I know this chapter has been a long time coming. I'm sorry. I can make all the excuses in the world for myself, insanity at work, busy lifestyle, whatever, but the truth is I mostly just couldn't get the end right and eventually gave up on it for a while. I'm still not thrilled with it, but enough is enough. For better or worse, here it is. I hope you guys didn't give up on me.

A Debt To Repay

Chapter 9

Failed

I burst out of the maze into open fields. There was no scent of Rose anywhere. She hadn't come out this way. With an angry snarl, I ran to my left, following the outer wall of the maze. I couldn't hear her crashing around in there anymore, so she must have come out another exit. I paused at the next gap in the hedge, casting around, but there was nothing. I kept moving, using my supernatural speed. I was struggling, today's battles had weakened me, but I was still faster than a lost, lonely little dhampir girl.

I found her trail at next entrance. Breathing deeply, inhaled the scent of her. The rich, meaty tang of dhampir, with just a trace of blood from some small scratch. I followed the trail, moving quickly over the open ground. As I reached the line of trees I heard her again, crashing on ahead of me. I followed the sound. She must be more injured than I thought, she wasn't moving as fast as I would have expected. Still, the fact that she had escaped at all was impressive. If I found it within myself to forgive her and awaken her, she would make an extraordinary ally. If not, then she would die tonight.

"Rose" I called to her, just loud enough for her to hear me. "I swear it's not too late" She was mine. She was mine! if I couldn't have her, then so be it. No one would have her! I couldn't hear her anymore. She must have stopped running. I slowed my own pace so that I was gliding forward silently, still following the scent. Where was she? Somewhere, somewhere close. The scent was stronger. She's so close.

"Roza." I called quietly. "I know your here." I crept forward, eyes scanning the undergrowth, her scent getting stronger. "you have no chance of running, no chance of hiding." Here, the scent was strongest here. Where was she? Behind the tree? "Roza..."

I heard the tiniest noise above me...

I didn't have a chance to look up before Rose landed on me.

The impact knocked me to the ground. I sprawled on my back, rise above me. Allowing my instincts to take over, I bucked and shoved, trying to throw her off. My fatigue worked against me, and while Rose was not in peak condition either, she was not fresh from battling and killing a houseful of my kind. The gleaming stake scraped over my cheek, cutting me. The pain was shocking, burning. I snarled in agony. I saw fear flash in her eyes at the sound, but she didn't relent in her attack. Looking up at her now, I could see Rose as I knew she could be, deadly and glorious. She was an avenging angel, a warrior goddess. I knew in that moment that she was MINE! I would change her tonight.

"You. Are. Amazing."

She didn't react, save to increase her efforts. With a sharp lunge, she managed to imbed the tip of the stake into my chest. I snarled in agony again, but my arm was already moving, I knocked her away, finally succeeding in throwing her off me in the process. Her body flew a few feet away, and she was immediately on her feet. This time, I was slower. The searing agony from the small wound in my chest was already fading, but it was enough to hamper me.

She fled as I stumbled to my feet. I staggered after her, but even limping, she was faster. My hand griped the fading wound. My strength was building again as it closed, but it was happening far slower than it should. My reserves were running low. I needed to end this soon, not just to change her, but to feed on her and replenish my waning strength.

I was gaining again. My eyes were fixed on her fleeing figure, getting closer and closer...

"Rose! NO!"

Her name burst from me as I woke. I sprang up in the bed, raising the stake I kept near me while I slept, my mind disoriented and her scream still ringing in my ears. Rose was in trouble! She was hurt! She was being chased by... by me.

Slowly, the real world filtered in past my nightmare. Rose wasn't running through a forest in Siberia. She wasn't being chased by me. she...

She was gone.

I lay back in the cold, empty bed as the new nightmare, one that had been my constant reality for the past five days, washed over me. Rose had been taken. She had fallen in battle. I had lost her.

My eyes travelled around the simple guardroom. There wasn't any real need for me to be here, as Christian had yet to leave Lissa's side for more than a minute since her return to court, but I couldn't bear the thought of sleeping alone in the room I had shared with Rose. I knew the nightmares would be a thousand times more potent there.

My eyes touched on the letter on the side table. It had arrived two days ago, and even though I already had it memorized, my hand reached for it to read it again. I needed something, anything to distract me. My mother's elegant Cyrillic script was faded and illegible at the creases, due to the sheer number of times I had unfolded and refolded this single sheet of paper. It didn't matter. My mind still saw the words as if she had just written them.

Мой сын Дмитрий. It began. My son Dimitri.

Я не знаю, если я пишу это письмо, чтобы мой сын, или что-то другое...

...I don't know if I am writing this letter to my child, or to something else. I don't know if I should be writing this at all. A moroi woman named Sonya Karp has come to the house. She has told me of something not possible. She has told me of a miracle. Yeva swears that miss Karp speaks the truth, and that this moroi woman is a miracle herself, but for the first time in my life I find I cannot believe in the things my own mother has seen. It is not possible.

Some months ago, another came to us. A younger woman, a guardian. Her name was Rose. She told us what had become of my son. She told us you had fallen, and the enemy and taken your soul rather than your life. Her words have ripped my heart and my spirit. Only those who have lost their children can understand the pain a mother feels when she stands at her child's funeral. It is a pain that makes the whole world dark. I pray to the saints every day that the pain will ease. No parent should ever have to feel pain like this.

If you are my Dimitri, if you are my son returned, then please, write to me. tell me if this miracle is the truth. Tell me if the saints have answered me. I will know if it is you. By the words you use and by the way you shape them, I will know if you truly are my own child or if you are a demon with his skin. Until I see it in your own hand, I cannot allow myself to believe in stories that are so like dreams. If I give in to the hope, and it comes to nothing, I will be losing my son all over again. That is not something I think I can survive twice...

... То есть не то, я думаю, что смогу выжить в два раза.

There was no signature.

Rather than distracting me, this letter had only managed to intensify the turmoil in my mind. I lay back and stared at the ceiling. Two days, and I had yet to write a reply. I couldn't. Each time I had tried, visions of my mother bent over her small writing desk had filled my vision. I could clearly imagine her as she wrote, hand trembling slightly, tears on her face. I had done that to her. I had given my mother that pain. And my own hand refused to shape the words that would ease the pain she felt. How could I? She was asking, begging, for the son she had lost. And I wasn't him anymore. I was a ghost of myself. My eyes roamed the ceiling, barely visible through the tears that were filling them. With my blurred vision, the ceiling seemed to be getting closer, like it was bowing down towards me. The walls, too, were creeping closer and closer with each passing second. Slowly closing in around me...

"Urgh!"

I jerked to my feet, frustrated. I needed a distraction. I desperately needed to still my mind, just for a moment. I dressed quickly and left the room.

The sun was hovering above the horizon. I walked through the small city, looking for anything I could find to take my mind out of the pit it had sunk into. It was early, and the grounds were quiet. The day-blooming flowers were closing their petals and drooping their heads, while the heads of the night flowers were just beginning to rise, ready to open themselves to the moon. I found myself on the lawns of the church, staring at what remained if the statue of the youngest queen ever to rule, aside from Lissa. The entire upper body of the queen had been blasted away by the C4 Abe had planted on it. Now just the lower part of her skirts remained, a thick near shapeless trunk of marble that stood half over again as tall as I was. The garden beneath it had been meticulously repaired, all the flora replaced, the low stone walls neat and perfect once again. At the base of the statue was a bench made of matching marble. On it, her eyes red and cheeks tearstained, sat Sonya Carp.

It seemed like everyone was crying these days.

Noticing me, she wiped her eyes and gave me a tiny smile. I tried to return it, but I have a feeling my attempted smile mangled on my face.

"Its nice to see you, Sonya." And it was. Sonya had agreed to try and restore Rose, once we found her. "What are you doing up this early?"

She gave a another small smile. "I couldn't sleep. You?"

"Same"

Sonya rose from the bench and came towards me, glancing back at the giant stump of marble that was once a magnificent statue. "I've heard there are plans to replace that with a statue of Rose"

I gasped "what? That's ridiculous. Rose is a dhampir! Whatever her record, the moroi wouldn't put up a statue of one of my kind."

Sonya rolled her eyes. "Even when Rose was a dhampir she was never an ordinary one. She's become a legend, more than shadow kissed Anna ever was. Eight people were lost in that attack, and Rose is the only name anyone knows.

I grew angry at that. Yes, Rose was the only name that truly mattered to me, but for the moroi to completely forget the other guardians was more than their usual shallow mindedness. It was callous. I glared a little as I spoke. "The other names where Uri Korsakova, Jack Samoset, Patrick Donavon, Ivan Tarsira-"

"Yes, yes" she interrupted me, dismissively. "You remember them, dhampir's remember them, but among the moroi? Listening to them, you could believe Rose was the only one who died."

Pain rippled through me again. "Rose didn't die!" I hissed at her.

"She isn't alive either." She said back smoothly.

"She will be, when you save her"

A strange expression crossed Sonya's face before she turned away sharply. The glimpse of it was brief, but I saw enough to understand. Guilt, fear, reluctance... . Fear griped my own heart. No no no! Sonya was my only hope!

"You...are going to save her?"

She turned further away from me. "...I..."

I took a step closer. "You have to save her. You're going to save her, right?"

Sonya gave a tiny sob, splintering the icy shards of fear in my heart. She was crying again. "I... I can't..."

I grabbed her arm, spinning her towards me. Desperation leaked into my voice. "What do you mean you can't? You're a spirit user. The strongest spirit user alive, apart from Lissa. You're the only hope! You have to have her!"

Sonya was still looking down, refusing to face me. My desperation thickened, and began to turn to anger.

"You have to!" I shouted. "You owe her. You know what it's like to be one of those things; you understand what it means more than anyone else! It's because of her that we ever came to Paris. It's because of her that you were changed back, that either of us where! YOU CANT LEAVE HER LIKE THAT!"

With all of my attention focused on the trembling moroi woman, I didn't notice Mikhail's approach until he had slammed into me, shoving me to the ground. My training taking over, I recovered instantly, on my feet and sizing up my opponent. Standing directly in front of Sonya, Mikhail mirrored my ready stance.

"Back off!" He warned me, voice hard and angry. I ignored him, shouting at Sonya behind him.

"You can't abandon her! You owe her!"

"I'm not like you!" she shouted beck, finally finding her voice. "Or Rose, or Vasilisa. I'm not like any of you. I can't do the things you do." She stepped out from behind Mikhail.

"I'm scared! I've always been scared. Scared of everything. Scared of myself. Scared of the insanity I can feel getting closer every single day! Every time I use the magic it gets worse. Last time, it got so bad, I took the only way out I could think of. I took a feeder, and old man, and I drained him dry. I killed him." tears are running down her face. "I killed many people when I was a strigoi. Hundreds of them. But it wasn't really me. That was the monster I had become who was walking around with my face. But that first one, the one that changed me, that was me. I killed him. I did it deliberately." She paused, gasping a few times, her eyes squeezed shut. Then she opened them again and looked at me. "I can't ever let myself reach that point again. I can't use magic that big. I can't risk it. I'm scared that if I do, I might end up making the same decision.

Fury swelled within me. "You're a coward!" I hissed. "You took the coward's way out then. Lissa was a child then, young and frightened; she didn't know what was happening to her. You knew what she was. You knew, and you abandoned her." I stepped forward. "You abandoned Jillian when the guardians attacked the Mastrano house. And now you're abandoning Rose. You're a coward!"

Mikhail stepped between us again. "That's enough!"

Sonya was pale and shaking. She stared at me with wide eyes, tears streaming down her face. She knew I was right, just as I knew it didn't matter. She had made her decision. With a last glare at me, Mikhail wrapped his arms around her and led her away.

Stumbling forward, I collapsed onto the stone bench and buried my head in my hands. My last hope, shattered. My body trembled and my breath came in gasps as I fought against the sobs that threatened to completely consume me.

A voice dragged me from my despair, but didn't free me from it.

"Well, that was unexpected"

I looked up to se Adrian Ivashkov standing before me. Had he just watched me lose it and break down? How humiliating.

"Isn't it a bit early for you to be up?" I snapped at him with a glare.

"Not if you haven't been to sleep yet" he replied. I believed it too. I wouldn't have believed it possible, but Adrian looked worse than I did. There were rings under his eyes were deep purple. His hair was a disaster, his expensive clothes dishevelled. He reeked of clove, though surprisingly not of alcohol. He was playing with something silver, though I wasn't sure what, as my eyes were fixed on his, glaring. Seemingly oblivious to my foul mood or the waves of hostility that were rolling off me, he game and sat beside me on the bench. I was eerily reminded of the time in the hospital.

I was about to get to my feet and leave, when I noticed what the silver object in his hands was.

Adrian is playing with a stake.

It was a beautiful piece of equipment. Slightly more slim-lined than the standard guardian issue, the tip tapering to a deadly sharp point, the stake gleamed in the last light of the sun that was about to slip entirely below the horizon. Instead of the standard corrugated grip, this stake had a delicately worked pattern of leaves and roses, intricately detailed and perfectly balanced. It was one of the most elegant killing tools I had ever seen.

He noticed me staring at it. "I had it made for her. I kind of apology gift, as her old one is still in an evidence box somewhere. I was going to give it to her when she got back, but..." he rolled the stake between his hands.

"I've been trying. Ever since I heard, I've been trying. But I can't do it. I can feel the magic flowing into the stake, and it starts to work, I can feel it. And then... it just seems to fall apart. The magic dissolves." He closed his eyes. "Lissa was right. I cant do it. Carp was our only shot."

"I don't understand." I muttered. "She was willing when she arrived. She agreed."

"Things change, I guess. People get scared"

I stared at the red horizon left behind by the sun. My anger and desperation giving way to desolation. "Not that it matters, because we still have no idea where Rose is."

Adrian gave me an odd look, almost sympathetic. "Hasn't anyone told you?"

"Told me what?"

He hesitated, as if trying to decide how much to say.

"Rose was seen. Yesterday. In Siberia"

I practically choked "What! Siberia!" why there? Why on earth would Rose have gone there?

Adrian looked distinctly uncomfortable. An unusual look for him. "She was apparently recognised by some kid, who knew her from last time. She... she killed the spirit user there, Oksana, I think her name was."

Okay, there will be more, sooner rather than later. I promise. Sorry again. And if by some chance you read this Kaii, sorry for killing Oksana