Rose's POV
The day my best friend became Queen should have been the best day of my life. You know, as long as we ignored the fact that I was also near-fatally shot on that very same day. But the shooter had been taken into custody, I had – to everyone's surprise, including my own – recovered without the help of either my best friend's or my ex-boyfriend's healing powers, and my dhampir-turned-Strigoi-turned-dhampir-again boyfriend had finally been given his guardian status back. All was well in Rose-Hathaway-land… until we realised that being Queen to all Moroi in the entire world was not quite as easy as it sounded. Not that it sounded easy it all, but still. It was unlike what any of us had expected. And yet, Lissa rose to the occasion and became the most wonderful Moroi Queen I could have imagined. Of course, we all knew that she would. In just under a year, she'd brought more change to our world than her predecessor had during her entire reign… but that was around the time the problems began. The attacks.
Not Strigoi attacks – those, I could have handled – but rather politically motivated ones. It had started harmlessly enough. A few smear campaigns here and there, that had been rather easily debunked. We'd expected those, and we'd been prepared. Not all Moroi were as progressive as Lissa was – certainly not those with any power. The royals. As much as Lissa had tried to advocate for change in our government, it had been no use. Nobody had wanted to abolish any part of the system we had – tradition and all that. Despite my own political opinions, I was almost glad for it, as I'm certain something like that would have led to even more threats to her life. As it was, though, her life was being threatened.
And not just hers. It had been just under one and a half years since she had ascended to the throne when we realised for the first time just how dangerous her opponents were. Due to certain circumstances that, at the time, nobody but her inner circle had been privy to, a royal wedding was to occur. Christian's proposal had been a shock to me, but I'd soon learnt the reason for it. Young and in love as they'd been, they'd not been quite as diligent about protection as they should have been, and there was no way in hell a queen could have a child out of wedlock. Which also meant the wedding had had to happen as quickly as possible. Arrangements had been made, and while everything had gone according to plan from the Moroi side, us guardians were not feeling quite so good about the whole thing. Planning security for such an event was anything but easy, and there was sure to be some hole in it with all this rushing to get it done. There was.
Fortunately, Lissa did not get hurt when the attack happened, but not everyone had been so lucky. Christian had been quite severely injured, and with him… Dimitri. I'd known my duty was to Lissa, and that I had to get her to a safe location immediately, but, God, it had taken everything in me not to turn back around for Dimitri. It had been hours until court was declared 'safe' again. Agonizing hours for Lissa and me. We were both hoping, praying, that the loves of our lives were going to be all right. When we eventually learnt that they had survived – albeit with significant injuries – we should have been the happiest women on Earth. And we'd both been relieved, that was for certain, but it had become clear that despite what the guardians had told us, there was no such thing as being 'safe' at court anymore. Lissa knew that, and I did, too.
So what had to happen next broke both of our hearts, but it had been necessary. Lissa, being a Queen, could not leave court. That much was clear. Christian, on the other hand… while he was now her husband, he had no such obligation. He had every right to, say, travel the world with his guardians. And that's exactly the story we sold everyone when Lissa sent them away. There had been protest from Christian's side, of course, but logic had won out in the end. The less people we had to keep safe, the better the chance we would actually be able to. And so they left court not long after the wedding, and never told us where they went. That, too, was by design. Promises were made to get in touch as soon as all of this was over. The possibility it might never be was not brought up.
With fewer people at court that we trusted – we had not forgotten the betrayal at the hands of Tasha Ozera, and trust had become an even more complicated thing since – uncovering the conspiracy against Lissa was nearly impossible. No, that was wrong. It was entirely impossible. At least for me, in the time that I had left.
Over the next months, no attempt was made at Lissa's life. Perhaps it had been a one-time thing, some had said. We knew that couldn't have been the truth. Not with the threatening letters she'd been receiving lately. We'd known it was only a matter of time until it would happen again. We were right. Lissa'd been heavily pregnant at the time, mere weeks or perhaps even days from delivering, when it had happened. A Moroi neither of us recognised had tried to assassinate her, and it had taken me and two other royal guardians to restrain him. We couldn't kill him, after all, if we were hoping for any information. Naturally, we hadn't expected him to carry a cyanide capsule. And, just like that, our one source that could have actually led us somewhere had taken his own life. Something that was rarely done among the Moroi. Practically unheard of.
While the assassin had ultimately failed to complete his mission, he had succeeded in one thing – somehow, the attack had forced her into labour. She was rushed to the hospital, and it wasn't long until she held her firstborn child in her arms. Her daughter. The doctor had told her she was lucky – it wasn't a dangerously early birth, she would have been due soon, anyway. It was, however, a very dangerous world. Lissa realised that at the same time as I did, and when everyone but her guardians had left the room, she pleaded with me.
"Please, Rose, I can't let her get hurt. You can't let her get hurt. Please protect my family. You have to. Please, please, protect my sunshine."
And that was how, despite my better knowledge, I had ended up in a car with a newborn in the passenger seat, trying to put as much distance between me and Pennsylvania as I possibly could. It pained me to leave her behind, knowing she was in danger. But I knew she had capable guards that would do everything in their power to protect her. With Eddie among them, she would be safe. She had to be. Meanwhile, I had my own job to do. Protect the little Dragomir beside me.
I'd never been good with children, let alone newborn babies. But, looking at her, I just had to smile. "We're going to be okay. And, one day, I'll make sure you'll be with your family again." Of course, she couldn't understand me. Still, she smiled. She truly was a ray of sunshine, wasn't she? "Sunshine, hm? I bet you'd be the only vampire in the world with that name."
8 years later.
Being a mother was not something I'd been prepared for at the tender age of twenty. I knew, of course, that I would eventually have to have a child. I'd considered it more of a necessary evil, in a way, as it was merely part of my duty to the Moroi – and my own race, too. Producing a new generation of guardians was, after all, what was expected of female dhampirs, whether they were guardians themselves or not. Never would I have imagined becoming a mother so early, and I certainly hadn't dreamed of being a mother to a child that wasn't even my own. Yet, here I was, being a mother to a Moroi girl that, for all intents and purposes, had become my own daughter. At least I could console myself with the fact that this, too, had happened out of a sense of duty. Not to the Moroi, and not even to the crown – only duty to Lissa, and the Dragomir family. Over the years I had even come to realise that I did love Sunshine with all of my heart despite my initial belief that I didn't have a single motherly bone in my body.
Still, that certainly didn't mean I didn't miss being in the field. I'd kept up a fairly strict exercise regimen, of course, but as I'd learnt in my days at the academy, that didn't have to mean much. I'd been good at keeping Sunshine and myself hidden from threats. We weren't completely cut off from the Moroi world – though that had been my intention when I'd taken the young girl away from court – but we weren't anywhere near a large centre of Moroi activity, which certainly helped with keeping Strigoi off our tracks, too. There had been some attacks – few and far between, luckily – and I'd dealt with them swiftly, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was hopelessly out of practice. What if a real threat – say, a larger group of Strigoi – happened upon us one day? Years ago, I knew I could have taken on more than one of them, but now? I wasn't so sure.
If it had been my choice, we wouldn't have had any contact to the non-human world but, alas, Lissa had had very different opinions on that. Not willing to let me be a fugitive of sorts yet again, she'd made up some excuse about giving me an important mission. I was unsure why that excuse still held up with the Guardian Counsel eight years later, but I supposed some compulsion might have played a role in that. In any case, there was little to worry about in terms of Sunshine being discovered. After the attempted assassination, it had been all too easy to convince the world that her would-be daughter had not survived the early birth. In that sense, it had been a blessing, though it certainly hadn't felt that way. Still, I limited my time being seen with her as much as I possibly could. Moroi were more of a threat to her at this time than any Strigoi could have been. The latter would have at least killed her quickly. With Lissa's political opponents, there was no saying what horrible things they might do to her if they found her.
Unfortunately, protecting the young girl from threats to her life and physical safety were far from the only thing I had to worry about. There were the usual challenges one would expect to face as a young mother, which had taken me by surprise nonetheless. But, more importantly, raising a Moroi child as a dhampir woman came with its own set of unique problems. The biggest one, at first, had been the blood. Opting not to live near large Moroi populations had meant long drives to the next feeding opportunity, but we'd made work. Recently, though, another problem had started rearing its head – one I truly hadn't known how to deal with. Magic.
Over the past two months, I'd noticed certain things, but I'd been willing to ignore them for the time being. As someone without any magic powers, I had no business teaching her about how to use her own, and without any Moroi I could fully trust nearby, I had no other options than to hope for the best. It had been eight years since I'd left court – how much longer could it be until Lissa would finally call us back there? How much longer until the threat was neutralised? The answer I didn't want to have to give myself was simple. It might never be safe.
Therein lay the problem. If these incidents continued, I would have to do something. The last one had scared even me, when Sunshine had almost drowned herself in the bathtub by accident. Granted, I may have been a bit overdramatic there, but it could happen eventually. I'd even considered getting in contact with Christian, who I was sure would have some help to offer with this. Unfortunately, I had no idea where he was, and no way to get in touch with him at this point in time. I'd tracked down his last known location to a small town near Boulder, but from what I could gather, he hadn't been here in at least four years. Nonetheless, Sunshine and I had settled down in a motel a few towns over. Wyoming certainly was far enough away from Pennsylvania to justify our stay here. There was another reason I'd wanted to stay in the area, but I didn't dare admit that yet.
Until, of course, Sunshine nearly burnt down our room last night. We'd quickly made our escape before anyone could link the fire to us, and had moved onto another town. A town much closer to the neighbouring state… Montana. I knew what I had to do, and there was no way around it now. I didn't want to leave her alone – I'd promised Lissa I wouldn't! – but my choices were limited here. Sunshine would have to go to a school equipped to teach her what I could not, and there was only one place in the world that I could allow her to go to. Did I have infinite trust in their ability to keep my best friend's daughter safe? Certainly not. But if I had to send her away to ensure she didn't hurt herself with something she could not yet control, then St Vladimir's Academy was the only choice. Besides, I would stay nearby.
There was only one problem now. I couldn't very well walk in there and drop off a Moroi child approximately the same age the dead Dragomir heir would have been now. No, I needed a plan. My mind finally made up, I called someone I hadn't talked to in a long time. Sonya Karp.