Vampire Academy: The Ultimate Guide (14 page)

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Authors: Michelle Rowen,Richelle Mead

Tags: #Social Issues, #Dating & Sex, #Emotions & Feelings, #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic, #Fiction, #Horror

BOOK: Vampire Academy: The Ultimate Guide
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It’s Strigoi. They’ve breached the wards.
Rose and Dimitri are attacked, but Dimitri’s able to stake the Strigoi. He sends Rose back to campus with a message for the other guardians:
buria
.
She doesn’t argue. She runs, scared to death that Dimitri’s going to get killed. She relays the message Dimitri gave her:
Buria.
Russian for “storm,” it’s a signal of a Strigoi attack. The guardians don’t hesitate.
Because of the field experience, Lissa’s dorm is mostly protected, but the same can’t be said for the elementary dorm, where Jill lives. The campus is under immediate lockdown. Rose is given a stake and told to watch over the kids.
She checks in on Lissa through the bond—she’s safe, at least, and with Eddie and Adrian. But where’s Christian? Even though she’s defying orders, she heads out to make sure he’s okay. When she finds him, she senses Strigoi nearby—she can sense them now too, just as she can ghosts.
Rose fights hard and stakes one. But another gets the upper hand and she’s certain she’ll die—but then he bursts into flames. Thank you, Christian!
Christian thinks that the two of them make a good team. They could fight the Strigoi together and help protect the school. It goes against everything she’s been taught about keeping Moroi safe, but it makes total sense. Together they kick Strigoi butt on the way back to the elementary campus. Total badasses!
One blond Strigoi seems to know her. He’s familiar with Lissa too. He’d love to be the one to take down the last Dragomir. He slips away before she manages to stake him—it’s one kill she’ll later have wished she’d made.
Rose is beyond relieved when Dimitri returns battered but not dead. They survived! But the bad news comes quickly. The Strigoi killed many in their attack, and they also carried some away. And one of those kidnapped is Eddie.
No . . . it’s not possible. Rose lost Mason; she can’t lose Eddie too.
The wards around the school are reinforced, and more guardians have been called in to help deal with the aftermath of the attack. One is Rose’s mother. Rose tries to get her plan across to Janine—and she does have a plan. In order to rescue the Moroi, they need to know where they are—and Rose thinks she knows how they can get that information.
She takes Dimitri with her to the school’s gates. Since the wards have been strengthened, Mason’s ghost is stuck outside now. Dimitri’s skeptical since he can’t see anything, but he’s willing to trust Rose’s instincts.
Outside the gates, Mason appears to Rose. Using a map, he helps pinpoint where the Strigoi have taken their victims—caves five miles away. Since it’s now daylight, the Strigoi are trapped, which means there’s still a chance to get to them and rescue the others.
It’s good enough information to launch a rescue mission.
Dimitri takes Rose for a walk to try to calm her down while they wait for everything to be organized. She’s certain he’s going to lecture her on how their being together was wrong and how it can’t happen again. But he most definitely doesn’t feel that way.
“Even before the Strigoi attack, as I watched all the problems you were struggling with, I realized how much you meant to me. It changed everything. I was worried about you—so worried. You have no idea. And it became useless to try to act like I could ever put any Moroi life above yours. It’s not going to happen, no matter how wrong others say it is. And so I decided that’s something I have to deal with. Once I made that decision . . . there was nothing to hold us back.” He hesitated, seeming to replay his words as he brushed my hair from my face. “Well, to hold me back. I’m speaking for myself. I don’t mean to act like I know exactly why you did it.”
“I did it because I love you, ” I said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And really, it was.
—page 398
 
 
He wants to be with her after graduation and will do anything to make that happen.
In the middle of the rescue mission and all this chaos, Rose has a glimmer of hope for the future. For a minute, she lets herself think it might all work out perfectly. Rose can have Dimitri
and
Lissa in her life. She doesn’t have to give up one or the other. It’s everything she wanted.
RESCUE AND LOSS
 
A large team of fifty guardians, novices, and Moroi travel to the caves. Dimitri and Janine are part of the first team to go inside.
It’s not long before sounds of fighting reach those waiting tensely outside. Some rescued Moroi and dhampirs emerge, but Dimitri’s team gets trapped!
Reinforcements have to go in to help. Rose is among them, and her ability to sense Strigoi proves extremely helpful. She fights with everything she’s got on her way to where Dimitri and the others are trapped behind a collapsed wall.
With Rose helping to fight off the Strigoi—which distracts them—those trapped, including Dimitri, are able to free themselves from their position. Together they head out of the caves. It’s a huge maze, with Strigoi hiding behind every corner. Overwhelmed and outnumbered, they decide to retreat and head back behind the wards since the sun is setting, which will mean the Strigoi can emerge from their dark, protective caves. But there’s good news for Rose: Eddie’s among those successfully rescued.
Just before they can get out, another group of Strigoi attack and Dimitri is taken by surprise. It’s an attack that will change everything.
It was the blond Strigoi. The one who had spoken to me in the battle.
He grabbed Dimitri and pulled him to the ground. They grappled, strength against strength, and then I saw those fangs sink into Dimitri’s neck. The red eyes flicked up and made contact with my own.
I heard another scream—this time it was my own.
—page 413
 
 
Rose is forced to flee the caves in the ensuing chaos. But the second she emerges, she’s desperate to go back to Dimitri, to save him, to be near him, to do anything but stand helpless while the man she loves more than anything in the world is only a few hundred feet away. Her mother tells her it’s too late—Dimitri’s dead.
AFTERMATH
 
It’s torture waiting for the chance to go back to check the caves. Rose’s relentless grief is enough to clue Lissa in to something she should have recognized a long time ago: Rose and Dimitri are in love.
When they finally head back to retrieve the dead, Dimitri’s body isn’t among them. That can only mean a couple of things, but none are good.
Rose crosses the wards once more so she can speak to Mason’s ghost. What she learns shatters her world. Dimitri is neither alive nor dead now.
He’s been turned into a Strigoi.
Rose’s heart and her world shatter.
Dimitri’s tarot card reading from Rhonda was that he “will lose what you value most.”
Rose thought it might be
her
. . . or it might be Dimitri’s
life
. . .
But it was his
soul
that he lost. He’s not dead, but he’s gone, replaced by a monster. It’s the last thing Dimitri ever would have wanted.
A week passes, and there have been no classes since the attack. The school is in deep mourning for those lost in the attack. After the memorial services, Rose seeks Adrian out—she needs to talk to him about something very important.
She needs money—a lot of it. She’s leaving the Academy. She has things she needs to do, and graduating isn’t one of them anymore. She isn’t willing to go into further detail about her plans than that.
When she flirts to get what she wants, Adrian’s hurt that she’d play on his feelings for her. It’s not fair. He knows that she’s in love with Dimitri, not him.
She presses for the money—she doesn’t want to talk about Dimitri; it hurts too much. Adrian decides that it might be good if Rose leaves. Maybe that’s the only way she’ll be able to get over Dimitri. Maybe if she’s away from Lissa’s aura, Rose can find a way to be happier . . . and stop seeing ghosts.
Fine. He’s willing to give her the money she needs—but with one condition. When she returns, she has to agree to give him a chance romantically. Looks like Rose was wrong about him. Adrian isn’t only interested in her body; he’s interested in
her
.
She agrees, although right now she’s only saying what it takes to get what she wants. After all she’s lost, the last thing she can even think about is dating somebody else.
POP QUIZ:
Shadow Kiss
 
1. Rose and Lissa weren’t invited—or even told—about whose upcoming trial?
2. Who is assigned to be Lissa’s guardian during the novices’ field experience?
3. Where is the trial taking place?
4. How does Queen Tatiana want Lissa to demonstrate her spirit magic?
5. Deeming Lissa’s relationship with Christian unacceptable, the queen wishes to arrange a marriage between the Dragomir princess and who?
6. Fill in the blank:
“You will lose what you value most, so ________ it while you can.”
7. How did St. Vladimir’s shadow-kissed guardian, Anna, die?
8. What is the name of the royal student secret society formed by Jesse and Ralf at St. Vlad’s?
9. What word does Dimitri give Rose to tell the guardians to warn of a Strigoi attack?
10. Fill in the blank: “
I set off, off to kill the man I _____.”
 
* For quiz answers, see p.299.
 
It’s Rose’s eighteenth birthday today, an important day—but one she doesn’t meet with celebration. Being officially an adult means that she has the legal right to drop out of St. Vladimir’s no matter what anyone else says. And that’s exactly what she does.
As she’s leaving through the Academy’s gates, Lissa catches up to her, desperately trying to convince her friend not to leave. She knows what Rose is planning to do now—Lissa was present in the van during the shopping trip when Rose and Dimitri made the promise to each other if either was ever turned into a Strigoi. Rose is leaving St. Vlad’s to find him . . . and kill him.
Even though it means leaving her best friend in the world, Rose tells her that this is something she has to do. She never wanted to have to choose between them, but it’s come down to this.
Mason appears briefly to her once more, before he finally is able to leave forever. He’s found his peace. Rose needs to do the same.
For the first time since his death, thinking about Mason no longer devastated me. I was sad and I really would miss him, but I knew he’d moved on to something good—something really good. I no longer felt guilty.
Turning away, I stared at the long road winding off ahead of me. I sighed. This trip might take a while.
“Then start walking, Rose,” I muttered to myself.
I set off, off to kill the man I loved.
—page 443
 
 
CHAPTER 4
 
Blood Promise
 
RICHELLE ON
BLOOD PROMISE
 
Blood Promise
stands out to me for a few different reasons. It was the first book to really deviate from the kids-in-school format and thrust Rose out into the real world. That certainly required a shift in my mindset while writing it, particularly since I also had to contend with an entirely foreign culture and language! A visit to Russia was out of the question for me, but the digital age we live in put all sorts of resources at my fingertips. I think one of my very favorite things that I found was a website that had virtual tours of the Trans-Siberian Railway cars. You could “walk” around the sleeping compartments and dining car and see all the features and décor. This was an amazing asset to have and really added a richness to the book. Still, I was concerned that some readers wouldn’t accept the change in story location and style, and my anxiety increased when we ended up accelerating this novel’s publication schedule. Amazingly, it all came together, and readers really enjoyed it. This book vies with
Shadow Kiss
as my favorite in the series.
 
First line:
I was being followed.
ROZA DOES RUSSIA
 
Rose has traveled across the world to Russia with one important but heartbreaking goal: to find and kill Dimitri. It was a promise they once made to each other if either was turned into a Strigoi, and she’s determined to hold true to it.

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