Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Academy (unfortunately) and have used its characters and general plot in order to create this story. I have also kept the same sort of structure as the original story and include some of the original lines, and I AM NOT taking credit for Richelle Mead's work. This is my take on how the story could have gone with hopefully a few more things expanded on and explained. I also wanted more involvement of spirit and a more badass Rose, so...here it is.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed/favourited/followed!

Chapter Six

As much as Lissa and Christian's meeting still bothered me, it gave me an idea the next day.

"Hey, Kirova—er, morning Ms. Kirova."I stood in the doorway of her office, not having bothered to make an appointment. I would only be a second anyway. She raised her eyes from some paperwork, clearly annoyed to see me.

Yeah, I love you too Miss Stroppy-Pants.

"Yes, Miss Hathaway?" She sighs.

"Does my house arrest mean I can't go to church?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You said that whenever I'm not in class or at practice, I have to stay in my room. But what about church on Sundays? I don't really think it's fair to keep me away from my, uh, religious…uh, needs."

She sighed again before pushing her reading glasses up to rest on the top of her head and pinching the bridge of her nose as if having a severe headache. "I wasn't aware you had any religious needs."

"I found Jesus while I was gone."

"Isn't your mother an atheist?" she asked, dropping her hand back onto the desk.

Huh. I had no idea.

"And my dad's probably Muslim. But I've moved on to my own religious path. You shouldn't keep me from it." Or away from Lissa, who with no doubt would be there every Sunday without fault.

She made a noise that sort of sounded like a snort. "No, Miss Hathaway, I should not. Very well. You may attend services on Sundays. Now get out."

The victory was short-lived, however, because church was every bit as lame-ass as I remembered when I attended a few days later. I did get to sit next to Lissa though, which made me feel like I was getting away with something. But, as Lissa always scolded me through the bond whenever I began to whisper to her or fidget, I mostly I just people-watched and day dreamed for the hour or so I was suck on the uncomfortable plank of wood we were forced to sit in.

Christian sat on the opposite side of the aisle, pretending to be just as holy as he'd said. As much as I didn't like him, his fake faith still made me smile. Dimitri sat in the back, his handsome face lined with dark shadows, and, like me, didn't take communion. Though, as thoughtful as he looked, I wondered if he even listened to the service. I tuned in and out as the service continued.

"Following God's path is never easy," the priest was saying. "Even St. Vladimir, this school's own patron saint, had a difficult time. He was so filled with spirit that people often flocked around him, enthralled just to listen and be in his presence. So great was his spirit, the old texts say, that he could heal the sick. Yet despite these gifts, many did not respect him. They mocked him, claiming he was misguided and confused."

Which was a nice way of saying Vladimir was insane. Everyone knew it. He was one of a limited handful of Moroi saints, so the priest liked to talk about him a lot. I'd heard all about him, many times over, before we left. Great. It looked like I had an eternity of Sundays to hear his story over and over again.

Maybe once I get this bond to work two-way I'll sing horrible 80's ballads and cheesy pop songs to Lissa through it to pass the time. Or we could play 'I spy.' Hell, we could gossip about boys (with visual aid). Anything to get rid of this mind-numbing boredom.

Though it is a pity people will never know the truth about the old guy. While away we'd put together the story and realised that St Vladimir, and Miss Karp too, were the same as Lissa; Spirit users who could heal. However, we also heard that they could do so much more. As much as reading through a bunch of dusty old books and researching a guy who died before the dawn of time bored me I had always wanted the opportunity to see what else Lissa could be capable of.

"…and so it was with shadow-kissed Anna."

And that's where I come in. I was 'Shadow-kissed' like Anna. It had been a while since I heard the stories, but I'd never forgotten them. I waited, hoping he'd continue and maybe tell me something I didn't remember but he'd already moved on to the next part of the service. The oh-so-exciting sermon was over.

Church concluded and, as much as I'd love to leave, I shook my head at Lissa as she turned to go. "Wait for me. I'll only be a second."

I pushed my way through the departing crowd, up to the front, where the priest was speaking with a few people. I waited impatiently while he finished up. Natalie was there as well, asking him about volunteer work she could do. Ugh. When she finished, she left, smiling at me as she passed.

The priest raised his eyebrows when he saw me. "Hello, Rose. It's nice to see you again."

"Yeah…you too," I said. "I heard you talking about Anna. About how she was 'shadow-kissed.' What does that mean exactly? And Spirit?"

He frowned. "I'm not entirely sure. They lived a very long time ago. It was often common to refer to people by titles that reflected some of their traits. It might have been a name given to make her sound fierce."

Suuuure...Well, it did, but that wasn't the reason she was given that title. "Oh. So who was she?"

This time his frown was disapproving rather than thoughtful. "I mentioned it a number of times."

"Oh. I must have, um, missed that part."

His disapproval grew, and he turned around. "Wait just a moment."

He disappeared through a door, the one Lissa had taken to the attic, and I considered fleeing but thought God might strike me down for abandoning a priest while he was trying to help me. Less than a minute later, the priest returned with a book.

He handed it to me. Moroi Saints.

"You can learn about them in here. The next time I see you, I'd like to hear what you've learned."

I scowled as I walked away. Great. Homework from the priest. At least it should have something useful in it, right? And I did want to know more.

I found Lissa in the chapel's entry way where I left her only she was talking to Aaron. She smiled as she spoke, and the feelings coming off her were happy, though clearly not infatuated.

"You're kidding," she exclaimed.

He shook his head, blushing lightly."Nope."

Seeing me wander over, she turned to me. "Rose, you're never going to believe this. You know Abby Badica? And Xander? Their guardian wants to resign. To marry another guardian."

Now this was exciting gossip. A scandal, really. "Seriously? Are they, like, going to run off together?"

She nodded. "They're buying a house. Going to get jobs with the humans, I guess."

I glanced at Aaron, who had suddenly turned shy, well shyer, with me there. "How are Abby and Xander dealing with that?"

"Okay. Embarrassed. They think it's stupid." Then he realized who he was speaking to. "Oh. I didn't mean—"

"Whatever." I gave him a tight smile. "It is stupid."

The rebellious part me of loved any story where people 'fought the system.' Only, in this case, they were fighting my system, the one I'd been trained to believe in my entire life.

Dhampirs and Moroi had a strange arrangement. Dhampirs had originally been born from Moroi mixing with humans. Unfortunately, dhampirs couldn't reproduce with each other—or with humans. It was a weird genetic thingy. Dhampirs and full Moroi could have children together, and, through another genetic oddity, their kids came out as standard dhampirs, with half human genes, half vampire genes.

So, with Moroi being the only ones with whom dhampirs could reproduce, we had to stay close to them and intermingle with them. Likewise, it became important to us that the Moroi simply survived. Without them, our race was done. And with the way Strigoi loved picking off Moroi, their survival became a legitimate concern for us. Hence, the guardian system developed. Dhampirs couldn't work magic, but we made great warriors. We'd inherited enhanced senses and reflexes from our vampire genes and better strength and endurance from our human genes. We also weren't limited by a need for blood. Or had trouble with the sunlight.

Sure, our kind wasn't as powerful as the Strigoi, but we trained hard and the guardians did a kick-ass job at keeping Moroi safe. Most dhampirs felt it was worth risking their own lives to make sure our kind could still continue.

And, since Moroi usually wanted to have and raise pure Moroi children, you didn't find a lot of long-term Moroi-dhampir romances. Moroi didn't usually stick around to help out with their 'half-bred' kids, most of us being the product of quick affairs and flings. And you especially didn't find a lot of Moroi women hooking up with dhampir guys (though there was a rumour Miss Karp was seeing a guardian here at the school before she left). But plenty of young Moroi men liked fooling around with dhampir women, although those guys usually went on to marry Moroi women. That left a lot of single dhampir mothers, but we were tough and could handle it. Or, they were like my mother and kept on being full time guardians, simply deciding to not handle it at all, and giving the responsibility of raising their children to someone else.

Practically straight after I'd been born, my mother had handed me over to be raised by the Academy. I could see, in a way, why she did it of course. But she could at least call or email every once in a while and give a crap about my life. Even Sydney, who hated me in the first several months, as I was an 'evil creature of the night,' emailed me more often at the beginning. In fact, Sydney had contacted me more in the first month of our 'friendship' than my mother had since she dumped me off here.

Those women who do raise their kids fully sometimes worked 'regular' jobs with Moroi or humans; some of them lived together in communities. These communities had a bad reputation. I don't know how much of it was true, but rumours said Moroi men visited all the time for sex and that some dhampir women let them drink blood while doing it, so called Blood whores.

Regardless, almost all guardians were men, which meant there were a lot more Moroi than guardians. Most of the dhampir guys accepted that they wouldn't have kids. They knew it was their job to protect Moroi while their sisters and cousins had the babies. Quite sexist, but what can you do?

Between her example and my life at the Academy, I believed wholeheartedly that it was a Dhampir's job to protect Moroi. It was part of our heritage, and it was the only way we'd keep going. It was that simple.

And that was what made what the Badicas' guardian had done so shocking. He'd abandoned his Moroi and run off with another guardian, which meant she'd abandoned her Moroi as well. They couldn't even have children together, and now two families were unprotected. What was the point? No one cared if teenage dhampirs dated or if adult dhampirs had flings. But a long-term relationship? Particularly one that involved them running away? A complete waste. And an utter disgrace.

After a little more convocation on the Badicas, Lissa and I left Aaron.

As we stepped outside, I heard a funny shifting sound and then something sliding. Too late, I realized what was happening, just as a pile of snow slid off the chapel's roof and onto us. It was early October, and we'd had an early fall last night that had started melting almost instantly. As a result, the stuff that fell on us was very wet and very cold.

Lissa took the brunt of it, but I still jumped as icy water landed on my hair and neck. A few others squealed nearby too, having caught the edge of the mini-avalanche.

"You okay?" I asked her. Her coat was drenched, and her platinum hair clung to the sides of her face. If her hair was looking that bad, I seriously didn't want to be anywhere near any reflective surfaces to see mine.

"Y-yeah," she said through chattering teeth.

I pulled off my coat and handed it to her, glad I had chosen a high neck top that morning. The coat had a slick surface and had repelled most of the water and would warm her up quickly.

"Take yours off."

"But you'll be cold."

I just stared at her and held out my coat in front of her, showing her I wasn't going to back down.

She then quickly did as I asked and, as she slipped on my coat, I finally tuned in toward the laughter that always follows these situations but I avoided the eyes. Instead I focused on holding Lissa's wet jacket while she changed.

"Wish you hadn't been wearing a coat, Rose," said Ralf Sarcozy, an unusually bulky and plump Moroi. He was also a stupid idiot who believed it was funny to bully the unfortunate. I hated him. "That shirt would have looked good wet."

"That shirt's so ugly it should be burned. Did you get it from a homeless person?"

I glanced up as Mia walked over and looped her arm through Aaron's. Her blond curls were arranged perfectly, and she had on an awesome pair of black heels that would have looked so much better on me. At least they made her look taller, I'd give her that. Aaron had been a few steps behind us but had miraculously avoided being nailed by the slush. Seeing how smug she looked, I decided there'd been no miracles involved.

"I suppose you want to offer to burn it, huh?" I asked, refusing to let her know how much that insult bugged me. I knew perfectly well my fashion sense had slipped over the last two years. "Oh, wait—fire isn't your element, is it? You work with water. What a coincidence that a bunch just fell on us."

Mia looked as if she'd been insulted, but the gleam in her eyes showed me that she was enjoying this way too much to be an innocent bystander. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing to me. But I'm sure Ms. Kirova will probably have something to say when she finds out you used magic against another student."

"That wasn't an attack," she scoffed. "And it wasn't me. It was an act of God."

A few others laughed, much to her delight. In my imagination, I responded with 'So is this,' and then slammed her head into the side of the church using all the darkness that had arose within me since she had showed her smug face. But, alas, in real life, Lissa simply nudged me and said, "Let's go."

She and I walked off toward our respective dorms, leaving behind laughter and jokes about our wet states and how Lissa wouldn't ever specialize. Inside, I seethed. I had to do something about Mia, I realized. In addition to the general irritation of Mia's bitchiness, I didn't want Lissa to have to deal with any more stress than she had to. We'd been okay this first week, and I wanted to keep it that way.

That bitch was going down.

Maybe I could ask Sydney, she'd know how to make that bitch pay without me getting caught. She can be incredibly sneaky when she wants to be. She also has an eye for detail and a level head – traits I did not have. Then again...

"You know," I said, "I'm thinking more and more that you stealing Aaron back is a good thing. It'll teach the Bitch Doll a lesson. I bet it'd be easy, too. He's still crazy about you."

"I don't want to teach anyone a lesson," said Lissa. "And I'm not crazy about him."

"Come on, she picks fights and talks about us behind our backs. She accused me of getting jeans from the Salvation Army yesterday."

"Your jeans are from the Salvation Army."

"Well, yeah," I snorted, "but she has no right making fun of them when she's wearing stuff from Target."

"There's nothing wrong with Target. I like Target."

"So do I. But that's not the point. She's trying to pass her stuff off like its freaking Stella McCartney."

"And that's a crime?"

I gave her my best serious face."Absolutely. You gotta take revenge."

"I told you, I'm not interested in revenge." Lissa cut me a sidelong look. "And you shouldn't be either."

I smiled as innocently as I could, and when we parted ways, I felt relieved again that she couldn't read my thoughts.

Sydney it was.

"So when's the big catfight going to happen?"

Mason was waiting for me outside our dorm after I'd parted ways with Lissa. He looked lazy and cute, leaning against the wall with crossed arms as he watched me approach.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," I say as I flip my hair over my shoulder.

He unfolded himself and walked with me into the building, handing me his coat, since I'd let Lissa go off with my dry one. "I saw you guys sparring outside the chapel. Have you no respect for the house of God?"

I snorted. "You've got about as much respect for it as I do, you heathen. You didn't even go. Besides, as you said, we were outside."

"And you still didn't answer the question."

I just grinned and slipped on his warm coat.

We stood in the common area of our dorm, a well-supervised lounge and study area where male and female students could mingle, along with the few Moroi guests who come to visit. Being Sunday, it was pretty crowded with those cramming for last-minute assignments due tomorrow. Spying a small, empty table, I grabbed Mason's arm and pulled him toward it.

"Aren't you supposed to go straight to your dungeon?"

I flopped down into my seat, glancing around warily. "There are so many people here today it'll take them a while to notice me. God, I'm so sick of being locked away. And it's only been a week. I'm beginning to hallucinate already and am seeing bars on the windows."

"I'm sick of it too. We missed you last night. A bunch of us went and shot pool in the rec room. Eddie was on fire."

I groaned. "Don't tell me that. I don't want to hear about your glamorous social life. And if you continue to do so I might just have to show you my inner frustrations during practice tomorrow."

"All right, wow." He dropped his elbow up on the table and rested his chin in his hand. "Then tell me about Mia. You're just going to turn around and sock her one day, aren't you? I think I remember you doing that at least ten times with other people that pissed you off."

"I'm a new, reformed Rose," I said, doing my best impression of innocent, which wasn't very good judging by the choking sort of laugh he emitted. "Besides, if I do that, I'll have broken my probation. Gotta walk the straight and narrow. At least for a while."

"In other words, find some way to get back at Mia that you won't get in trouble for."

I felt a smile tug at the corners of my lips. "You know what I like about you, Mase? You think just like I do."

"Frightening concept," he replied drily. "So tell me what you think of this: I might know something about her, but I probably shouldn't tell you…"

I smile. I might not need to ask Sydney for ideas after all.

I leaned forward eagerly. "Oh, you already tipped me off. You've got to tell me now."

"It'd be wrong," he teased. "How do I know you'd use this knowledge for good instead of evil?"

I batted my eyelashes. "Can you resist this face?"

He took a moment to study me. "No. I can't, actually. Okay, here you go: Mia isn't royal."

I slouched back in my chair, disappointed. "No kidding. I already knew that. I've known who's royal since I was two."

"Yeah, but there's more than just that. Her parents work for one of the Drozdov lords." I waved my hand impatiently, urging him to hurry it up. A lot of Moroi worked out in the human world, but Moroi society had plenty of jobs for its own kind too. Someone had to fill them."Cleaning stuff. They're practically servants. Her dad cuts grass, and her mom's a maid."

I actually had a healthy respect for anyone who pulled a full day's work, regardless of the job. People everywhere had to do crappy stuff to make a living and someone had to do it. But, much like with Target, it became another matter altogether when someone was trying to pass herself off as something else. And in the week that I'd been here, I'd picked up on how desperately Mia wanted to fit in with the school's 'elite.'

"No one knows," I said thoughtfully.

"And she doesn't want them to. You know how the royals are." He paused. "Well, except for Lissa, of course. They'd give Mia a shit over it."

"How do you know all this?"

"My uncle's a guardian for the Drozdovs."

"And you've just been sitting on this juicy secret, huh?"

"Until you broke my silence with severe torture. So which path will you choose: good or evil?"

"I think I'll give her a grace—"

"Miss Hathaway, you know you aren't supposed to be here."

One of the dorm matrons stood over us, disapproval all over her face.

I hadn't been joking when I said Mason thought like me. He could bullshit as well as I could. "We have a group project to do for our humanities class. How are we supposed to do it if Rose is in isolation?"

The matron narrowed her eyes. "You don't look like you're doing work."

I slid over the priest's book and opened it at random. I'd placed it on the table when we sat down. Luckily it hadn't gotten too wet from all the snow that had poured down on us.

"We're, um, working on this."

She still looked suspicious. "One hour. I'll give you one more hour down here, and I'd better actually see you working."

"Yes, ma'am," said Mason straight-faced."Absolutely."

She wandered off, still eyeing us. "My hero," I declared.

He pointed at the book. "What is this?"

"Something the priest gave me. I had a question about the service."

He stared at me, astonished.

"Oh, stop it and look interested." I skimmed the index. "I'm trying to find some woman named Anna."

Mason slid his chair over so that he was sitting right beside me."All right. Let's 'study.'"

I found a page number, and it took me to the section on St. Vladimir, not surprisingly. We read through the chapter, scanning for Anna's name. When we found it, the author didn't have much to say about her.

He did include an excerpt written by some guy who had apparently lived at the same time as St. Vladimir and I scanned it for anything interesting:

And with Vladimir always is Anna...Their love is as chaste and pure as that of brother and sister, and many times has she defended him from Strigoi who would seek to destroy him and his holiness. Likewise, it is she who comforts him when the spirit becomes too much to bare...darkness tries to smother him and weaken his own health and body. This too she defends against, for they have been bound together ever since he saved her life as a child...one who is shadow-kissed and always knows what is in his heart and mind.

"There you go," Mason said. "She was his guardian."

"It doesn't say what 'shadow-kissed' means or what it entails."

"Probably doesn't mean anything."

I read it again, trying to make sense of the old-fashioned language.

Mason watched me curiously, looking like he very much wanted to help, even if he didn't understand what this was all about.

"Maybe they were hooking up," he suggested.

I laughed. "He was a saint."

"So? Saints probably like sex too. That 'brother and sister' stuff is probably just a cover." He pointed to one of the lines. "See? They were 'bound' together." He winked. "It's code."

Bound. Like me and Lissa. It was a weird word choice, but I guessed it worked. And there was no way Anna and Vladimir were ripping each other's clothes off. That would just be awkward. With all the hyped up emotions Anna would have felt what it was like to...ugh. Not going there.

"I don't think so. They're just close. Guys and girls can just be friends, you know?" I said it pointedly, and he gave me a dry look.

"Yeah? We're friends, and I don't know what's in your 'heart and mind.'" Mason put on a fake philosopher's look. "Of course, some might argue that one can never truly know what's in the mind and heart of a woman—"

"Oh, shut up," I groaned, punching him in the arm.

"For they are strange and mysterious creatures," he continued in his scholarly voice, "and a man must be a mind reader if he ever wishes to make them happy."

I started giggling uncontrollably and knew I'd probably get in trouble again. "Well, try to read my mind and stop being such a—"

I stopped laughing and looked back down at the book.

This was it. That was all they had.

There were no more answers here for me. Nothing to tell me it was all going to be alright. After all, look at what happened to St. Vladimir. Look at what happened to Miss Karp.

A more disturbing thought then entered my head. When I die, because one day I will and it will probably be sooner rather than later, I would no longer be able to take away the darkness and Lissa would face a much more horrible fate than death. I couldn't let that happen.

Mason had noticed my startled reaction. "You okay? You look kind of weird."

I shrugged it off."Yeah. I'm Fine."

There had to be something to help!