Thank you to everyone for all of the kind words on the last chapter! Everything will come into focus soon, don't worry. As always, thank you to objectiveheartmuscle (Em) and sage meryllis banks (Amy) for being my favourite betas and people (in that order).
Check out my tumblr (lorcleis) for moodboards, bios, edits, and more for Corinthians!
Rose woke up gasping for air. She clutched at everything: her throat, her arms, the empty place where her stake should have been. There were sheets on the bed she was in—sheets. A bed. Rose blinked, her lungs taking in air at a rapid rate. The lights were bright, too bright, like fireworks bursting in front of her eyelids.
Her senses went into overdrive, as did the heart monitor next to her.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Rose flailed in her bed and rolled, landing with a thud on the tiled floor beside her. She took in deep, heaving breaths from where she sat on the floor like a cornered animal.
Lissa, I- Where am I? Lissa- I need to protect Lissa.
She was disoriented and in desperate need of water. Everything felt like it was coming at her through a pane of glass; the world was watery and distorted. Rose blinked for a few seconds and noticed a figure standing at the foot of the bed.
White. Bright—hospital? Rose thought in fragments, unable to grasp anything properly.
The nurse crouched next to her and said something she couldn't hear.
"What?" Rose asked. She backed herself further into the corner.
What is going on?
"I asked," the nurse began. Everything seemed to snap into place in that moment. "Are you alright?"
It took Rose a few moments before she could formulate a response, but she nodded, albeit slowly. A stinging sensation rippled through her neck.
"Good." The nurse smiled. "What's your name?"
Rose knew she couldn't respond truthfully; she didn't know where she was or who these people were. If it was something connected to Court or the Strigoi, there'd be signs. Everything here just looked blank.
She thought back to her school days when they were going over Russian names. Anastasia was common enough, but too formal for her liking. Maybe one of the nicknames. Nastya? No. Anastasla? Too long, but it felt better. She decided to chop the name in half.
Stasla.
Perfect.
"Stasla..." Rose hesitated for a moment. She decided to keep a piece of her real identity as well. "Belikova. Stasla Belikova."
The nurse's face softened. "Well, Miss Belikova, can I help you back to your bed? You took quite a tumble with the Strigoi out there."
Feeling numb, Rose allowed the nurse to help her. The room was small, but had a heart rate machine, IV, and an end table with an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel on it. An odd choice by Rose's standards. The room was devoid of any art or brandings, and there weren't any windows. At least in a human hospital there were windows.
"Sorry?" Rose asked. Her nerves went on end at the mention of Strigoi.
"The patrol team said you had six bites on you when they found you on the road." The nurse was kind but brusque. She picked up the clipboard at the end of Rose's bed and began ticking off various boxes.
"I—" Rose looked down at the patches of gauze on her arms and legs. Her fingers brushed lightly over the two on her neck. She was surprised she hadn't been sucked dry.
"What you need is bed rest," the nurse said. She checked the machines next to Rose's hospital bed with a small, knowing smile. She noticed that the nurse wasn't wearing traditional scrubs, but a grey, long-sleeved shirt and navy blue pants. "You're going to have to heal the old-fashioned way, after all."
"What?" Rose furrowed her eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
"Well, you're a dhampir," the nurse said. "We would usually give you some anti-venom to help with the bites. We make our own in-house from Strigoi blood, you know. It's much better than what they sell on the black market in cities. Sadly, you're ineligible. Sorry. The doctor stitched them up, but it'll be a few weeks before you are up and running again."
The nurse's words swirled in Rose's head. She'd never heard of anti-venom being given to a dhampir; in fact, she'd never even heard of anti-venom at all. Strigoi didn't have venom; that was for movie vampires and Twilight novels. There was a run-in that members of Court had with people attempting to sell an unknown illegal drug to dhampirs and Moroi in New York, but they hadn't been able to figure out anything about the drug or who was selling it. Now Rose knew: it was to speed up the healing process.
"Do you mind telling me," Rose began, attempting to keep her tone even. She didn't want to give away any information, especially since it was becoming more apparent that she wasn't in Kansas anymore. "Why I'm ineligible?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you knew." The nurse checked Rose's IV. "You're pregnant."
Pregnant.
Rose could hardly believe it. She had just been thinking of how impossible it was for her to become pregnant and now with the Strigoi attack—she couldn't believe it. She didn't.
"I'm not—I can't be—" Rose began before she stopped herself. She needed to stay quiet; it was the only way she'd make it out and back to court.
"We had to test your blood when you came in," the nurse answered. She had a sympathetic expression on her face, one that made Rose's blood curdle. "You needed a major transfusion, and when we tested you, you came back with elevated HCG levels. You're pregnant, Miss Belikova."
Rose took in a shaky breath. "Would you mind telling me where I am?"
The nurse continued checking sections of Rose's chart off. "You're in Corinth."
"Corinth?" Rose parroted.
The nurse's expression changed on her face as she evaluated Rose. She clutched the clipboard in her hands and made for the door. "The doctor will be by shortly."
"Wait!" Rose shouted as the door swung shut. "You... goddammit."
She glanced around the small skybox of a room for any clue as to what Corinth might be, or even where. They didn't seem to operate under Court influence, and they definitely knew about vampires. She would have known if Lissa knew of a place like this. Maybe Corinth was another of the academies? St. Vladimir's had a medic section in the basement, but that was it. This seemed liked a full-fledged hospital.
Rose's mind felt like it was beginning to cloud. Meds, she thought absentmindedly. They must have given me meds. A part of her didn't care; the bites had begun to ache. Rose wondered for a split second why she didn't feel any of the aftereffects of the Strigoi bites.
She wondered if the nurse had been right as she drifted off to sleep.
"You're not a light sleeper."
The voice sounded gruff. Rose blinked awake.
The dhampir man in front of her looked like he'd just gotten back from a battle. His shirt was covered in smears of dirt and leaves with a crop of light brown curls on his head spilling over onto a cut on his face that had been bleeding heavily. A gold hoop glittered in his left lobe. He wasn't handsome; rather pretty, like a model in a high fashion magazine. Rose could tell he was trying to look tough.
"Do I need to be?" Rose asked. She sat up with a grimace.
"The name's Josiah," the man said. He puffed out his chest. "And yours?"
"Stasla," Rose said, keeping up the lie. "Nice to meet you."
"Is it?" Josiah answered. He had to be close to her age, but she couldn't be sure; there was something about his face that made it ageless. He was a dhampir, that much was apparent, and he seemed almost insulted that Rose didn't want to give him information. "You're a long way from home, guardian."
"It'd be easier to know just how far 'long' is if I knew where Corinth was," Rose shot back. "Or what it is. I'm no guardian, either."
"Tell that to your promise mark," Josiah replied. "I know a guardian when I see one."
"Congratulations, you have eyes," Rose said. "Anything else you want to tell me?"
Their eyes locked in an informal staring contest. Josiah's gaze wavered, like he had some reason to prove himself in this room to a woman he barely knew. Rose knew what that felt like.
"Josiah!" Someone shouted from the hallway.
The door opened and a Moroi man of around sixty entered. He looked exactly like Josiah, or perhaps it was the other way around. They were mirror images of each other; father and son it seemed, but while Josiah appeared to have trouble commanding a room, his father did not. Josiah ruffled at the man's arrival.
"You're not allowed to be in here," the man said, gesturing for Josiah to leave.
"I was only following up on—" Josiah protested.
"Like hell you were," the man said. "Leave. Now. Go get cleaned up by Yuri; you look like you've been through hell."
He showed Josiah the door, who looked at Rose with a puzzled expression and then left the room. The man took Josiah's place but not before making sure that Josiah was not standing directly outside the door.
"Hello, Miss Belikova," he said with a light smile. "I apologize for the behaviour of my son. My name is Hollis. We're lucky to have you here."
"Stasla. I'd like to leave."
"Of course," Hollis said, "But that would be a bit of a problem with your injuries. You need to recover."
"And where is it that I am recovering, exactly?" Rose clenched her jaw. There was something off about this place.
"Corinth is an underground facility for people such as yourself," Hollis said, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Dhampirs?" Rose asked.
"People who were left behind," Hollis answered. "Dhampir, Moroi, even a few humans if they're willing. A team of mine found you in the forests of Montana, nearly dead on the side of the road. Want to tell me how a promised guardian found herself in that situation?"
So these were her supposed rescuers. She felt like she should be grateful, but she had an odd stone in the pit of her stomach. No one was to be trusted; not even people who knew about the vampire world—especially people who knew about the vampire world. Although Court was a slippery slope, it was a known evil. She knew nothing about Corinth.
"No," Rose replied. "Not really."
Hollis raised an eyebrow. "You're not exactly in the best of situations, Miss Belikova."
"Stasla," Rose insisted.
"Stasla," Hollis repeated. The name sounded odd coming from his mouth. "I don't blame you for feeling cornered, but we need the full story for our reports. You're a guardian, you should know the drill."
"There's no drill for renegade compounds," Rose replied. "Certainly not for ones who don't like sharing, like Corinth seems to be."
"We'd like for you to stay with us until your injuries heal, if that is alright with you," Hollis replied.
"I don't stay anywhere I don't know," Rose shot back.
"That's fair, but we have our own people to protect," Hollis said. "I can't go telling you our secrets and have you running back to Court."
Her eyes narrowed. "So I'm guessing what you do here is secret?"
"A little something like that," Hollis said. "You will always be safe here, Miss Belikova. No harm comes to anyone we treat, but anyone who wants to learn more about us has a decision to make: stay with us and learn our ways, or leave and never know them."
"That's not creepy," she replied.
He gave her a secretive smile before leaving. "It seems to me like you have something to think about."
She thought of the nurse's words earlier: she was pregnant, or she might be. She still couldn't figure out if that was genuine or not, but it seemed like it was. It didn't seem like the nurse would have any reason that would make her want to lie, but Hollis definitely did.
Hollis knew she was a guardian and if the way Josiah acted around him showed anything, he was obeyed without hesitation in Corinth. He wasn't a player in the game that Rose wanted to mess with, but what he was offering her seemed odd. A place to stay simply because they'd picked her up from the side of the road? Dhampir numbers in Corinth must be low if they were that desperate.
Rose placed a hand over her stomach. She didn't feel like she was pregnant, but maybe she'd known it in the back of her mind. Dhampirs couldn't have children with other dhampirs, but Dimitri wasn't really a typical dhampir. Someone who had become Strigoi and had his soul returned couldn't be entirely normal again. If Dimitri was something else, then it wasn't just possible that she was having a child—it was incredibly probable.
A biological child of two dhampirs, or what appeared to be two dhampirs, would be a miracle at Court. It would be a celebrity, like Lissa had said. Rose's child could never be able to have a normal life no matter what anyone did. There would be people after Rose and Dimitri to make more children, to fuel the guardian-making mill. She didn't want her child to become a soldier in the system.
She wanted them to have a life of their own.
It was later in the day, or what Rose assumed was day, when someone slipped into her room again. She'd checked the door between her fitful bouts of sleep to find it locked earlier. Corinth might look welcoming, but they clearly didn't want an outsider to discover their secrets.
Not until she signed her life away to them, that is.
Josiah closed the door behind him and regarded Rose with a skeptical glance.
"I heard you aren't supposed to be in here," Rose said.
"And who told you that?" Josiah asked.
"Your father," Rose replied. "Or who I assume is your father. You're spitting images of each other. It's kind of creepy."
"I'm better looking," Josiah said. He folded his hands in front of him.
"Have you come to do something other than stare at me?" Rose asked. "Otherwise, I'll just go back to sleep so I don't have to bear witness."
"Your name isn't Stasla," Josiah said bluntly. He glanced at her for a reaction.
"Congratulations," Rose replied. "You want a prize for that sleuthing?"
"Court is busy preparing a funeral for dhampir named Rose Hathaway," Josiah said. "Apparently she was the lead guardian to Queen Vasilisa. She sounds like someone pretty important, if you ask me."
"Sucks to be her," Rose said. She shifted uncomfortably in her bed. "Why would a place like this care about what happens at Court?"
"Because Court runs everything in the vampire world," Josiah replied. "You know that, Stasla. From Anastasia, right?"
"You know your Russian," Rose said.
"It's become a requirement in this life."Josiah stared at her with a tempestuous expression. It was clear that he wasn't as good at controlling his emotions as his father was. He was reckless, a real fighter like Rose and so many other guardians she'd come to know over her years at Court. He had that spark.
Sparks were dangerous.
"What is Corinth?" Rose asked.
"What's your real name?" Josiah countered.
"I think you already know the answer to that." Rose cocked her head to the side. "Or do you want to continue to play cat and mouse?"
"I assume Hollis already told you what Corinth is," Josiah said. "There's no use in me repeating it."
"You know what they say about assuming..." Rose smiled. "He didn't give me a straight answer. No one seems to want to give me any information here."
"It's a self-preservation thing," he answered. "If you don't decide to stay, your memories will be erased anyway."
Rose clenched her jaw. That meant there was a Moroi living in Corinth that could manipulate spirit or Hollis was getting compulsion charms from someone on the outside. A spirit user would be invaluable to a society that operated under Court's radar. The idea was somewhat terrifying. Everything she'd heard so far screamed danger to her. Was Corinth full of vigilantes? Did they want to take revenge on Court? Were they just Strigoi killers? They could be anything.
She hesitated to call them rescuers.
If she hadn't been taken by members of Corinth, she would most likely be dead by now. That, or someone from St Vladimir's would have found her, and she would be back at Court, in Dimitri's arms.
Rose had heard of rogue dhampirs who'd attempted to set up their own operation outside of Court's boundaries; one of Jill's guardians came from such a place. Usually, they didn't gain any traction or were killed during the supposed "missions" they went on to break up Strigoi nests. Corinth didn't strike Rose as such a place; rogue dhampir settlements were dirty and underfunded. They thrived on adrenaline, not discipline. Corinth had enough reach to gain a nursing staff, of all things—who knew what else they had? They were much more powerful.
"Show me," Rose said.
"What?" Josiah asked.
"Show me Corinth."
"You're lying in bed, covered in Strigoi bites." Josiah gestured to her. "There's no way you'd be able to walk around the compound."
"Then get me a wheelchair, genius," Rose replied. "I'm not making a decision until I see what I'm getting into."
Josiah pressed his lips into a thin line. There was no doubt that it was against his father's wishes to allow Rose to roam about Corinth on the chance that she managed to escape back to Court, but Rose had a feeling that Josiah was willing to risk it to get her to stay. She hoped, at least.
He turned and made for the door.
"Where are you going?" Rose called after him.
"To get you a damn wheelchair," Josiah replied.
Rose settled into her bed, a smile on her face. He was easy to manipulate despite the tough act he liked to play and Rose had a lot of practice getting exactly what she wanted; the two made for a deadly combination. She liked him in the way she liked Eddie and Mason—a little rough around the edges, but eager to help. Friendships weren't interesting if one was a complete pushover.
Josiah re-entered her room with a collapsed wheelchair in one hand. He opened it up and set it on the ground. "Here. I'm not taking you past the walkways and you're not allowed to speak to anyone."
Rose moved the IV bag next to the wheelchair and lifted herself from the bed with a bit of difficulty. Josiah leaned against the wall opposite her and fiddled with something in his pocket, his mind clearly elsewhere. She gave him the stink eye when he refused to help her. "Yeah, yeah, secret facility, prisoner, whatever."
"You're not a prisoner," Josiah snorted.
"Really?" Rose dragged the blanket from the bed onto her lap. "Because I sure feel like one."
"That's your problem, Stasla, not mine." Josiah wheeled her out the door and into the hallway beyond.
Stasla. It still felt like a person alien to who Rose used to be. When she was on missions that needed a cover, she usually went with something typical and common, like Emily or Sarah, but Stasla was new. It stood out to her the way other cover identities never had. Who was Stasla Belikova?
No one, Rose thought. A ghost.
One life, in exchange for another. She thought, in a brief moment of clarity, that it must be like shaking hands with death.
The hallway beyond her room was long and entirely one colour: grey. Everything in Corinth that she'd seen so far was grey; it was like living inside a rain cloud. The lights beamed down from overhead and there still weren't any windows, but there were many, many more doors. All of the doors had locks that required key cards to open them. It looked uniformly unlike anything Rose had seen.
"Did someone fire the interior decorator?" she asked. The place seemed to be drained of life. Not really the ideal hospital setting.
"I thought you Court cronies liked minimalism," Josiah said.
"To a degree." Rose glanced at their surroundings as they entered an elevator. There was no one else in sight. "We do have a throne room, though, so there's that."
"Oh, yeah, royalty. I forgot," Josiah said sarcastically.
"Hey, the queen is a great ruler," Rose said. She elbowed his hand. And my best friend.
"Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why only royals can rule?" Josiah asked. "Why not non-royal Moroi? Or dhampirs?"
"A dhampir monarch wouldn't work." Rose rattled off the rhetoric just as she'd learned it in school. It wasn't as if she believed in the words she was saying, but she'd lived them for so long that she hadn't known any other reality. Rose loved being a guardian, but she wasn't sure if she would have become one if she had been given the choice to do something else. "They have to protect the Moroi. It'd be a waste."
"And not letting dhampirs into leadership roles is a waste as well," Josiah replied. "We're just as good as they are, if not better."
"How can you say that when your father is Moroi?" Rose simmered with anger. She'd thought the same things he did when she was a novice, but she'd grown out of it. Insubordination did nothing but hinder the system.
"Hollis is a little different then most," Josiah said cryptically. The elevator doors opened and he wheeled her out, refusing to elaborate.
"Well you're a regular chatty Cathy here, but what you're suggesting sounds like treason," Rose said. She smoothed the blanket on her lap. "It's just now how things are."
"Leaving things how they are is the most dangerous act a man can engage in."
Rose looked up at Josiah, attempting to decode his expression but unable to find anything to go on. "Good thing I'm a woman then."
Josiah let out a short laugh. "You've got a mouth on you, Belikova. I'll give you that."
They turned the corner and the space opened up into a large terrace overlooking the inside of a massive warehouse. There were stacks upon stacks of abandoned shipping containers; some appeared to be homes, others offices or stores connected with all manners of staircases, ladders, rope swings, and fireman poles. Rose could barely see the end of it all.
A group of people were directly below them in a small clearing that Rose thought must be Corinth's answer to a park or something. There were two people young enough to be novices sparring in the center with a small crowd of other trainees circling them, egging the two on.
"Their cadet exam is tomorrow; they're trying to blow off steam," Josiah clarified. "It's kind of like a guardian exam, but it's focused on killing the Strigoi, not protecting a Moroi."
"Huh." Rose watched the two spar for a moment. "They're pretty good."
"High praise from a guardian." Josiah gripped the handles of the wheelchair. "Well, this is as far as I can take you."
"It's..." Rose's voice trailed off.
It was the most interesting thing she'd seen in her life. It was an intermingling of the species with no barriers, no social constructs preventing anyone from being who they wanted. There were Moroi and dhampir alike training to fight Strigoi; she wasn't sure but she also thought she spotted some humans in the distance. Court was her home, but this seemed like another world, a utopia of sorts.
It was different from the Keepers: Rose could feel an energy that permeated every inch of Corinth. It felt like a home, but it was still filled with people who had a purpose. Court's purpose was always to protect the Moroi, but Corinth wanted something different. They wanted to protect everyone.
"It's amazing, isn't it?" Josiah said.
Rose bit her lip. "A little bit, yeah."
"Court has nothing on us." Josiah looked triumphant. Rose could tell he loved Corinth with all of her heart, the same way Rose loved Dimitri and Lissa. She had no love for Court itself if her best friends in the world weren't there.
She was sure if she returned, she would never live a normal life again.
"I can't go back to Court," Rose said.
"Why?" Josiah asked. "We'll let you leave. We're not monsters here."
"No, you don't understand." A tear slipped down Rose's face. Next to her, Josiah fell silent. "I'm pregnant," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "By another dhampir."
She felt Josiah stiffen. "That's impossible."
Rose barked out a short laugh. She swatted at the tears on her face with the edge of her hospital gown. "You're telling me."
After a few moments, Josiah reached into his pocket and pulled something out, handing it to Rose. It was her nazar charm, glittering and blue with a few specks of dirt clinging to the surface.
Rose closed her hand around it. "Thank you," she whispered.
He smiled softly. "No problem."
"Josiah!" Hollis's voice roared from the other end of the terrace.
The other people walking along the terrace, either to go down a level or to enter the room that appeared to be an office behind them, stopped and stared for a moment before going back to their normal routine. Hollis barreled up the stairs towards Josiah, who had a look of sheer terror on his face.
"Hollis," Rose said with a charming smile. "Your son has really rolled out the welcome wagon. Corinth is impressive."
"Thank you, Miss Belikova, but he has disobeyed direct orders," Hollis replied. He was barely containing his anger. "Josiah, report to level four. I'll deal with you there."
Josiah looked meek when up against his father, but Rose didn't blame him. Even as a Moroi, Hollis was a formidable foe; he looked like he could take down a swath of Strigoi on willpower alone.
"I would like to stay," Rose interjected, attempting to draw their attention away from each other in the interest of keeping the peace. She never thought she wouldn't encourage a fight to break out in her life.
"Sorry?" Hollis furrowed his eyebrows.
"To answer your earlier question," Rose began again. "I would like to stay. You offered, Hollis. I'm just making good on my part of the bargain."
Hollis glanced at Josiah and they had a small, silent conversation between each other that Rose didn't bother attempting to follow. The intricacies of father-child relationships were exhausting to her. Hollis nodded at Josiah.
"Alright, but staying here is never free," Hollis said.
"I didn't expect it would be," Rose replied. "See those novices down there? They'll need a lot more training than that MMA shit I'm betting they've been given. It's weak sauce. I could take them down from this wheelchair."
"Well, you're rather renown in your own world, Rose Hathaway." Hollis sized Rose up from where he stood. She could tell he respected her, but he wanted her to know his scope was far-reaching. "Or would you like to be called Stasla from now on?"
"You can call me Rose, but those guys out there," She pointed to the far reaches of the warehouse, "They can only call me Stasla."
"You think you can train them better?" Hollis asked.
"With my hands tied behind my back." Rose grinned.
"Alright." Hollis thought for a moment. "Josiah, return Miss Belikova to her room. After that, get the hell back to work. The Montana team is still sifting through the data you brought back."
Josiah gulped. "Yes, sir."
"And Rose," Hollis began. He crouched down to her eye level.
"Yes?" She quirked an eyebrow.
"You contact your friends in Court about Corinth, and you won't even remember your first name, let alone your time here, " he said. "We clear?"
In that moment, Rose decided that she liked Hollis, threatening ultimatums notwithstanding. She smiled. "Crystal."