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~Previously~
I prepared myself for the worst of worst. I already knew Adrian was a drunk, but it could be very bad. After all, he did have feelings for Rose. We knocked twice on the door and it swung open. I gasped in surprise.
There, in front of me, was Adrian wearing a button down shirt and black slacks. His hair was ruffled and eyes were narrowed at me, probably questioning why we were here. Beyond him was the living room, it was the cleanest I've ever seen it. Ever. It was a shock to see he was doing so well with what happened. It was like Adrian isn't Adrian anymore, a whole new person.
"Hey cousin, what brings you two here?" He asked, letting the door open to let us come in. I looked around the room and noticed there was no alcohol in sight. Another shocker to me. Christian is also stunned by this because he was also looking around with wide eyes. Although, I did feel kind of bad for thinking that he would be drinking his sorrows away. I suspected the worst of him.
"This place is... Tidy." Said Christian, narrowing his eyes at Adrian. Okay.. There is definitely something going on between those two.
"Yeah, spring cleaning, you know.." Adrian said nonchalantly, shrugging his shoulders.
Cleaning and Adrian. Two words that do not belong together. But that doesn't matter at the moment. I was here to do something else.
"Adrian.. I need your help with something." I said, not sure how to say this without wounding like a lunatic.
"Yeah sure cousin, what do you need?"
"Hear me out here.." Both Christian and Adrian looked at me skeptically. "I want to do some research on Spirit."
Both of them looked at each other and shrugged, their shoulders relaxing. They must have suspected I would ask something completely preposterous.
"Yeah sure, I don't see the problem in that. I'll help you, we can hit the library tomorrow." Adrian said, not really paying attention as he was going around his room with a Swiffer duster, dusting anything that he could find.
Christian just nodded, "What do you want to look up? Haven't you already done the research before?"
My heart clenched. "Rose did. She just told me about Vladimir and Anna, the gist of things." Christian's expression turned solemn at the mention of Rose's name. Whereas Adrian's jaw tightened.
"As for the topic.. I want to see if there is anything about uhh.. Turning Strigoi back to how they used to be." I looked down at my feet, I was so nervous my palms were sweating at my sides.
The room went quiet. Adrian stopped bustling around instantly. Everyone was stuck in their own thoughts. I was about to say 'Forget it' but Adrian spoke before I did.
"I'm in." he said. Then he grabbed his jacket off the hook. "But we'll have to do it another time. I just remembered I have to fly back to court for a couple days. While I'm there, I'll do some researching in the library. You can search here in the meantime?" I nodded. I was so happy that they didn't think I was going crazy or out of my mind. It was relieving.
"Yeah, sounds good! After all, we'll probably find out more from court then we will here." I said excited, smile plastered on my face. Now that I noticed it.. It was the first time in a long time that I smiled.
"Okay. Well, I'll see you in a couple days cousin." he nodded at the both of us then I took Christian's hand and left the guest housing.
We were walking back to my room when I remembered something.
"Christian? What happened between you and Adrian?" I asked.
He sighed, "I thought you would notice that."
I giggled, "It was kind of hard not to notice." He smiled.
"Well, a couple days ago Dimitri and I went to go check on how Adrian was doing after... We came back with the leftover bodies." When Rose was officially gone. "We found him hammered, when I say hammered, I mean completely shit-faced. It took him at least a minute straight to open the door."
Somehow this wasn't a shock to me. Anyone who knew Adrian, or had even heard of him would suspect him of doing that. But it didn't make that much sense.
"But, how come when we just went everything was completely tidy, Adrian is not an organized person and there he was dusting everything. I didn't even see any bottles. What's with this sudden change?" he just shrugged, clearly not knowing the answer either. That just left more questions with no answers.
Rose POV
It has been an entire day since we left Baia and I was still waiting for the remorse and guilt to kick in. When I was still dhampir, that's what I would have felt. I just killed a number of people and had broken Dimitri's sister's arm. The man that I used to 'love'. I knew I wouldn't be feeling anything like that anytime soon, but I still couldn't help waiting for it.
As soon as we got back into the city and straight to our apartment. Our HUGE apartment, Ash bombarded me with questions.
"What the hell was that! What happened back there? You know, if I were still dhampir, I probably would have been scared shitless. But now? Rather pissed off. I had her! I was about to tear off her head from her neck for what she did to me! And then you suddenly just, crumpled. Straight down to the ground. What happened? You knew that family didn't you?" she got it all out n a rush, not pausing for air (not that we needed it anyways).
Her brows were burrowed, giving her a small crease in her forehead from frustration.
I can't let her see that I am weak. Therefore, she can't find out about the bond, the still existing bond.
"Nothing that you need to concern yourself with." I said blandly, making my way to the TV to watch my new favourite show, Jersey Shore. I got hooked on it one night when Ash went to the club to feed. I plopped down on the leather couch and turned up the volume, hoping Ash would get the hint. But of course she didn't, either that or she just chose to ignore it. It's most likely the latter.
"There is no damn way that I will let that pass off as 'nothing'. You were in pain, I saw it in your eyes. You don't see a strigoi in pain that often. Especially a strong one like you, awakened with MY blood. I didn't answer her. With Ash, arguments could go on forever and ever, so it's usually best not to get involved in one. Unless you're willing to give up the many hours of your day.
"Fine." She huffed, making her way to the door, most likely going to the bar downstairs seeing as it's light outside. She paused at the doorway and spoke quietly, enough for me to barely hear over the blaring TV.
"For what it's worth, you passed the test. Daddy will be expecting us in a week at court."
The door shut behind her.
Lissa POV.
Adrian had left for court this morning so it was just Christian and I to do research here. I still found Adrian acting strange , but it really must be a change in heart. I still felt bad about suspecting the worse of him, but I HAVE MORE Pressing matters on my hands to deal with.
Once we made it to the academy's library, I had come to the realization that I had no idea where to start.
Christian' must have felt my discomfort and put a hand on my shoulder.
"Why don't we split up? You can go ask the librarian and I'll go digging." I just nodded, relieved. I went off to locate the librarian. I found her at the front desk reading a book, To Kill A Mockingbird. She was a moroi, mid-fifties with glasses and had black hair with grey sprouting out in random places.
"Excuse me?" I asked shyly, I didn't want to interrupt her reading.
She looked up from her book and propped up her glasses that were rested on her nose. She set down her book to the side and looked up at me.
"Oh! I'm sorry dear! Can I help you with something?" She asked in a sing-song, sugary sweet voice.
I didn't know where to start. Not only that, but what would she think if I started to tell her exactly what I was looking for. Would she tell Kirova? I shook my head of those thoughts. It doesn't matter if I could get in trouble. I'm doing this for Rose. Now that I know there could be a way to save her, I have to try. No matter what.
"Yes, I was wondering if you had any books on the element of spirit?" I started off. I'll see what I can find in those books and if I don't find anything useful I'll ask her a more specific topic.
"Ah! Yes, yes I do!" She got up from her chair, grabbed her keys, and started to walk over to the back of the library. And dang, was she ever fast! I nearly had to jog to keep up with her pace.
She stopped at one of the shelves in the back with old, ratted books. It was dusty and looked like it hadn't been touched in ages. I didn't have the biggest boost of confidence.
"There should be some books about spirit around here somewhere! You just have to go digging!" She said with a peppy voice. "Good Luck!"
She walked off, leaving me to do my own searching. Where do I start? I grabbed the first book I saw and examined the front of it. It had a picture of the four elements on it; Earth, Water, Fire, and Air. It didn't seem to have spirit on there anywhere so I figured I wouldn't gain anything from it, I tossed it aside. On to the next one...
TWO HOURS LATER
I was so deeply immersed in the book I picked off the shelf that I didn't hear the footsteps approaching me until they were right in front of me.
"Find anything?" Christian asked.
I sighed and shook my head. He sighed and shook his head as well, it seems neither of us had found anything. I just went through last book on the shelf and I had found nothing! At this rate, we won't be able to find anything! I just hope Adrian got his hands on something..
Adrian POV.
I've been at the library ever since the plane touched down back at court. I didn't actually have business with my aunt, I just couldn't handle being where Rose was any longer. It hurts, there's always a pain in my chest lately. As if a chunk of my heart has been ripped out of my ribcage.
But when Lissa came by for her favour, it was almost as if a part of my heart returned. A chance to get Rose back, would be a miracle, a dream come true. How could I not look into it? And if it were possible and actually worked... There would be no words as to how I would feel. Even if she was returned back to us, I knew she would go straight back into Belikov's waiting arms. Nevertheless, I would still be ecstatic, just to have her back.
At first I didn't know where to start in the library, so I just started at the element's section in the grande library. It holds all ancient artifacts of all moroi history, very valuable scripts. I just started with the easier stuff, then I'd make my way to the back, where I would have to use my influence as the Queen's nephew.
The books that I started out with were no help, it just gave information about the basic elements, fire, water, earth, and air. None of them had mentioned anything about spirit. And since I couldn't find anything in them, I had no other choice than to go to the back of the library.
When I reached the back of the library, there was a very large, wooden door with a guardian standing guard beside it. I did not recognize this guardian so I just had to hope he knew who I was. If not, well, he'll find out soon.
As soon as he saw me, he stood up a little straighter, hands behind his back. I gave him a lopsided smile.
"Hello there." I started out, still walking towards the door.
"This is a restricted area, if you need information I'll have to ask you to search in the public area you just came from." He replied very monotone. What a boring guy..
"Oh, I have permission to be here, I ALWAYS have permission to go in here. My aunt is the Queen. You don't want me to tell her that you did not let me access the books I need do you?"
His eyes never wavered away. He did not gulp in fear. All he said was, "Sorry, you can't access these scriptures. I'll have to ask you again to leave."
But of course, I always have a back-back-up plan. So I took a few more steps closer to him and looked him straight in the eyes.
"You're going to take out your keys and unlock the door for me, but you won't take your eyes off of me." I said in a very calm voice. He did as I told him and walked backwards closer to the door. He fiddled with the keys in the lock for a couple seconds then the wooden door swung open.
"Good. Now as soon as I'm through and closed the door behind me, you'll go back to guarding the door. No one is inside the room you are guarding, you did a good job."
"I did a good job" He nodded, repeating his words back at me. I took that as my signal to go, I walked through the wooden door and shut it behind me. Once I turned around I was met with the largest bookshelves I've ever seen, three of them in a row. Beyond the bookshelves there was a giant chest. My curiosity was piqued and I made my way to the back of the room.
The chest looked hundreds, maybe thousands of years old. I was almost scared to touch it, it looked like it could break. There was no lock or other mechanism, I just lifted the lid.
Inside were scrolls, what looked to be ancient scrolls. One was made of papyrus, I could smell it as soon as I opened the chest. I gently took it out of the chest and keeled down to read it. It was written in hieroglyphics but there was a translation at the bottom in Russian. Lucky for me, my aunt made me learn Russian as a child.
It was a story from when the Persians took over ancient Egypt. An army of Persians slaughtered the town, killing anyone in their path. But there were strigoi among the army. The very first Strigoi, named Kira Morozov was the very first Strigoi. It did not say how he turned Strigoi but the legends in other stories say that it was just a moroi burned by sun. Turned to a crisp then woke up a day later, stronger, faster, a Strigoi.
The day that the Persians struck Egypt, the second strigoi was made. A young girl named Azar Ozera.
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Healthier dad = Happier me.
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