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A Conflict of the Soul

Chapter Four

"What…what happened to the body?"

Murmuring from the shadow of the Pine, Eddie's hazel eyes were wide and bewildered as he watched a Strigoi being separated from the heap of decay. As another pile of ash joined the first, he stood still in shock, stunned, like Rose, at the sight of discovering something that had never been known, or even thought possible.

When dhampir children began their training at the academies, it was the essential skill sets that were taught first: fighting, defending, and eventually killing. It governed their formative years. Nothing else was considered as important, but as they grew older, and closer to graduation, the direction of their training became less about the physical and more about knowledge.

None of the novices knew this yet. It was far too early in the curriculum for it to even be mentioned, and had it not been for the events of the last two days, that wouldn't have changed, but it had, and the seniors were now about to learn that there was a large part of being a guardian that wasn't just about the ability to protect Moroi.

Protecting the secrecy of our world was just as important.

Humans on the whole didn't ask too many questions about the obvious, and preferred to remain ignorant of our existence, but that didn't mean we could take that ignorance for granted. If we were careless enough to leave behind a trail of staked Strigoi for them to stumble upon, that ignorance would become awareness, and that we simply couldn't afford.

That's where the Alchemists came in.

"What did you call them?"

Glancing down at Rose as she leaned heavily against the Sycamore, her murmured question wasn't any louder than Eddie's had been, but the shock was slowly fading as she started to believe what her eyes were telling her. There wasn't any fear in them, only curiosity as she waited for my reply.

"Alchemists," my lips whispered close to her ear. "They're called Alchemists." Repeating the name quietly to herself, Rose tucked her hair and rested her cheek against the rough bark of the tree to watch as Strigoi after Strigoi disintegrated in a matter of seconds. Absorbed by the process, she inched forward slowly until she was only partially hidden by the trunk, and would have continued had I not put my hand on her shoulder to keep her in place.

Not fighting against it, I pulled her back slightly whilst Eddie snuck across the gap in the trees. Recovering a little slower than Rose, his own curiosity at what he was seeing was enough to overpower any distrust he had. "You said they're called Alchemists?" At my nod, his tawny brows plunged towards his nose in a deep frown. "Who are they?"

"A society formed in secret a very long time ago to help protect the existence of our world."

"How long ago?"

"Sometime around the Middle Ages. No one knows the exact date. The original sect started out as actual alchemists, who developed rudimentary chemical compounds. One of them proved useful for the disposal of flesh, and that was then refined to eventually dissolve not just the flesh, but bone, organ and eventually clothing. The Moroi discovered this and convinced them to work with them."

"Is that what they're sprinkling over the bodies? The chemical compound?"

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"None of us know…it's a closely guarded secret."

Peering closely, Eddie watched the process with intense concentration. Trying, it seemed, to unravel the mystery of that secret; his eyes followed the billowing yellow smoke as it enveloped another body and dissipated into the atmosphere. Focusing on the process at first, he then switched his attention to the men who carried out the disposal.

Dressed for the cold, the three that had arrived kept their collars up, and their long winter coats wrapped tightly around them as they worked quickly. Methodical and precise, there was no hesitation in what they did, or any doubt of what had to be done next, but every now and then a pair of eyes would dart nervously to the outskirts and towards the guardians that stood motionless.

No one approached. The guardians knew better, but that didn't stop the three from watching over their shoulder. They might help us, but they didn't exactly trust us.

"So how does this work exactly?" Eddie asked quietly, turning to me curiously. "We kill the Strigoi, and then call them to clean up? Why? Why don't we just clean up the bodies ourselves afterwards? I mean…we made the mess. It seems a little unfair that someone else is stuck with all the dirty work."

"After an attack. After we've eliminated the threat, what do we do next?" I asked, holding his gaze steadily. "What is more important than anything else?"

Eddie frowned lightly at the question, but he had been too well trained to not answer it. "Remove our Moroi from the situation immediately, and get them to safety at all costs. Never remain in the same place as there is always potential for an ambush…Oh…okay. Right, got it."

Working out for himself why we needed the Alchemists – why we couldn't take the time to stay and dig a hole and bury the evidence ourselves – Eddie turned away to watch them with a new appreciation, understanding that it wasn't just about ridding the world of any trace of the Strigoi, but also keeping their very existence from being known to others.

They didn't just do us a service, but humanity in general.

"Is this what you were talking about last night when you said there was still more to be taught but it had nothing to do with training?" Rose asked quietly, still watching intently. The mass of bodies had dwindled to just a few in a matter of minutes as the ash began to scatter with the light breeze throughout the forest.

"Yes."

"When were we supposed to learn about this?"

"Closer to graduation; after trials, but with everything that's happened, there doesn't seem much point in sticking rigidly to the curriculum. There's more, but it will come later."

Nodding slowly, Rose twirled a strand of hair around her finger and played absently with the end. It wasn't like her to readily accept what I was saying without questioning everything, but for once, she was more interested in learning than she was in arguing.

"Can we meet them, Guardian Belikov? Talk to them? Ask them questions?"

Shaking my head at Eddie's eagerness, his hopeful expression fell to disappointment. "No, Eddie. I'm sorry, but you can't."

"Because we're novices? Is that against the rules?"

"No, Eddie, it's not about any rules. You can't meet them because they're afraid of us."

Shifting against the tree, Rose looked at us over her shoulder with a frown as confused as Eddie's, so I explained. "The history between Moroi, dhampir and Alchemists didn't start out as harmonious. It took a long time to convince them to help us because…well, because they view us as aberrations, basically. Unholy. To them, we aren't natural, and therefore aren't to be trusted. They fear us, because when they look at us they can't see the difference between us and Strigoi."

"That's ridiculous," Eddie complained, his frown shifting from confusion to irritation. "They're dhampir, like us. Maybe they call themselves something different, but we're the same. We don't kill. We're not…unholy," He almost spat the word. "If we were, none of us would be able to step past the wards, or set foot in a church. Yes, the Moroi drink blood, and are highly sensitive to the sun like Strigoi, and yes, dhampir are preternaturally strong like Strigoi, but that's where the similarities end. How can they not see that? Why fear us?"

"Because we're not the same. They aren't dhampir…they're human."

Feeling my lips curve upward in a secret smile of approval at her answer, I shouldn't have been surprised that Rose would have picked up on it so quickly. The two years that she and Lissa had spent on the run had given her the ability to tell them apart in a way her peers couldn't, and that included Eddie, who had wrongly assumed they were dhampir. It was why, once she had overcome the initial shock, she had been so readily accepting.

"They're human?!"

Snorting at Eddie's disbelief, Rose reached out to pat his shoulder in a way that stopped just short of condescension. "Yes, Eddie, they're human." Throwing her an agitated look, it was clear he was having a hard time believing what his mind was trying to tell him.

"How come you're not freaked out by this?"

"Because even to my brain it makes sense. Strigoi have outnumbered us 10 to 1for centuries. There's no way that that we could have managed to keep everything a secret for so long without help from the very people we were hiding from. They don't want our world exposed any more than we do, so they look at us as the safer choice, Eddie. The lesser of two evils." Laughing softly to herself, Rose shook her head in self-deprecation. "Should of thought of it sooner, actually."

Finding me over his shoulder, I nodded to confirm because I couldn't have explained it better. Rose understood it perfectly. Leaning heavily against the Sycamore, Eddie rubbed at his temples. He was paler than before and suddenly looked very tired.

"Are you all right, Eddie?"

"I'm fine, Guardian Belikov. Shock, I think."

"You're not fine," Rose grumbled. "And it's got nothing to do with shock. I told you the walk to the front gate was too much. You haven't fully recovered yet." Turning the palm of her hand from a pat to a comforting squeeze, her concern was obvious.

Looking sheepish, Eddie grimaced. "I know. I just couldn't sit around anymore doing nothing. I feel so useless."

"You're not useless, Eddie. No one thinks that, but you do look very tired. You shouldn't push yourself by staying out in the cold. They've almost finished anyway." Nodding towards the Alchemists, the three stood over the last of the Strigoi as it fizzled away into nothingness.

Joined seconds later by Gregor, he had a quiet word with them, but the trio shook their heads quickly whilst keeping a watchful eye as the guardians on the perimeter approached them. Their job was complete; they weren't going to stay any longer then they needed to. Catching my eye, Emil waved us over as he started for the group with the other novices, but stopped as Gregor scowled warningly and subtly shook his head.

Knowing why, and wise enough not to argue, Emil veered instead towards the thick of the forest and took the seniors with him. Following after at a slower pace for Eddie, he and Rose talked quietly between themselves with the occasional question being asked of me. Joined by Dean, who had lagged behind to join the conversation, his opinion was far louder as he argued with the pair.

"You're barking, Hathaway. They can't be human. Humans don't know anything about Moroi, or Strigoi, or us. They have to be dhampir."

"I'm not barking, Barnes." Glaring, Rose kept her arm threaded loosely through Eddie's as they walked but Dean got the message and backed away a little. "I know the difference between us and them, and they are not dhampir. Didn't Guardian Dalca tell you that?"

"No, he said we would learn more about them later, but nothing about them being human. You have to be wrong."

"I'm not."

"Guardian Belikov?" Casting an exasperated look at me, Dean searched for corroboration whilst Rose scoffed and shook her head in irritation that he wouldn't believe her. She shouldn't have expected him to accept it so readily. What she knew of the world outside of the academies, very few of the others did.

"Rose is right, Dean. They are human."

Still disbelieving, he continued to argue as the forest began to thin and the dorms could be seen in the distance. Annoying not only Rose with his stubbornness, but Eddie as well, the quiet disagreement soon grew heated, but instead of jumping in as I had expected, Rose seemed to deliberately stoke the argument so that as she slowed down and dropped behind, the pair didn't notice and kept walking.

Sidestepping a felled yew, she wove between the trees to the right and deeper into shadow. Following her through those same shadows a few moments later, I kept a watchful eye on the others, but they had already disappeared from sight by the time I had reached her side.

Reaching for my hand, her slender fingers weaved through my own; squeezing tightly. I could feel the tension in that simple gesture. Anger was what I had expected to see, but all I could see was confusion, and it had nothing to do with the Alchemists. "What's going on, Dimitri? What happened this morning? Was it the cave? Finding the bodies? Did something else happen?"

"Nothing unexpected happened in the caves, Roza. Don't let that worry you." Squeezing back in reassurance, my lips coasted along her forehead and down to her eyebrows before ending in a light kiss on the tip of her nose.

"Good." Releasing a tight breath, Rose closed her eyes briefly before resting against me. "You freaked me out earlier, comrade." Feeling the tension disappear as her body relaxed against mine, I hugged her tightly to my chest, and murmured into her hair.

"But…"

Seeming to hear a wealth of hidden meaning in that one little word, Rose pulled slightly away with a puzzled frown. "But what?"

"There is something that we need to talk about." Stroking the backs of my fingers along the cool length of her cheek, the fingertips turned to rub along her jawbone. Angling towards them, Rose nodded easily before closing her eyes briefly, but when she opened them again, the absolute trust I could see in them made me doubt myself for a second.

What I was about to say would catch Rose completely off guard, and she wouldn't handle it well. How could I expect her to after everything that been said and done last night? She wouldn't know the reason for it, and even if she did, it would still anger her. That part of it was to be expected and was something I could easily deal with, but the hurt it would cause wasn't, and it made me hesitate.

There was no way to soften the blow…no way to make what I was about to do more palatable, and I very much wanted to do that, but I couldn't see a way avoid it when I had to remain focused on the larger picture. Janine had been right about one thing as she cruelly yanked me from my euphoria. Nothing right now, especially in light of what had just happened, was more important than making sure that Rose graduated.

So doubt or not, this had to be said, even if the pain it created was mine as well.

"Do you remember what we talked about in the forest? Before we left for the caves?"

"Ahh…yeah. We talked about the wards being broken by those idiot Royals, the reading you had from Rhonda, us, your decision to ask to be reassigned…wait," Rose cupped my face, tipping it downwards. She had known how difficult it had been for me and I could see the worry. "Have you changed your mind about that?"

"No. No. I haven't changed my mind. I still think it's the best way, the only way we can do our duty and still be together...and that's the part that I wanted to talk to you about."

"Duty?"

"No, Rose. Being together."

Brow crinkling in confusion, the hands that had been cradling my jaw slide slowly down to rest on my shoulders, her thumbs stroking lightly over my neck. "I thought we had talked about this before? We're together; we just have to be careful. What part of that conversation do you want to talk about now?"

"The part where we stay away from each other until after you graduate."

Scowling suddenly, Rose dropped her hands to fold her arms over her chest in a movement that was part defensive, and wholly angry. "We already decided not to do that, remember? The cabin last night…you said that after everything we had already survived, that staying away from each other wasn't going to be possible, so why are we talking about this now?"

"Because you don't seem to realise how dangerous this is for you, and it's something we need to seriously discuss."

"How is it dangerous if we're careful? And why is it suddenly so important now when last night you couldn't keep your hands off me? What the hell is going on with you?!" Expression changing suddenly, her cheeks began to flush angrily whilst her eyes narrowed and her mind came to the only conclusion it could.

"Janine." The word was almost spat. "What did she say to you?"

For a moment, I was very tempted to repeat every word said between Janine and I. There was a part of me, a very large, very spiteful part that wanted to blame her mother for all of this, to villainise her for the role she had played, but I couldn't do it. The relationship between the two was already so strained that I didn't want to be responsible for completely ripping it apart and that was a kindness in itself that Janine Hathaway didn't deserve.

"This has nothing to do with your mother, Rose."

"That's crap!" She exploded, her entire frame seeming to vibrate with fury at the emotionless distance she could hear in my voice, see in my posture. She had no idea what it was costing me to control every nuance of emotion…to keep myself from reaching out to her, wrap her in my arms and never let her go. Did she think I wanted it to be this way? Did she think it would any easier to stay away from her than she thought it would be to say away from me?

"You were talking at the gate," Rose raged on. "I saw you. It can't be a co-incidence that you two decide to have a chat and suddenly you've changed your mind about every decision we've made."

"It's not every decision; only one. You're over-reacting, and you know it. You need to calm down. After graduation, we can have everything we want, everything we've discussed, but before then…there's too much risk involved, Rose." Reaching out, my hands rested lightly on her shoulders and gently manipulated the bunched muscles, ordering myself to keep the touch light.

Barely stopping herself from shrugging out beneath my hands, Rose ignored my advice and spoke very slowly through compressed lips. "If you won't tell me what she said, then that's fine. I'll just go and ask her myself. Only it won't be politely, and it won't be quietly, and then we'll all have a lot more to worry about."

Too angry to see reason, if Rose confronted her mother now, when she was more than likely surrounded by people who knew nothing about us, it could be disastrous, and so I had no choice but to tell her a little of what had been said between us. "She reminded me that there isn't anything more important than getting you through trials and onto graduation, and she's right. Being involved right now is a distraction."

"She doesn't know about us, so how can she have any opinion on it!"

"She knows enough."

"She knows nothing!" Raking her hands through her hair, Rose swung away. Breathing deeply and making an effort to calm herself when she realised that anger wasn't getting her anywhere, Rose instead tried to reason as she walked back to me and rested the flat of her palms on my chest. "Listen to me. Janine is manipulating you. She's playing on your conscious to get what she wants, but this is not what you want or what I want."

"It's not about what either of us want's, Rose. It's about doing the right thing. It's about what's best for you."

"You are what's best for me. She doesn't know that, but you do."

"She might not, but she's still your mother and despite what you think, she does love you. That's not something I can ignore."

"You were fine with ignoring it before."

"I wasn't thinking about it before and I should have been."

"So that's it?!" Dropping her hands and pulling away, Rose scoffed angrily. "You're going to let someone who barely knows me inside your head to mess up everything? This is a woman who I have seen more in the last six months of my life than in the seventeen years before it, and you think listening to her is a good idea?! "

"It's for the best, Rose." I repeated, hoping to convince not only her, but myself as well.

"Arghhhhh!" Frustration mounting, Rose glared. "You keep saying that, but it's not for the best. What do you think this will do to me, Dimitri? To us? You keep saying that us being together will be a distraction, but being apart will be worse! I'm not a child, and I'm tired of all of you treating me like I am. I know what I'm capable of handling."

"I don't doubt that you can handle yourself, and we won't be apart; we just can't be together. It's only for a little while." My voice was calm and certain as I said this, but as the words were spoken, I felt them settle into the pit of my stomach like something that was indigestible.

"Yeah, you keep saying that to, but what happens after I graduate, and people still aren't happy about us? What happens when the Moroi or the Council questions our relationship? Are you going to let them come between us then, like you've just done now?"

"There's nothing between us, Rose."

"Oh, yes there is, and it's not just Janine Hathaway." Sighing heavily, Rose shook her head unhappily as the anger and frustration seemed to drain away, leaving her defeated in a way I had never seen before. "If you can't take a stand for our relationship now, Dimitri, against someone who doesn't even know for sure if we actually have one, then how are we going to survive when the whole of our world knows?"

Unable to answer right away against the tight restriction in my throat, the hurt I could see made the hands clenched at my sides shake. It wasn't just pain that I could see, but betrayal. It was almost more than I could handle to see, but nothing in comparison to what I would see if this affected her future.

"I'm sorry, but my mind is made up."

"Yeah," Scoffing quietly to herself, she sniffed and chocked out a humourless laugh. "And that's the problem, isn't it? You've made it without even asking me what I want. What I think, so really, what is the point in continuing our relationship now, or even later, when it's one-sided, comrade?"

"Roza…"

"Don't Roza me!" Glaring, Rose jerked away from my reaching hand as her anger rebounded, all but blind to the torment that I couldn't help from showing on my face. Her eyes were bright with fury, but also with the glistening of frustrated tears she refused to let fall.

Hating myself for causing them, it still wasn't enough to change the decision I had made and it must have shown. Nodding just once, Rose said nothing more as she spun on her heel and weaved quickly through the trees, disappearing into the forest.

"I'm sorry." Murmuring in the quiet of the forest, the faint echo was the only answer I got. Swearing viciously in Russian, I exhaled raggedly, closing my eyes as I pinched the bridge of my nose between thumb and forefinger and tried to control the panic twisting at my stomach.

Rationally I knew that Rose wasn't serious about ending things. It was her heart talking, not her head, but she was so angry that it would take her a long time to see that…to forgive me. Admittedly, I could have handled this better, but I just didn't know of any way to do that. I couldn't have spared her the anger, and I couldn't have spared her the pain.

Janine had seen to that.

Rubbing a wary hand over my chest, the ache around the flesh of my heart didn't just feel like loss, but an accusation, and as I followed at a slower pace along the same path that Rose had just used to leave me, I couldn't help but wonder if it knew something that my head didn't.

A/n: I LOVE how passionate the reviews for Ch. 3 were, and how involved you all are. Anytime I get reactions like that, I know that I'm heading in the right direction. Even if that direction isn't where any of you think I should be going, but stick with me. There is method to my madness, I promise.