still had fifteen minutes.

"Just go get changed and we can talk more when we set up," he said stripping off his flannel and putting on an under armor tee. Jill was a lucky girl to have him.

I came back out three minutes later in zebra spandex shorts and my favorite black singlet with my custom red sneakers. When I looked around I noticed that Eddie had set up all of the practice dummies that he had planned to use today along the wall. I smiled as my eyes landed on a redheaded dummy. During my practices with Dimitri, I used to take out my frustration on that particular one, imagining it was my mother.

I came out of my reminiscing only to have a realization sweep over me. Eddie had done all the work alone. I felt the guilt start to well up inside me.

"Eddie I told you that I would be right out!"

"Rose it's fine really. You were only in there for a few minutes; I just work fast," he smiled. He really was like my big brother. Always looking out for me whether I wanted him to or not.

"Well thanks for doing it. I promise next time, it's all me. Let's set up the obstacle course, then we can warm up before everyone else shows up."

"You want to set up the course for them? Don't you think that it is a touch premature? I mean even we did it solely in preparation for finals." He seemed a little unsure and it was obvious why: this was an incredibly hard course. Top of the line in fact; but I had thought that maybe it would help with the assignments for field experience. I told him my thoughts and plans.

"That is a good point," he said as he pulled down the rope ladder. I looked around at the course, the academy had added some new equipment to it since we had to do it senior year.

"Want to do a run through? For old time's sake?" I smiled; we were always the best at the course. We held the top two spots for the record – my time being the fastest of course. I had the record time of one minute and eleven seconds and Eddie was right behind me with the record of one minute and fifteen seconds. The next fastest time was almost a full minute and a half behind ours; it belonged to Meredith. A wave of guilt washed over me as I remembered what I had done to her during my escape from prison. She had long since recovered, but whenever we had duty together she never made any eye contact with me or she always found a different partner to do her rounds with. She hasn't even given me a chance to apologize for everything that had happened.

I was brought out of my thoughts by a shout. "One, Go!" Eddie yelled. In that very moment I didn't even have to think about what to do next. I took off running at the net and actually managing to jump onto it about four feet up. By the time I had made it to the top of the net I estimated that it took about five seconds. As I got onto the beam in front of me I made a big mistake. One that Dimitri had repeatedly told me to not do during our sessions; I looked down. Now I don't have a fear of heights (you can't have a petty fear like that as a Guardian) but just the thought of being on a four inch wide and fifteen feet long block of wood, held at about fifty feet from the ground with no harness was bound to freak anyone out, at least a little bit. I looked back up and ran across the beam as if my life depended on it – which it sort of did – and focused on the platform that was now in front of me.

Taking a few steps back I took one calming breath. Focus Rose, twenty feet to the platform now! I looked around for the only two seconds I could spare. When I noticed the ceiling rafters I took the biggest chance ever taken during this test. I jumped up and grabbed onto the cool steel with my hands. I pulled myself up so I was standing on the metal with my hands pressed firmly against the ceiling. Moving across the first one, I swiftly moved around the metal pole that was blocking my path to the next beam.

"Rose! What the hell do you think you are doing?" I vaguely heard from below. I don't even consider looking down and dismiss the comment as if I hadn't even heard it. Slowly but swiftly I continued my walk across the beams. After a few more seconds I'm finally at the beginning of the platform. Then I slipped. Grasping at the air, but grabbing nothing I relaxed for the briefest of moments. Then a thought flipped into my head. Your life is supposed to flash before your eyes as you fall to your death or are about to die in some other traumatic way right? But mine wasn't. Another three seconds passed and then a miracle occurred. With a thud I face planted onto the wood platform. With my body still dangling over the edge I found a good grip and flipped myself onto the platform landing on my back. I quickly stood up and waited for the room to stop spinning. I was still dizzy as I looked at my next obstacle, the rock wall. At about another five feet above my head I took out my practice stake from my pocket and jammed it into the rubber wall that the rocks were attached to. I used this as my first "rock" of the wall. Reaching up I grabbed one of the built in rocks and made my way to the top. Once up I moved to the side so that I could grab the rope that Eddie had put down earlier. Cautiously, I let go of the rock wall with one hand and grabbed the rope.

Then I jumped, unfortunately I hadn't thought to wear sleeves to avoid getting rope burn as I slid down. Too late, I thought as I slide down the rope. My hands felt as though they were on fire. When I landed on the last platform I looked around for my next task. That was all cut short as the platform gave away and I fell into the net below. Midair I flipped myself over so that I would land on my stomach. This saved me enough time so that climbing up the net wouldn't put me over my record. After I had climbed to the top of the net I looked for the timer on the wall. I was only at forty-six seconds so far. Then I saw the last thing that was blocking me from the finish line, the Treadder. The Treadder was like a teeter-totter with a treadmill as the wood. I jumped down and just as I was about to start running across it, I realized that I was almost at the edge of it and I was moving quickly backwards. Not wanting to waste any more time I jumped right off the end onto the red tape "X" that we had made the finish line this year.

"Time!" I shouted just as I hit the floor. I was hot, tired and my breathing was coming in ragged.

"Rose," Eddie said. I looked up to see him staring at the clock in shock. I turned around to see the time that had stopped. In bright glowing red numbers it read 50.2. "Rose, that's the fastest time ever completed by a guardian, not just school wide. All the visiting guardians that have tried it too!" he said logging it into the book of records for the guardians. "Rose," Eddie said gaping and wide eyed. "You beat Arthur Schoenberg's record." For a moment I was proud of myself and then I remembered the sight of his body bloody and broken on the ground of the Badica house that day I was supposed to take my trials.

"Don't log that number Eddie. Put the time as two seconds faster than whatever my mom's is." I didn't know her actual time but I had looked briefly at the book to know that the records held Arthur Schoenberg as first, my mother as second, Alberta third and Dimitri was fourth. I grabbed my phone off the table and took a picture of the timer. Underneath my name was my time. I was just about to clear it when a voice made me turn, others soon followed.

"50.2? That's insane!"

"Who did that?"

"It was Rose, I mean Guardian Hathaway." Both voices held awe.

"That's faster than her last record," a calm voice said. It was smooth, proud and had a slight accent to it.

I looked at the people who had spoken. Two things surprised me: one that not all of them were students – well there goes my plan to falsify my time, I thought – and second was that the first person who spoke was Viktoria Belikov; and standing next to her was Nikolai, Dimitri, and Meredith.

"Students," I said addressing Viktoria, Nikolai and the rest of the students that had entered the room. "Go get changed and ready for class. Today you will be doing your first timed run of the obstacle course. Class will begin in three minutes." By the end of my sentence most had headed through the door and into the locker rooms.

"Rose," Dimitri said. He was in serious guardian mode. "Do you know how incredible that time is? Guardians dream of beating your one minute and eleven seconds mark and yet you've somehow managed to complete it in twenty seconds less. That's truly amazing." He walked over to the book that Eddie had just set down on the shelf. "Rose, why is your time in here different than the time on the board?" he said raising his eyebrow.

Why can't I do that? I thought to myself. I walked past him to the timer and hit clear, then turned around to address him again. "What do you mean? The time in the book is correct." He looked at me with a look of pride and annoyance.

"Rose you don't have to change your time because of who the record holder is." He looked at the times again and laughed. "You especially should have changed your time to a different one because now I imagine that your mother is going to hear that you beat her time and she will be in here every day until she is faster than you again."

"I didn't change my time and I'm sure that she will be. Now I have a question for you," I said with the slight squint of my eyes. "How come Viktoria and Nikolai are here and not Baia?"

"There was an attack on their school." He said solemnly. No doubt remembering the attack that had occurred almost one year ago from today on St. Vladimir's – the same attack where he had been taken and turned into a strigoi. "Only two guardians were lost and three students were injured. There weren't that many strigoi that had attacked but there were enough. My mother sent Vika here because of us, a few other students came because it was safer too. They will all be finishing their school years here." He said. I could tell that he was happy his sister was here – he had missed her – but there was also an underlying sadness; one that told me he wished he could have been there to help. But that was Dimitri; he always wanted to help.

"Ok, well then that answers my question. Unless you are staying to guard I think you should go," I said as the students started walking back in. They nodded and took their spots along the wall. I took the last few moments as the last few students walked in to talk to Meredith.

"Meredith, I'm sorry for everything that happened. I didn't know how badly I had hurt you and I know at the time that you were just doing your job, but I thought that you should know that I'm truly sorry. You were collateral damage at the time; I needed to get out."

"Rose, its fine. Don't worry, I'm better now and I guess that's all that matters now anyway right?" She looked in my eyes for the first time in months and smiled. She actually smiled, and it made me feel one hundred times better than I had felt before.

"Thanks, it means a lot." I was going to give her a quick hug but then I realized that it would have been very unprofessional, so I chose to just walk back over to my students and listen as Eddie described what was going to happen.

After he finished the students divided into two groups, juniors and seniors. I took the seniors to the obstacle course while Eddie took the juniors into the other gym and continued to teach them more about offensive fighting and staking techniques. One by one I had the students go through the course and every time they finished successfully. However, when I told them their times, they all looked beaten.

I looked to see who the next student to go was and was surprised to see that it was Viktoria. "Set. Go!" I shouted. I watched as she started to take the same path I did but instead went to the other side which I had expected. Only two other students had even attempted the route I took and failed. They ended up with a time that almost hit the five minute mark. What I didn't expect however is for her to finish in the time that she did. I looked up at her. She was smiling and completely out of breath.

"One minute and four seconds," I announced. I watched as Dimitri's eyes went up to the clock along with everyone else's in the room. Even Eddie came running back in with his students in tow when he heard the time. I was still looking at my stopwatch in shock. "Congratulations Miss Belikova. You now hold the record time for the novices run of the obstacle course."

"Yes!" she shouted and started to happy dance. "Ro- I mean Guardian Hathaway, should I list my name on the paper?"

"No that will not be necessary. Guardian Belikov, will you please print out a new copy of the times after class has ended." I smirked at him; he was always so proud of me when I did well and now with him looking at Viktoria with even more pride made my heart swell. Even though I was a touch disappointed that my novice time had been shattered by seven seconds, I was still genuinely proud of her. She was the sister that I never had – other than Lissa of course.

"Of course, it will be posted before the bell rings," His guardian mask was on but it was nearly impossible to miss the joy in his voice. He nodded and returned to his post along the wall.

I looked at Nikolai who was next. He didn't even look at me as I gave him the starting commands. He just took off at the course after I had said "go". I watched as he climbed the ladder as everyone else had and then he did something completely unexpected. He chose the path that I had taken. "Oh no," I groaned under my breath. I was hoping for another success like Viktoria's had been. After he completed the easy parts of the first task he stood at the edge of the beam for a few seconds and calculated the distance. I knew that he wouldn't jump but as the moment that would either make him or break him came he did the unimaginable. He jumped as I had only instead of walking on the beams he held onto them and pulled himself across them using his arms. I was thoroughly impressed with his skills by the time he had finished. As his feet hit the floor I stopped the clock.

"One minute and twelve seconds." I announced. Once again everyone looked at the clock in amazement. "Another record today. Congratulations, your name will be added to the list in third place."

He smiled and walked over to Viktoria to give her a high five but instead she surprised him and pulled him into a tight hug. With everyone buzzing and all of the novices having completed their run-throughs I dismissed them to change and told them that the new records would be posted when they came out. When everyone was out of the gym Dimitri came back with two pieces of tape and the new paper.

I helped him post it and as soon as the last piece of tape was pressed against the wall Viktoria came running out to a screeching halt in front of the paper whipped out her cell phone and took a picture. I watch as she mass texted all of her friends and family showing them that she had beat my time on the obstacle course.

"Pozdravlyaem* Vika," Dimitri said as he walked over to her and pulled her into a hug. I walked over and joined the hug which was hard to do since she was only two inches shorter than me.

"Great Job Vik. That was amazing," I said as Dimitri leaned down and kissed her hair. "You should go and call your family. Video chat with them on my laptop if you want." I handed her my extra room key. "Second to last floor of the Moroi Administrative Building, first door on your left. My laptop should be sitting on the bed, you can talk to them in there or you can take it to your room. Just leave the key on the kitchen counter."

"Thanks Roza!" she said and she sprinted off to my room.

I took Dimitri's hand as I watched the last of the students leave the gym and faced him. I pulled him down to my height and kissed him fully on the lips. "Your sister is just as badass as you Dimitri. Actually she might be more badass than you since her time on this thing is faster than yours."

"Oh yeah," he said opening the gym door for me. "Well if she was in the guardian books she would have the same time as your mother. Which makes her only point two seconds slower than you; or so people will think now." He pecked my lips once more and pulled away placing his hands on my waist, "by the way, why did you do that?"

The inevitable question that I knew he would ask but I was dreading all the same. "I did it because when I saw that his name was first I couldn't bear to put my name before his. Arthur was legendary and with the way he died," I choked up at the memory but pushed it away. "It's horrible and I wanted to keep his memory at least in that as the best. I just couldn't put my name first because every time that I went to write my name I just saw his body lying there on the floor covered in blood."

"Roza," he stopped took both of my hands in his and looked me straight in the eyes. "Arthur was not only a teacher but a mentor and he always wanted his students to be better than he was himself. Just as I wanted and still want from you. He would want you to put your name before his. That is why I printed out a new page with your name at the top and put it in the binder for you. It now states your proper time in the book. It also lists you in first place." He bent down to kiss me softly.

A tear silently fell down my right cheek, "I don't know what I would do without you." I wrapped my arms around his waist and hugged him for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually I pulled away and started back to our room.

I walked down the hall to our door to find it slightly ajar, she must not have shut it all the way. I laughed and walked in to find three people sitting on our couch: Viktoria, Nikolai and a brunette whose face was obscured. I walked over to them just as Viktoria closed the laptop and set it on the coffee table.

"Who the hell are you?" I yelled as I slammed the brunette against the wall. She scared me but I wasn't about to show it. I held my grip on her throat firmly as I kept her in place. However she was better than I expected. She grabbed my wrist smacking it away from her and flipped us over so I was against the wall and she had her hands pressed against my shoulders pinning me.

"Don't you ever touch me like that again, are we clear?" she growled. I just stared into her emerald green eyes in shock. I nodded with my guardian mask in place and she let me go. I looked over to see Viktoria, Nikolai and Eddie restraining Dimitri from interfering.

I took a step back from her and watched as Dimitri visibly relaxed but I could tell it was only because I was out of harm's way. "Now answer my damn question." I growled back. I could feel Dimitri's hands on my arms ready to restrain me again as Nikolai came behind the other girl and did the same.

"Well Rose if you would like to know, my name is Aleksandra Mazur." She stopped and smirked at me. "I'm your sister."

And then I saw it. I finally registered the girl standing in front of me. She was my exact copy other than her green eyes and the slightly darker tan that she had. I started to feel light headed but lent back into Dimitri so I wouldn't pass out. She dropped her guard a little bit and that was all I needed. I pulled back my right hand and punched her in the face. The shock to me was that when she fell to the ground her hair fell to the side and I saw her neck. She had seven molnija marks, one zvezda and no promise mark.

My next sentence was split into fragments. "What. The. Hell."

* Pozdravlyaem Vika: Congratulations Viktoria

Chapter 1 Concluded! I hope you enjoyed it! Review please, I love the feedback! I am going to try to make Saturdays my regular update days if I can!

~13th Writer