Vampire Academy and Dimitri are all Richelle Mead's!
I'm back! Sorry I broke my weekly posting streak! This chapter is longer than usual, I hope that's okay!
Dimitri entered the already crowded auditorium from the side doors closest to the stage, the loud, cheerful chatter of the assembled students assaulting his senses after the quiet of the infirmary. Dr. Scherpova's parting words rang above the noise. Just be careful who you talk to. Who would he tell? And why? And why would a Moroi go out of her way to encourage his disloyalty? He'd had doubts about the Guardians' actions since the first Strigoi sighting, but even considering disregarding their orders went against everything he'd ever been taught. Of course in a way he had gone against guardians once in his life, when he was thirteen, but that was different.
He scanned the seating, noting both dhampir and Moroi classmates milling about and talking, and noted more guardians in formal dress than he'd ever seen at one time. Most of his Moroi professors also appeared to be present, standing by as the guardians handled the minor crowd control. He couldn't begin to understand Catherine and Dr. Scherpova's cryptic comments, seemingly saying that the assembly was publically something else, but privately related to his and Malina's Strigoi attack.
He located Malina automatically, forgetting briefly that she wasn't likely to welcome his company. Her hair was pulled back in a loose knot at the base of her neck and her clothes were clean but clearly not her own - he suspected she'd been given discarded clothing like his. He was used to seeing her in the jewel-tones that offset her dark hair and green eyes and hoped it was simply the neutrals in her current outfit that dulled her appearance, making her seem paler than normal and almost ill. She was standing with Catherine, barely moving and not engaging in conversation despite the other girl's obvious attempts. When she looked up, startled by a sharp noise from behind the stage curtains, he could see that her eyes were puffy and red.
He disregarded Catherine's advice and closed the distance between them. "Malina."
She didn't hesitate. "Go away Dimitri."
He winced but kept trying. "I'm sorry, I –"
"Yeah. Me, too." She looked away, wrapping her arms around herself, then with effort turned back and met his eyes. "It wasn't a lie for me. When you figure out what it was for you, you just let me know."
He scrambled for the right words but Zeklos and Katya came down the aisle behind her. His head emptied of everything but the new horror of them together.
They walked slowly, Zeklos's arm around Katya's shoulders, her arm tucked around his waist. He looked down at her with a mixture of adoration and joy, his expression impossibly tender and knowing, making it entirely too obvious what had very recently transpired between them. His emotions were so unguarded that even if Dimitri hadn't been appalled at what he'd let happen he would have had to look away.
Malina followed his gaze. She stifled a short, mirthless laugh. "Well at least someone had a good night."
Dimitri's gut twisted, anger and fear and grief warring inside him.
"What is it?" she took a step closer to him, voice hard. "Do you think he's controlling her with some awful spell, too?"
The words left his mouth before he could stop them. "You wouldn't understand," he snapped.
"No. I guess I wouldn't." She raised her chin and turned away, dismissing him. He took a reflexive step toward her, already regretting his slip, but she held herself straighter and refused to meet his eyes. Zeklos and Katya settled into seats across the aisle, oblivious to anyone else around them. Torn between stepping between them and apologizing again to Malina, Sasha's companionable slap on his injured shoulder caught him completely off guard.
"Have you heard what this is about?' he asked, his usual upbeat nature matching the mood of the room. "Rumor has it it's someone important."
"I haven't heard any names," Dimitri deflected, recovering quickly and hiding his surprise and confusion at this new piece of the puzzle. He tried to catch Malina's eye. Had Catherine shared more with her about the assembly and how it related to them? She gave no indication that she'd heard Sasha but she couldn't have missed him. His eyes slid to Catherine next, and though her level gaze met his, her expression gave no clue to the information she might hold.
"Also," Sasha moved closer, speaking low, "I heard another rumor – they're saying there was another Strigoi on campus, an attack this time."
"Really?" Dimitri answered noncommittally. His injured shoulder spasmed. He glanced over to Malina again but she turned completely away, making a show of talking to Catherine. "An attack?"
"Yes, but I swear every Guardian has been in and out all morning – someone or something big is behind that curtain – but no one seems injured. And if we lost a Guardian," Sasha looked briefly uncomfortable at acknowledging the reality of the risks they faced, "you'd think they'd be upset, right?"
"Of course." He answered automatically, but wondered. How did Guardians react to losing one of their own? Moroi came first. As long as Moroi were safe, would a dhampir death matter?
More purposeful movement among the guardians caught both their attention, signaling that the assembly was about to begin. "Come on," Sasha motioned, indicating a group of dhampir seniors, "we're over here." Dimitri tried for Malina's attention once more as they moved, but she continued to ignore him, closing herself off. He made himself look away. He wanted to fight, to argue, to provoke her temper again - anything to re-open the connection he hadn't realized had become a constant between them – but he controlled the impulse with effort. Catherine had been right: he needed to behave better to win her back.
He joined Sasha and the other novices, finding seats while the rest of his classmates settled faster than he would have expected. Sasha hadn't been alone in his access to rumors or in his excitement about what – or who – rated a surprise Saturday morning assembly.
The auditorium served multiple purposes, but today was in lecture mode, the heavy blue curtains hanging closed, providing a vivid backdrop for a single wooden podium. Even before the students had completely quieted Guardian Ershova emerged from the left side of the stage. Her formal guardian dress – white, button-down shirt and crisp black slacks, contrasting with the dark workout clothing the guardians on campus usually wore – matched that of her colleagues now lining the auditorium walls two rows deep.
Dimitri had only a moment to grasp that the purpose of the assembly was more complicated than simple damage control or rumor management, and much bigger than he'd even begun to speculate. He glanced over at Malina again. She'd found seating where he'd left her, with Catherine and her other Moroi friends, now two sections to his left. He tried yet again to catch her eye. He'd spent most of his life independent and alone, but now he found himself acutely missing Malina's support.
"Good morning," Guardian Ershova said. She projected her voice easily without bothering with the microphone on the podium standing next to her. "We have a special guest joining us on campus this week, and to put any rumors –" she glared at a few select students in the audience without pausing – "to rest before they start we decided to introduce you to him this morning." She paused dramatically, then continued in an almost forced-casual tone. "Please welcome Guardian to the family of the Badica Prince and former Head of the Guardian Council, Guardian Arthur Schoenberg."
Stunned silence turned to slowly building applause as the legendary guardian took Ershova's place on the stage. Sasha leaned forward. "I thought he was in America. What the heck is he doing here?" Dimitri couldn't answer, too shocked to respond. Connecting his and Malina's attack to Arthur Schoenberg's presence was laughable – or possibly terrifying.
"Hello." Guardian Schoenberg's low, American-accented English barely carried to Dimitri and Sasha, sitting in the first half of the auditorium from the stage. He smiled, a relaxed flash that, despite the alternating humorous and horrific possibilities rushing through Dimitri's mind, inexplicably began to put him at ease. Guardian Schoenberg moved to the podium, the microphone amplifying his voice. "Thank you. I'm glad to be here. I'm not sure where to begin, I haven't prepared a speech."
He smiled again and rested his large hands on either side of the podium. His white sleeves buttoned at the wrist as well as the neck and collar like the rest of the guardians in attendance. His black trousers hung pressed and straight. But while on the others the white-and-black was clearly a uniform, on his bulky frame the clothes hung strangely natural, as comfortably as a warmup suit. Dimitri found him instantly relaxing and likable, but couldn't understand how the man commanded so much respect while conveying such an air of casualness. He couldn't imagine this large, slow-moving man dispatching Strigoi with the lethality always attributed to him. Only the fluidity of his movements, themselves at odds with his lumbering appearance, hinted that perhaps Dimitri was missing something in his assessment.
"I guess I'll get right to why I'm here," he said. Dimitri's heartrate and breathing increased, but Schoenberg kept the same casualness in his voice as in his posture. Distracting himself from unpleasant possibilities, Dimitri tried to place his accent – not Western like his favorite novels, not Southern - more like an American newscaster, smooth and only slightly lilting. Dimitri detected only a shadow of the slavic consanants in his pronunciation that remind him that, despite his casual fluency and choice of American English instead of Russian to address the assembly, Guardian Schoenberg was not American nor a native English-speaker.
"I don't like the Strigoi reports I've heard," he continued. "But I believe you're safe here, please don't let my presence make you think otherwise. I'm not here in any official capacity. We were traveling nearby, and when we heard about the regional Strigoi activity and the curriculum changes your faculty has implemented, I was deeply interested." Dimitri's caught the slight stress on regional, and wondered if he should be relieved or more worried that Schoenberg was glossing over the earlier campus Strigoi sighting and not addressing his and Malina's experience.
"Prince Badica allowed me a short sabbatical," Schoenberg continued, "and we made arrangements for him and his family to continue with the rest of my staff to Moscow while his nephew and I came here. Some of you may be aware that during my tenure on the Guardian council I also held a faculty position at the local academy where I taught and mentored students, and while I don't miss council politics, I do miss interacting with our next generation of guardians. I am looking forward to meeting all of you, and if your faculty agrees, I will be teaching and mentoring for the short time I am here." Sasha nudged Dimitri – as the top senior novice he was virtually guaranteed to be chosen for closer interaction. He accepted Sasha's assumption cautiously. Schoenberg's mentorship and recommendation could change the course of his career, but his actions last night could have stained his future permanently.
A low rumble caught Dimitri just at the edge of his dhampir hearing and the floor vibrated under his feet. He pulled his attention away from the stage and from the images of possible futures spiraling before him. Other than a few other students appearing confused or curious, nothing else seemed out of place. He would have assumed that the disruption was innocuous except that the guardian population began thinning. Almost imperceptibly at first, then more obvious only if watching closely, the guardians lining the wall began to simply melt away, exiting without even seeming to open the doors. By the end of Schoenberg's speech only about half the guardians remained.
"Thank you again for giving up part of your Saturday to meet with me," Guardian Schoenberg finished, "I'm glad to be here, and as soon as your faculty and I decide where I can be most useful, I look forward to playing some small part in your education. And one of my favorite parts of teaching is that I have no doubt I will be learning from you as well."
Polite applause quickly turned thunderous as the implications of Schoenberg's speech percolated through the student body. Guardian Arthur Schoenberg, the man whose Strigoi kills filled their textbooks, whose techniques were part of the standard novice curriculum, whose career spanned from a Georgian childhood, to a transfer to America, up through the guardian ranks to guard Queen Zeklos herself, through the queen's retirement when he was offered the Head of the new Queen Ivashkov's guard, and then respectfully declined that position in order to accept the position of Head of the Guardian Council - and finally, to his retirement to a "quieter" life guarding the Badica prince... was in residence at their academy, offering to share his time and knowledge and expertise.
Nikitin joined Guardian Schoenberg on the stage, applauding as well as he crossed the stage to meet him. He stepped up to the microphone. "Thank you for your generosity, Guardian Schoenberg, we all look forward to learning from you. I already have a list of names that meet your criteria for your first student introductions, and I'd like to read them now so those students can plan to join you first thing Monday morning. After I read the names I do have one more short guardian issue that we would appreciate your input on, and then we will all leave you and Adam Badica to settle into the guest apartments and acclimate to our campus. Everyone else," his short, clipped speech pattern becoming even more pronounced, "you will help Guardian Schoenberg with anything he needs, and you will otherwise leave him alone."
Guardian Schoenberg chuckled, leaning into the microphone, "I really don't mind."
Nikitin inclined his head in acknowledgment but his tone remained the same. "Again, Guardian Schoenberg is generous, but you will all have your chance to meet with him in your classes – yes, even Moroi classes – so you will wait patiently. We are very lucky that he is joining us and I want you on your best behavior. If you are not, I will know.
"Now, the names." Nikitin rattled off a short list of names in his sharp staccato – five of the female novices, including Katya, and five of the males, including Sasha. Dimitri's name was not on the list. Nikitin made a final, short chopping motion with his hand. "Dismissed."
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