Being Rose Hathaway, I of course tried to escape my Strigoi captors as they hauled me out of my prison cell and away to meet the Grand Master, whoever that was. Needless to say, resistance was utterly futile.

I eventually gave up in favour of trying to assess my surroundings the way I'd been taught to as a guardian, but there wasn't much to see. The Strigoi kept this place in almost pitch blackness, so dark that not even my dhampir eyes could pierce it. Even with Strigoi roughly holding my arms and hauling me through the corridors, I stumbled more than once on some unseen obstacle. It was something out of a horror movie.

Strigoi had no difficulty navigating in total darkness, however, and we wound through the corridors of what seemed to be a very large house. Suddenly, I saw light up ahead of me. My heartbeat sped up, only to slow down again when I realized it was electric light, not sunlight. It'd been foolish of me to expect anything else.

We emerged from almost total darkness into a well lit room. It wasn't large, but it was big enough for a work desk, a swivel chair and a pair of Strigoi posted on either side of the room. A swift glance and assessment of their stance told me they'd once been guardians.

Seated in the swivel chair was a man, his back to me. His hair was greying, and he was tall – that was all I could tell from behind.

"Grand Master," said the Strigoi clutching my right arm in a vice-like grip, "we bring you Rose Hathaway."

The swivel chair turned around, and I prepared to spit out one of the many witty quips I'd been preparing on my way here. Instead, my mouth dropped open, and I found myself speechless. This was not something I'd expected.

"Hello, Rose," said Robert Doru.

~~Page Break~~

To say that I'd had a complicated relationship with Robert Doru was a huge understatement.

Robert was an illegitimate royal, born of a non-royal mother and a Dashkov father. His half brother was Victor Dashkov, who, in his desperation to cure himself of his chronic and fatal disease, had kidnapped Lissa and tried to force her to heal him – an act which had landed him in one of the Moroi world's highest-security prisons. Lissa, Eddie and I had broken him out of jail in order to find Robert, a spirit user, who possessed the secret of restoring Strigoi to their original forms. It was thanks to him that Dimitri had been restored by Lissa, and Robert had later gone on to restore another Strigoi, Sonya Karp. It was just part of the amazing spirit Robert wielded.

Or rather, used to yield. Robert Doru was now Strigoi.

As always when I met Strigoi whom I'd once known, it was a shock to see Robert – so familiar, and yet so strange. His features, the Dashkov facial features, were still the same. His hair was the same colour – it was rare to find an old-looking Strigoi. Even the wrinkles on his face were the same. But those once-brown eyes were ringed with red now, and what had once been pale Moroi skin was now chalky white, the death pallor, the Strigoi pallor. The frailty that I'd always associated with Robert, due to both his old age and the toll that spirit took on his body and mind – gone. He looked strong, almost youthful. The dreaminess he'd once been prone to was gone too, and his red eyes were sharp and focused on me. And a cruel sneer played across his lips.

Seeing my speechlessness, the sneer deepened. "So, I've finally rendered Rose Hathaway speechless," he continued, sitting back.

I found my voice. "Robert?!"

"I see you remember my name. I wouldn't have expected it. You certainly didn't seem to remember me after I outlived my usefulness."

I cast my mind back to when I'd last seen Robert. It had happened when I'd been a fugitive, on the run from the Moroi authorities. Dimitri and I had been on a mission to find Lissa's long-lost sibling, a girl named Jill, who, as Lissa's only living relative, would allow Lissa to assume her throne and become queen. Robert and Victor had kidnapped Jill, hoping to use her as leverage for power. We'd found them, and in the ensuing struggle I'd accidentally killed Victor. Robert had tried to use spirit to bring Victor back to life, but Dimitri had run off with him. I remembered asking Dimitri where Robert was, and Dimitri's reply: Unconscious, hidden in some bushes around the corner.

Robert scowled. "I woke up filthy, scraped up, hidden under bushes like a corpse. I went back to where Victor's body had been – but of course, it was long gone, and so were all of you." I listened for grief in Robert's tone, but there was none, only anger. Strigoi were incapable of grief, but they were certainly capable of fury.

"I was…weak," Robert growled. "I had nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. You hadn't left me anything, no money, no food, nothing. You abandoned me to my fate. I felt weak, and helpless, and used. But more than that? More than that, I wanted revenge for what had been done to me."

The Strigoi surrounding me growled.

"But what could I do?" Robert continued. "I was a frail old man, body weak with age, mind addled by insanity."

I could do nothing but stare.

"And then, I made a very wise decision. I decided never to be weak again. And so I walked around, walked around until I found an unsuspecting human…and then I awakened myself."

I recoiled. I didn't need a further explanation to know what had happened. There were two ways to turn Strigoi: to be drained of blood by a Strigoi and have them feed their blood back to you was the standard procedure. For Moroi, there existed another possibility: to drain a victim entirely of blood and kill them. That would turn Moroi dark, and they would lose all sense of their morals and goodness, become the twisted, evil monsters that were Strigoi. It was one of the most terrible crimes a Moroi could commit, and it was what Robert had done.

"It was worth it," Robert told me, almost conversationally, except for the tone of menace in his voice. "My mind was instantly clear. Spirit wasn't a part of me anymore – I was free to realize just how slowly I had been going insane. I stopped feeling those awful hurt feelings, as well – stopped feeling betrayed. And I cherished my new clarity of mind. I was strong again, too, like a young man." He got up and walked towards me. "Strong enough to do this."

Before I could react, he had grabbed me by the arms and hurled me against the wall. Stars burst behind my eyes and pain exploded across my body. I sank to the ground in a haze of pain, hearing cruel laughter from the other Strigoi.

"Is that all you've got, old man?" I panted. "Gotta love your family. First Natalie, now you? What do the Dashkovs love so much about Strigoi?"

Robert was in front of me in a second, looking down at me. "Natalie turned because of loyalty to her father," he growled. "Me? I turned because I hated you, and I craved revenge."

I thought of how we'd treated Robert, and my heart twisted in guilt. We'd used him to get what we wanted, and then discarded him like a used bag. I hadn't even thought about Robert until today. I shook my head. "Robert, I'm sorry…"

He laughed harshly. "Now she apologizes! Well, it's too late, Rose, because I'm beyond caring. I'd like to thank you, actually, for what you've done, Rose. Because you didn't just motivate me to turn Strigoi." He looked down at me, his red eyes cold, a cruel twist to his lips. "You've signed the death warrant of the Moroi race."