“You’re saying a group of privately retained guardians came in and kidnapped her?” The tone in Kirova’s voice implied I was playing some kind of joke.
“Yes,” I replied through gritted teeth. “They . . .”
Slowly, carefully, I slipped my mental restraint and flew into Lissa’s body. I sat in a car, an expensive car with tinted windows to keep out most of the light. It might be “night” here, but it was full day for the rest of the world. One of the guardians from the chapel drove; another sat beside him in the front—one I recognized. Spiridon. In the back, Lissa sat with tied hands, another guardian beside her, and on the other side—
“They work for Victor Dashkov,” I gasped out, focusing back on Kirova and the others. “They’re his.”
“Prince Victor Dashkov?” asked one of the guardians with a snort. Like there was any other freaking Victor Dashkov.
“Please,” I moaned, hands clutching my head. “Do something. They’re getting so far away. They’re on . . .” A brief image, seen outside the car window, flared in my vision. “Eighty-three. Headed south.”
“Eighty-three already? How long ago did they leave? Why didn’t you come sooner?”
My eyes turned anxiously to Dimitri.
“A compulsion spell,” he said slowly. “A compulsion spell put into a necklace he gave her. It made her attack me.”
“No one can use that kind of compulsion,” exclaimed Kirova. “No one’s done that in ages.”
“Well, someone did. By the time I’d restrained her and taken the necklace, a lot of time had passed,” Dimitri continued, face perfectly controlled. No one questioned the story.
Finally, finally, the group moved into action. No one wanted to bring me, but Dimitri insisted when he realized I could lead them to her. Three details of guardians set out in sinister black SUVs. I rode in the first one, sitting in the passenger seat while Dimitri drove. Minutes passed. The only times we spoke was when I gave a report.
“They’re still on Eighty-three . . . but their turn is coming. They aren’t speeding. They don’t want to get pulled over.”
He nodded, not looking at me. He most definitely was speeding.
Giving him a sidelong glance, I replayed tonight’s earlier events. In my mind’s eye, I could see it all again, the way he’d looked at me and kissed me.
But what had it been? An illusion? A trick? On the way to the car, he’d told me there really had been a compulsion spell in the necklace, a lust one. I had never heard of such a thing, but when I’d asked for more information, he just said it was a type of magic earth users once practiced but never did anymore.
“They’re turning,” I said suddenly. “I can’t see the road name, but I’ll know when we’re close.”
Dimitri grunted in acknowledgment, and I sank further into my seat.
What had it all meant? Had it meant anything to him? It had definitely meant a lot to me.
“There,” I said about twenty minutes later, indicating the rough road Victor’s car had turned off on. It was unpaved gravel, and the SUV gave us an edge over his luxury car.
We drove on in silence, the only sound coming from the crunching of the gravel under the tires. Dust kicked up outside the windows, swirling around us.
“They’re turning again.”
Farther and farther off the main routes they went, and we followed the whole time, led by my instructions. Finally, I felt Victor’s car come to a stop.
“They’re outside a small cabin,” I said. “They’re taking her—”
“Why are you doing this? What’s going on?”
Lissa. Cringing and scared. Her feelings had pulled me into her.
“Come, child,” said Victor, moving into the cabin, unsteady on his cane. One of his guardians held the door open. Another pushed Lissa along and settled her into a chair near a small table inside. It was cold in here, especially in the pink dress. Victor sat across from her. When she started to get up, a guardian gave her a warning look. “Do you think I’d seriously hurt you?”
“What did you do to Christian?” she cried, ignoring the question. “Is he dead?
“The Ozera boy? I didn’t mean for that to happen. We didn’t expect him to be there. We’d hoped to catch you alone, to convince others you’d run away again. We’d made sure rumors already circulated about that.”
We? I recalled how the stories had resurfaced this week . . . from Natalie.
“Now?” He sighed, spreading his hands wide in a helpless gesture. “I don’t know. I doubt anyone will connect it to us, even if they don’t believe you ran away. Rose is the biggest liability. We’d intended to . . . dispatch her, letting others think she’d run away as well. The spectacle she created at your dance made that impossible, but I had another plan in place to make sure she stays occupied for some time . . . probably until tomorrow. We will have to contend with her later.”
He hadn’t counted on Dimitri figuring out the spell. He’d figured we’d be too busy getting it on all night.
“Why?” asked Lissa. “Why are you doing all this?”
His green eyes widened, reminding her of her father’s. They might be distant relatives, but that jade-green color ran in both the Dragomirs and the Dashkovs. “I’m surprised you even have to ask, my dear. I need you. I need you to heal me.”
TWENTY-TWO
“HEAL YOU?”
Heal him? My thoughts echoed hers.
“You’re the only way,” he said patiently. “The only way to cure this disease. I’ve been watching you for years, waiting until I was certain.”
Lissa shook her head. “I can’t . . . no. I can’t do anything like that.”
“Your healing powers are incredible. No one has any idea just how powerful.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come now, Vasilisa. I know about the raven—Natalie saw you do it. She’d been following you. And I know how you healed Rose.”
She realized the pointlessness of denying it. “That . . . was different. Rose wasn’t that hurt. But you . . . I can’t do anything about Sandovsky’s Syndrome.”
“Not that hurt?” he laughed. “I’m not talking about her ankle—which was still impressive. I’m talking about the car accident. Because you’re right, you know. Rose didn’t get ‘that hurt.’ She died.”
He let the words sink in.
“That’s . . . no. She lived,” Lissa finally managed.
“No. Well, yes, she did. But I read all the reports. There was no way she should have survived—especially with so many injuries. You healed her. You brought her back.” He sighed, half wistful and half weary. “I’d suspected you could do this for so long, and I tried so hard to repeat it . . . to see how much you could control. . . .”
Lissa caught on and gasped. “The animals. It was you.”
“With Natalie’s help.”
“Why would you do that? How could you?”
“Because I had to know. I have only a few more weeks to live, Vasilisa. If you can truly bring back the dead, then you can cure Sandovsky’s. I had to know before I took you away that you could heal at will and not just in moments of panic.”
“Why take me at all?” A spark of anger flared up in her. “You’re my near-uncle. If you wanted me to do this—if you really think I can...” Her voice and feelings showed me she didn’t really entirely believe she could heal him. “Then why kidnap me? Why didn’t you just ask?”
“Because it’s not a onetime affair. It took a long time to figure out what you are, but I managed to acquire some of the old histories . . . scrolls kept out of Moroi museums. When I read about how wielding spirit works—”
“Wielding what?”
“Spirit. It’s what you’ve specialized in.”
“I haven’t specialized in anything! You’re crazy.”
“Where else do you think these powers of yours have come from? Spirit is another element, one few people have any more.”
Lissa’s mind was still reelin
g from the kidnapping and the possible truth that she’d brought me back from the dead. “That doesn’t make any sense. Even if it wasn’t common, I still would have heard of another element! Or of someone having it.”
“No one knows about spirit anymore. It’s been forgotten. When people do specialize in it, nobody realizes it. They think the person simply hasn’t specialized at all.”
“Look, if you’re just trying to make me feel—” She abruptly cut herself off. She was angry and afraid, but behind those emotions, her higher reasoning had been processing what he’d said about spirit users and specializing. It now caught up with her. “Oh my God. Vladimir and Ms. Karp.”
He gave her a knowing look. “You’ve known about this all along.”
“No! I swear. It’s just something Rose was looking into. . . . She said they were like me. . . .” Lissa was starting to change from a little scared to all scared. The news was too shocking.
“They are like you. The books even say Vladimir was ‘full of spirit.’” Victor seemed to find that funny. Seeing that smile made me want to slap him.
“I thought . . .” Lissa still wanted him to be wrong. The idea of not specializing was safer than specializing in some freakish element. “I thought that meant, like, the Holy Spirit.”
“So does everyone else, but no. It’s something else entirely. An element that’s within all of us. A master element that can give you indirect control over the others.” Apparently my theory about her specializing in all the elements wasn’t so far off.
She worked hard to get a grip on this news and her own self-control. “That doesn’t answer my question. It doesn’t matter if I have this spirit thing or whatever. You didn’t have to kidnap me.”
“Spirit, as you’ve seen, can heal physical injuries. Unfortunately, it’s only good on acute injuries. Onetime things. Rose’s ankle. The accident wounds. For something chronic—say, a genetic disease like Sandovsky’s—continual healings are required. Otherwise it will keep coming back. That’s what would happen to me. I need you, Vasilisa. I need you to help me fight this and keep it away. So I can live.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you took me,” she argued. “I would have helped you if you’d asked.”
“They never would have let you do it. The school. The council. Once they got over the shock of finding a spirit user, they’d get hung up on ethics. After all, how does one choose who gets to be healed? They’d say it wasn’t fair. That it was like playing God. Or else they’d worry about the toll it’d take on you.”
She flinched, knowing exactly what toll he referred to.
Seeing her expression, he nodded. “Yes. I won’t lie to you. It will be hard. It will exhaust you—mentally and physically. But I must do it. I am sorry. You’ll be provided with feeders and other entertainments for your services.”
She leapt from the chair. Ben immediately stepped forward and pushed her back into it. “And then what? Are you going to just make me a prisoner here? Your own private nurse?”
He made that annoying open-palmed gesture again. “I’m sorry. I have no choice.”
White-hot anger blasted away the fear inside of her. She spoke in a low voice. “Yes. You don’t have the choice, because this is me we’re talking about.”
“It’s better for you this way. You know how the others turned out. How Vladimir spent the last of his days stark, raving mad. How Sonya Karp had to be taken away. The trauma you’ve experienced since the accident comes from more than just your family’s loss. It’s from using spirit. The accident woke the spirit in you; your fear over seeing Rose dead made it burst out, allowing you to heal her. It forged your bond. And once it’s out, you can’t put it back. It’s a powerful element—but it’s also dangerous. Earth users get their power from the earth, air users from the air. But spirit? Where do you think that comes from?”
She glared.
“It comes from you, from your own essence. To heal another, you must give part of yourself. The more you do that, the more it will destroy you over time. You must be noticing that already. I’ve seen how much certain things upset you, how fragile you are.”
“I’m not fragile,” snapped Lissa. “And I’m not going to go crazy. I’m going to stop using spirit before things get worse.”
He smiled. “Stop using it? You might as well stop breathing. Spirit has its own agenda. . . . You’ll always have the urge to help and heal. It’s part of you. You resisted the animals, but you didn’t think twice about helping Rose. You can’t even help compulsion—which spirit also gives you special strength in. And that’s how it will always be. You can’t avoid spirit. Better to stay here, in isolation, away from further sources of stress. You’d either have become increasingly unstable at the Academy, or they would have put you on some pill that would have made you feel better but stunted your power.”
A calm core of confidence settled inside her, one very different from what I’d observed over the last couple of years. “I love you, Uncle Victor, but I’m the one who has to deal with that and decide what to do. Not you. You’re making me give up my life for yours. That’s not fair.”
“It’s a matter of which life means more. I love you too. Very much. But the Moroi are falling apart. Our numbers are dropping as we let the Strigoi prey upon us. We used to actively seek them out. Now Tatiana and the other leaders hide away. They keep you and your peers isolated. In the old days, you were trained to fight alongside your guardians! You were taught to use magic as a weapon. Not any longer. We wait. We are victims .” As he stared off, both Lissa and I could see how caught up in his passion he was. “I would have changed that if I were king. I would have brought about a revolution the likes of which neither Moroi nor Strigoi have ever seen. I should have been Tatiana’s heir. She was ready to name me before they discovered the disease, and then she would not. If I were cured . . . if I were cured, I could take my rightful place. . . .”
His words triggered something inside of Lissa, a sudden consideration for the state of the Moroi. She’d never contemplated what he’d said, about how different it might be if Moroi and their guardians fought side by side to rid the world of the Strigoi and their evil. It reminded her of Christian and what he’d said about using magic as a weapon too. But even if she did appreciate Victor’s convictions, neither of us thought it was worth what he wanted her to do.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry for you. But please don’t make me do this.”
“I have to.”
She looked him straight in the eye. “I won’t do it.”
He inclined his head, and someone stepped forward from the corner. Another Moroi. No one I knew. Walking around behind Lissa, he untied her hands.
“This is Kenneth.” Victor held his hands out toward her free ones. “Please, Vasilisa. Take my hands. Send the magic through me just as you did with Rose.”
She shook her head. “No.”
His voice was less kindly when he spoke again. “Please. One way or another, you will heal me. I’d rather it be on your terms, not ours.”
She shook her head again. He made a slight gesture toward Kenneth.
And that’s when the pain started.
Lissa screamed. I screamed.
In the SUV, Dimitri’s grip on the wheel jerked in surprise, making us veer. Casting me an alarmed look, he started to pull over.
“No, no! Keep going!” I pressed my palms to my temples. “We have to get there!”
From behind my seat, Alberta reached forward and rested a hand on my shoulder. “Rose, what’s happening?”
I blinked back tears. “They’re torturing her . . . with air. This guy . . . Kenneth . . . he’s making it press against her . . . into her head. The pressure’s insane. It feels like my—her—skull’s gonna explode.” I started sobbing.
Dimitri looked at me out of the corner of his eye and pressed the gas pedal down harder.
Kenneth didn’t stop with just the physical force of air. He also used it to affect her breathing. So
metimes he’d smother her with it; other times he’d take it all away and leave her gasping. After enduring all that firsthand—and it was bad enough secondhand—I felt pretty confident I would have done anything they wanted.
And finally, she did.
Hurting and bleary-eyed, Lissa took Victor’s hands. I’d never been in her head when she worked magic and didn’t know what to expect. At first, I felt nothing. Just a sense of concentration. Then . . . it was like . . . I don’t even know how to describe it. Color and light and music and life and joy and love . . . so many wonderful things, all the lovely things that make up the world and make it worth living in.
Lissa summoned up all of those things, as many as she could, and sent them into Victor. The magic flowed through both of us, brilliant and sweet. It was alive. It was her life. And as wonderful as it all felt, she was growing weaker and weaker. But as all of those elements—bound by the mysterious spirit element—flowed into Victor, he grew stronger and stronger.
The change was startling. His skin smoothed, no longer wrinkled and pocked. The gray, thinning hair filled out, turning dark and lustrous once more. The green eyes—still jade-like—sparkled again, turning alert and lively.
He’d become the Victor she remembered from her childhood.
Exhausted, Lissa passed out.
In the SUV, I tried to relate what was happening. Dimitri’s face grew darker and darker, and he spat out a string of Russian swear words he still hadn’t taught me the meanings of.
When we were a quarter mile from the cabin, Alberta made a call on her cell phone, and our whole convoy pulled over. All of the guardians—more than a dozen—got out and stood huddled, planning strategy. Someone went ahead to scout and returned with a report on the number of people inside and outside of the cabin. When the group seemed ready to disperse, I started to get out of the car. Dimitri stopped me.
“No, Roza. You stay here.”
“The hell with that. I have to go help her.”
Vampire Academy: The Complete Collection: 1/6 Page 23
