Disclaimer: I dont own VA, Richelle Mead does. Also I don't have a beta, and am rushing to get this out, so excuse the errors, or let me know about them.
The road trip started out ok, we separated into two cars..
2 guardians in each car. As Dimitri was still "my guardian" and now completely aware of my pregnancy, he refused to be separated from me. That lead to Adrian and Sydney joining us to which Adrian claimed that we were one big happy family. He also called Dimitri 'cousin' at every opportunity, usually Dimitri would have gotten annoyed by now, but he was so happy about being a father.
I knew that Adrian was really happy to have Dimitri a new family member, he bugged us with questions about Dimitri's sisters and scary grandma. Dimitri started to get a little on edge, but Adrian seemed so genuine that he answered them.
"Could I accompany you guys to Baia?" He asked. I eyed Dimitri's face for a reaction, he looked surprised and then guilty. I realised that Dimitri still hadn't spoken to his family yet, then I remembered Yeva's call.
"Yea called me, she knows you are back… Hmmm maybe that was what Yeva meant 'you three', maybe Adrian comes with us?" Again, using my Hathaway tact to drop a bomb about Yeva.
"If Yeva has spoken, then it must happen. Besides, I want to meet Oksana, now that we have 4 relatively sane spirit users" Adrian added.
I patted Dimitri's knee, "I don't think she has told the rest of the family, but when she called she tipped me off to the pregnancy. She knew before I did."
Adrian turned to Sydney, "Is Yeva as scary as everyone makes her out to be?"
"She's interesting" Sydney said and then she nodded when she thought Dimitri wasn't looking.
"So, Sage, how did you get pulled into all of this?" Adrian asked. I tried to look as though I wasn't interested, but I was dying to learn what my father had over her. She shuffled uncomfortably and I could see Adrian studying her, like he was seeing her aura.
"Abe is a very influential man, we sometimes do favours for him in return for information or other things." I could tell Adrian also thought that there was something my old man had over Sydney.
He watched her for a while and then spoke "Your aura has specks of purple in it"
Sydney looked uncomfortable, the concept of vampire magic made her uncomfortable. "What does that mean"
"It just means that you are a lot more interesting than your average alchemist" She shuffled in her seat, looking unsettled.
"Better than the darkness surrounding me" I quipped. Sydney then asked Adrian to explain the strigoi restoration for the purposes of her report to the alchemists.
I took the opportunity to slip into Lissa's head.
Lissa had received a message from Ambrose, she had wanted to ask Pavel whether he would accompany her and Christian. She thought that someone who worked for Mr Mazur would have to be very good at reading people, otherwise he probably would have died already.
Lissa still didn't know how to take Ambrose, while she had managed to learn aura's, she appeared to be the worst at reading them. Unfortunately Pavel had gone to sort out an issue with Abe's business. Eddie caught her just as she was about to leave, out of breath and panicked.
"I told them that I was protecting you, but they insisted on some crap task, I finished it as fast as possible."
"What's going on?" asked Lissa, as soon as Ambrose shut the door. "Why the urgent visit?"
"Because I have to show you something," he said. On his bed was a pile of papers, and he took the top one. "Remember when I said they were locking off Tatiana's belongings? Well now they're inventorying and removing them. She had a safe where she kept important documents—secret ones, obviously. And …"
"And, I didn't want anyone to find them," Ambrose continued. "I didn't know what most of them were, but if she wanted them secret … I just felt they should stay that way. I knew the combination, and so … I stole them." Guilt shone on his face, but it wasn't murderous guilt. It was guilt for the theft.
Lissa eyed the stack eagerly. "And?"
"None of them have anything to do with what you're looking for … except maybe this one." He handed her the piece of paper. Eddie and Christian crowded around her.
Darling Tatiana,
I'm a bit surprised to see how these latest developments have unfolded. I thought we had an understanding that the safety of our people required more than just bringing in a younger crop of guardians. We have let too many of them go to waste, particularly the women. If you took actions to force them back—and you know what I'm talking about—the guardian ranks would swell. This current law is completely inadequate, particularly after seeing how your "training" experiment failed.
I'm equally shocked to hear that you are considering releasing Dimitri Belikov from his guards. I don't understand exactly what happened, but you cannot trust mere appearances. You may be unleashing a monster—or at the very least, a spy—in our midst, and he needs to be under much stricter guard than he currently is. In fact, your continued support of the study of spirit is troubling altogether and no doubt led to this unnatural situation. I believe there is a reason this element was lost to us for so long: our ancestors realised its danger and stamped it out. Avery Lazar stands as proof of that, and your prodigy, Vasilisa Dragomir, is certain to follow. In encouraging Vasilisa, you encourage the degradation of the Dragomir line, a line that should be allowed to fade into history with honour and not the disgrace of insanity. Your support of her may also put your own great-nephew at risk, something neither of us would like to see happen.
I'm sorry to burden you with so much condemnation. I hold you in the highest regard and have nothing but respect for the way you have so skilfully governed our people these long years. I'm certain you will soon come to the appropriate decisions—though I worry others may not share my confidence in you. Said people might attempt to take matters into their own hands, and I fear for what may follow.
"Who's it from" Christian asked. Lissa flipped the paper over, it was typed and had no sign of identification on it.
"I don't know," said Ambrose. "This is exactly the way I found it. Maybe she didn't even know who the sender was."
The guys were discussing motives while Lissa was lost in her own thoughts, the words 'degradation of the Dragomir line reverberated around her head. It reminded her of the spirit dream in the council chambers.
"It proves that there were more people than Rose with an axe to grind with Queen Tatiana"
"But it doesn't help us find a new suspect" Said Eddie.
Christian demanded that Ambrose show them the rest of the papers, but he was right, there wasn't much of value. Lissa did see a request by Tasha Ozera about the moroi magic program and making Dimitri Belikov a guardian again, she had offered to have him as her guardian. Ambrose nodded his head to Lissa to take the letter and she folded it away.
Lissa was trying not to analyse why she took the letter, she had remembered Tasha's offer from last Christmas and had recalled in retrospect how unhappy I was during that time. She was surprised that Tasha still requested Dimitri, I certainly wasn't. But I hadn't had the chance to talk to Lissa yet.
As they left the building, Christian was angered by the concept of people forcing Dhampir's into service when Eddie moved in front of them. A moroi man was waiting in the shadows, moving towards them with a knife in his hand.
Eddie engaged him in combat, Lissa was panicked and couldn't analyse a fight like I could. This man was well trained and quite skilful with the blade. I noticed, and Eddie would have too, That this man had a distorted left hand with scarring. Despite this impediment, he was able to manoeuvre his blade hand up towards Eddie's neck.
Eddie's arm blocked the knife and he seemed to make the same calculation that I did, this man was out to kill. Eddie grabbed the only weapon that he had at his disposal, his stake and when the knife came for Eddie's neck, he did what he was trained to do.
He staked him.
He heard a noise to his right and in his battle-lust he turned for the next opponent, only to realise a group of guardians were upon him, with a bloody stake and a dead moroi at his feet.
"Roza"
I was pulled from Lissa's head to Dimitri "Lissa was attacked."
I grabbed my phone and rang Christian. I didn't bother with pretence and got down to my point. "Can you get a picture of the moroi."
"What?"
"The guy that attacked you, he has a scar, we need to ID him. Get me a damn picture, include his hand."
"As friendly as ever Hathaway. i'm on it"
While the others were asking me what happened, I quickly filled them in while I stared at my phone. Finally, Christian sent me a series of pictures, based off the angles he had tried to do this covertly.
I texted the pictures to Sydney and told her "I need you to run this man through your alchemist database, he is possibly the man who took my stake."
"Oh god! Rose, these are horrific"
There was no possibly about it, this was the guy but the question was, who was he working for? The alchemists seemed to keep tabs on our kind, more than we realised. He might not be known by the guardian council, but it didn't hurt.
I then called Guardian Croft. "Guardian Croft"
"I'm a little busy Hathaway"
"That's why I'm calling, I was watching through Lissa's eyes when the attack happened." Previously he had known about the bond and utilised my services for the warehouse fight, I was hoping that my words would help Eddie.
"What happened"
I explained the scene to Hans, his fighting ability, the scar on his hand and how Eddie had fought him. He asked me whether I thought he could have been subdued without loss of life.
"Eddie had him pinned and he narrowly avoided being stabbed in the neck. If he hadn't blocked that strike with his arm, all of my friends would be dead. He protected the Princess and Lord Ozera, he put them first."
"Understood, but I'm afraid this matter will be handled by the Royal council. How are things on your end?"
"We are driving to find the dragomir sibling as we speak. What reception will Sonya Karp face when she returns?"
"That is to be determined. I'm sure a better reception than Belikov received. I have to go deal with this mess."
It was starting to dawn on me just how powerless Dhampir's really were. I was more fortunate than almost all of them, I had a moroi father who loved me and had set me and my future children up for generations. My people had few options: Guardian, Blood whore, live on the fringes of our society like Ambrose or leave for the human world.
The pregnancy situation was even worse, there were no facilities that catered to Dhampir women, that helped them with babysitting or getting back into fighting shape. There was very little maternity leave and usually when a dhampir got pregnant they would be swapped for someone else and end up essentially demoted.
The glass ceiling existed everywhere for women, particularly Dhampir women.
"Roza. Are you okay?" Dimitri asked me. He kept his eye on the road, maintaining a visual of my parents car but I felt his hand take mine, it felt so warm.
"Thinking about a lot of things, how my mother and other dhampir women handle their pregnancies. How little power even guardian croft has."
Dimitri didn't say anything, he didn't have to. We had a lot of things in common, particularly how we saw the world. In fact, since he was older, I'm pretty sure that he had already come to this conclusion.
My phone beeped, and I noticed that Croft sent me better pictures of the dead man, I sent them on to Sydney. "Ugh Rose, you could warn someone before you send them more pictures of a corpse"
"I thought it would be helpful" I replied to her in a sugary sweet tone.
"Tell me Sydney, what pictures should someone send to you instead?" Adrian asked. He seemed a little taken with Sydney, I turned my head to sneak a look at his face. If I had aura-vision, I would expect to see some pink/red colours, because he looked smitten with Sydney.
"Classical art and architecture" She responded. Adrian looked at her with more fascination, he then started to talk to her about classical art, it was good to see that his time at college had resulted in some acquisition of knowledge rather than the best way to cure a hangover.
Dimitri had kept a moderate distance from my parents car, for good reason as they would randomly swerve, barely missing turns until the last minute. We eventually reached a sign for Michigan and turned off the highway, driving along suburban streets until we pulled up to a house.
We got out and decided on the game plan. We suggested that a group of eight would be intimidating, that Sydney and my mother would accompany Sonya. My mother interjected, but I shut her down.
I wanted to protest, but Dimitri spoke up. "Your mother has an excellent reputation, she provides a reassuring presence"
"And I don't?"
"Well, she wasn't the only suspect for the queens murder, the average moroi might still suspect you."
"Well, In a few months my proof will be evident." I patted my lower abdomen for effect.
Dimitri placed his hand over mine, it was so warm and comforting. I looked up at him and smiled.
"Ugh, stop doing that!"
We both looked at Adrian, "What?"
"Touching.. smiling.. anything, its blinding."
"What is?"
"You aura's" Of course its our damn auras, If i could go one day without someone talking about my damn aura, I would be a happy lady.
"Put on sunglasses" I said as I gave Dimitri a kiss on the cheek.
"Ahhh Belikov, that reminds me. We need to have a little chat" Abe started. I fixed a stare at my father.
"It's a good one, I had nightmares for weeks after our chat" Adrian interjected.
"Baba, no-one is having a chat, again, I am perfectly capable of threatening my own boyfriends, I don't need your assistance."
Dimitri chuckled and pulled me into his arms. "Abe, you can threaten my as much as you want, i'm not going anywhere. Milaya, I know you are more than capable of following through your threats."
I leaned by back and snuggled against his chest.
"Janine is signalling for us to come over" Mikhail said as he strode across the lawn.
I was not prepared to see Jill Mastrano when I walked through the door. She was standing next to two people that could have been her parents.
"Rose. What are you doing here?" She looked at me, and then her eyes widened when she saw Dimitri walk in behind me. He gave me a look to suggest that he would have preferred to walk in before me.
"Hey Jill" I felt a heavy pit settle in my stomach. This wasn't Lissa's lost sibling, this was a kid we knew, and looked out for. I looked at Adrian who came to the same realisation that I did.
"Jailbait" Adrian smiled at her kindly and she blushed profusely. She ran up and gave him a hug and then she hugged me. I looked into her jade green eyes and realised that I was an idiot, the rest of her looks were all emily, but eyes were shared by Lissa, Andre and her father Eric. The thing that had always seemed so familiar to me had been staring me in the face.
She was too afraid to address Dimitri directly, so she turned to me and Adrian. "It's true, isn't it? Lissa can heal Strigoi. She saved him." We nodded as she continued. "Did she restore cousin Sonya, or Adrian?" She turned to look at him.
I looked around the room and noticed my mother standing with a very tense Emily Mastrano, a male moroi and Sonya. Mikhail and Abe went to join them and they all went into the kitchen. That left Sydney, Dimitri, Adrian and I with Jill.
We distracted Jill with Adrian's restoration tale until we could hear Emily start to raise her voice. "No. We are not doing this."
Jill's eyes flicked towards me, her jade eyes pierced through me. "What is this about?" she said sharply.
I took a breath. "Your father, is he your biological dad?"
Jill slowly shook her head. "No he isn't, but I consider him to be. My father was just … just some guy who ran out on us."
Jill got up and ran into the kitchen. She demanded her mother to tell her the truth, so Emily did…
Jill walked back into the living room to our group, looked at us all and ran up the stairs. My parents, Sonya and Mikhail were still in discussion with Jill's parents. After Jill didn't come down for twenty minutes, I decided to go up there. I knocked on the door.
"Go away mum" She called out.
I opened the door. "Its not your mum, can we talk?"
She turned from her pillow, cheeks tear stained. "Sure"
"I just met my father, most Dhampir don't. Dimitri only found out more about his father's family yesterday, at the age of 25."
"Your point?" She sniffed.
"I know what its like to have something important to be kept from you for years. My mum deliberately kept things from me, but she did it for my safety, like yours did." Jill took in my words and stayed quiet.
"It kinda sucks and I'll never get to meet him."
"Yeah, it does. Mr Dragomir was like a father to me, he was a really good man. But you do have a sister, she wanted me to find you."
"Lissa" she breathed. It looked like it only dawned on her that she was related to Lissa.
"Yeah, we wanted to help her get a vote on the moroi council, so we set out to look for you. She wants to meet you, well she doesn't know it is you yet." Funnily enough, she was even jealous of Jill at one point, she thought that Christian had replaced her with Jill. I chuckled at the thought that it was actually sibling rivalry.
"What is she going to think?" Jill asked me. She looked nervous and apprehensive.
"She has been processing the information about her father and your mother, which has been hard. But she longs for another family member, all she has is me and Christian."
"I've never had a sibling, I always wanted one growing up." She smiled at me.
I reached down to pull her off the bed. "Come on, we should find out what the old people are talking about, it has to do with you after all"
"Uh Rose, who is your father?" she bit her lip just like Lissa when she asked me.
"You saw the mobster moroi guy downstairs, that's him. Apparently he is infamous, especially in Russia." I was quite proud of this fact.
"I guess we both had secret, well known fathers" She said to me as we walked down the stairs.
I smirked at her, "I guess that's why we are both awesome."
L POV
We had left the guardian headquarters late, Hans looked stressed, but remained respectful and fair towards Eddie. Pavel had collected us as Eddie had been detained, his future uncertain.
I hoped that my growing political strength could shield Eddie from serious backlash, but all of his offers as a guardian had been rescinded. His once promising future had been tarnished but his friendship with Rose and I.
"They want you for the last monarch test" Pavel stated.
I was exhausted, and as someone who always did her assignments on time, I had no experience pulling an all nighter.
"What do you think will happen to Eddie?" I asked him, Christian squeezed my hand in support.
"He'll be fine, they have nothing to hold him on. The worst he'll get is a mark on his record."
"Isn't that bad for future assignments?" I'd seen my parents pour through guardian files when I was 14, looking in advance for Andre's guardian. They scrutinised anyone who had a mark against them, but most families wouldn't even consider them.
"He's important to you and Rose" he asked questioningly.
"And me" Christian piped up. Their time in Spokane had formed a bond that I didn't quite understand, but Eddie had made the cut as Christian's few chosen associates. He always joked that he never had a choice with Rose.
"Then Mr Mazur will make sure that he is looked after." Pavel replied. He was a man of few words, which meant that what he did say was the truth. Pavel gave me the directions to the test, he told me that Tad would escort me back to our accommodation. Abe didn't want me unguarded after the moroi attacker.
Rose had been watching in my head when it happened, Christian told me later that she called immediately afterwards, I had gone into shock. We reached the courthouse building and a crowd of people were waiting.
Again I was overwhelmed by how much this process meant to all moroi and Dhampir people. I noticed that more people had cheered my name, half the candidates had been eliminated after the fear test and families had changed sides.
"Hello," Lissa said respectfully. "It's nice to see you again."
"Dragomir's always so polite, you are just like your grandfather" I flushed with delight, it was so nice to hear about my family members, it burned within me to know about them.
"Thank you. What would you like me to do for this test?"
"Just listen. That's all. It's an easy one." A twinkle in the woman's eye made me think this would not be easy.
"All you have to do is answer a question for me. Answer correctly, and you're through to the vote. And won't that be entertaining." The old woman seemed to say those last words more to herself than me.
"Okay," I swallowed. "I'm ready."
The old woman peered at me for a moment and seemed to like what she saw. "Here it is then: What must a queen possess in order to truly rule her people?"
My mind ran, words jumbling around my head, trying to find the answer. Integrity? Wisdom? Sanity?
"No, no, don't answer," said the old woman, watching Lissa carefully. "Not yet. You have until tomorrow, at this same time, to think about it. Come back with the right answer, and you'll have passed the trials. And …" She winked. "It goes without saying you won't talk to anyone about this."
On the way out I noticed something black on one of the benches. On closer inspection it appeared to be two hand prints burnt on the edge of the bench. I sat down at the bench and realised this was roughly where I was sitting when Rose was on trial.
It was hard to say whether this was the exact row, but I had been sitting with two fire users, one of which has a prior romantic interest in Guardian Belikov.
AN: Hello. I wanted to warn you all that I am starting to slow down my chapter production for two reasons...
Firstly, I have started another story and smashed out a few chapters of that already, so stay tuned.
Secondly, I have a huge exam in March/May and its starting to get down to crunch time.
As a result, posting is likely to become infrequent and I cant say when I will finish chapter 19. This story will be finished, rest assured, we are starting to ramp up to the finish!
Please let me know what you thought!
