Vampire Academy: The Complete Collection (Vampire Academy, #1-6)

by Richelle Mead

"Do you love him?"

They would fade. They had to fade, just like his had. He was the past. Adrian was my future.

"Things have been changing, that's all. It's making me reconsider so much. Ever since Donovan . . . and then Sonya . . . it's strange. I thought it all changed the night Lissa saved me. But it didn't. There's been so much more, more to the healing than I realized." He started to slip into pensive mode but caught himself. "Every day I figure out something new. Some new emotion I'd forgotten to feel. Some revelation I totally missed. Some beauty I didn't see."

"Because sometimes, a person can get so caught up in the details that they miss the whole. It's not just the dress or the hair. It's you. You're beautiful. So beautiful, it hurts me."

"Guardians," Dimitri said. "There are guardians raiding the house."

Just before we entered, I yelled back to Sydney, "Get Jill to Court!"

Thanks to my right ankle, however, I had to toss him the keys. The universe had a sick sense of humor.

"The Mastranos will be questioned . . . extensively. Well, all of them will, really. They'll lock Sonya up for investigation, like me, and Sydney will be shipped back to the Alchemists." "And what will they do to her?" "I don't know. But I'm guessing her helping vampire fugitives won't go over well with her superiors."

"That kind of thing happens when you keep jumping off roofs," I said. Jokes were my old standby to hide discomfort. "You know, we never practiced that in our training."

There was a look of woe on his face that was almost comical. Raids, bullets, criminals . . . no problem. A missing duster? Crisis. "We'll get you another one," I said. "You know, once we find Jill, clear my name, and save the world."

"Rose," said Sonya. "Jill isn't with the guardians at all. Victor and Robert took her."

"What did you mean in the car . . . when I said I'd shared a dream with my boyfriend? You looked surprised."

"Auras tell a lot, Rose, and I'm very good at reading them. Much better than your friends probably are. A spirit dream wraps your own aura in gold, which is how I knew. Your personal aura is unique to you, though it fluctuates with your feelings and soul. When people are in love, it shows. Their auras shine. When you were dreaming, yours was bright. The colors were bright . . . but not what I expected from a boyfriend. Of course, not every relationship is the same. People are at different stages. I would have brushed it off, except . . ."

"Except, when you're with Dimitri, your aura's like the sun. So is his." She smiled when I simply stared in stunned silence. "You're surprised by this?"

Who was I trying to convince? Her or myself?

"He and I talked about that," she said, face serious again. "About the depression. I understand it. After being Strigoi . . . doing what we did . . . you don't feel worthy of life. There's just guilt and darkness and the crushing memories of that evil." She shuddered.

"Well, I didn't want to leave my house, my bed. I hated myself for what I'd done. I wished I'd been staked to death. Then Dimitri talked to me. . . . He said that guilt was inevitable. The fact that I can feel it proves I'm not Strigoi. But he told me I can't let that stop me from embracing life again. We've been given second chances, he and I. We can't throw them away. He also said it took him a while to realize it and that he didn't want me to make the same mistakes. He told me to embrace life and its beauty and the people I love before it was too late—even though it'd be difficult. Shaking that Strigoi past . . . it's like a weight, always pressing on me. He swore he wasn't going to let it control him anymore—which, believe me, sounds noble but is very hard to do—and that he wouldn't let his life be pointless. He'd already lost some things forever but refused to let go of the rest."

"Well, you've got to figure it out. I don't believe in soul mates, not exactly. I think it's ridiculous to think there's only one person out there for us. What if your ‘soul mate' lives in Zimbabwe? What if he dies young? I also think ‘two souls becoming one' is ridiculous. You need to hold onto yourself. But I do believe in souls being in sync, souls that mirror each other. I see that synchronicity in auras. I can see love too. And I see all of that in his aura and in yours. Only you can choose what to do with that information—if you even believe it."

Dimitri's is spiked with bits of darkness, leftover from his trauma. That darkness fades a little each day. You carry darkness too—but it's not fading."

"Yes. I don't know much about bonds, but what you're doing—even if it's helping her—is very dangerous. Spirit tears us apart, no question, but in some ways . . . I think we spirit users are built for it a little better. Not that it's always obvious," she added wryly. "But you? No. And if you take too much, I don't know what'll happen. I'm afraid of it building and building. I'm afraid it's just going to take one spark—one catalyst—to make it explode inside you."

"I met Rose in Siberia." "Yes, yes," said Hans. "But how did you end up helping her escape here?" "I had nothing to do with her escaping this place!" said Sydney. It was a half-truth, I supposed. "She contacted me a few days ago and asked for help to get to a house near Detroit. She claimed she was innocent and that this would help prove it."

"She's my—" Sydney bit her lip on what I suspected was "friend." She turned her professional mode back on. "There was something believable about her, and I figured it'd be a waste of resources if the Alchemists had been helping you hunt the wrong murderer. If I decided she was guilty, I could always turn her in. And I thought . . . I thought if I was the one who solved this, I'd get the credit and a promotion."

"You know him. The guy in the picture." Ian stared at Lissa, a bit of wonder and wariness on his face. He undoubtedly bore that same standoffish attitude toward vampires, but her words had caught him off guard. And, even if she was an evil creature of the night, she was a very pretty one.

"They have nothing to hold him on. The worst he'll get is a mark on his record." Lissa was relieved by Abe's easy assurance, but I still felt guilty. Thanks to me, Eddie's record was already marred. His sterling reputation was declining on a daily basis.

Again, Lissa was ushered into the room alone. Her heart began to pound when she saw the same old woman. Were more terrible images to come? Lissa couldn't see the chalice, but that was no guarantee of safety. There was no extra chair, so Lissa simply stood in front of the old woman.

"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 Lissa.

"Here it is then: What must a queen possess in order to truly rule her people?"

"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."

Movement in my reality instantly snapped me out of her head. I half expected Sonya to come bursting into our tent, but no, that wasn't what had caught my attention. It was a much smaller motion . . . and something infinitely more powerful. Dimitri was in my arms.

I hadn't even realized that piece was missing. I'd blocked it all out until Sonya's words had shaken my fragile new acceptance of life.

"Wh-what's wrong?" I asked. He glanced back at me. "Pick. There are lots of choices." I ran a finger along my lips. So close. So, so close. "I know . . . I know things have changed. I know you were wrong. I know you can feel love again." His mask was back up as he formulated his answer. "This isn't about love."

"It's about doing the right thing," he said quietly.

We'd had to eventually tell her why Victor was wanted and that he'd been the one Sonya had sensed was stalking Lissa back at St. Vladimir's.

"I knew you'd say that. Actually, it was a toss-up between that and ‘I don't know what you're talking about.'"

"What I said . . . it's true, isn't it? You can love, can't you? I realize now that right after the transformation, you really didn't think you could. And you probably couldn't. But things have changed. You're getting yourself back." Dimitri gave me a sidelong look. "Yes. Things have changed . . . and some haven't."

"Rose, I've done a lot of bad things, most of which I can never fix or find redemption for. My only choice now, if I want to reclaim my life, is to go forward, stopping evil and doing what's right. And what is not right is taking a woman from another man, a man I like and respect. I'll steal cars. I'll break into houses. But there are lines I will not cross, no matter what I—"

"All that brawn for nothing," gasped out Victor, sweat pouring off his face. "It does you no good in the end. Real power is in the mind. In cunning. In controlling Jillian, I control Vasilisa. With Vasilisa, I control the Dragomirs, and from there—the Moroi. That's power. That's strength."

And as I stared at Victor, I felt what Sonya had warned about: the catalyst. The spark that would ignite the darkness I'd gathered and gathered from Lissa. In looking at him, I saw all the evils of my life in one man. Was that entirely accurate? No, not exactly. But he had hurt my best friend—nearly killed her. He'd toyed with Dimitri and me, complicating what was already a mess of a relationship. He was now trying to control others. When would it end? When would his evil stop? Red and black tinged my vision. I heard a voice call my name—Sonya's, I think. But in that moment, there was nothing else in the world but Victor and my hate for him.

"I have to stop him," I said, wriggling from her grasp. "He has to pay." I reached for him again. Sonya gave up on physical restraint, appealing to words instead. "Rose, he has! He's dead. Can't you see that? Dead. Victor's dead!"

My grip slackened as I stared at him and truly understood what she had said. Understood what I had done.

"Oh God. Oh God. All this time, I denied it, but it's true: I am a murderer."

"This is it, isn't it?" I asked Sonya. "The flood . . . the flood you warned me about. Lissa escaped spirit, but it finally defeated me . . . just like Anna . . . just like the dream . . . oh God. This is the dream, isn't it? But I won't wake up . . ."

I laughed again, that laugh that seemed unhinged and hysterical even to me. "He's unconscious. Of course. Of course. You can do that. You can do the right thing. Not me." I looked down at Victor. "‘An animal,' he said. He was right. No higher reasoning . . ." I wrapped my arms around myself, my fingernails digging into my skin so hard they drew blood. Physical pain to make the mental pain go away. Wasn't that what Lissa had always said?

Lissa had Ambrose's letter too, which had subtly threatened Tatiana. The writer had opposed the age law for being soft, disapproved of Tatiana's endorsement of spirit, and resented the secret training sessions. The letter might have been perfectly polite, but whoever penned it had had a serious grudge against the queen. That supported the political motive theories.

it kept bugging me that he needed me to be there in person to enforce his good behavior. It reminded me of when he said I was his strength.

"Let me talk to her alone," Dimitri murmured to Sonya. "I can handle it." "Be careful," Sonya warned. "She's fragile." "You guys, I'm right here!" I exclaimed.

really am the murderer everyone says I am. It doesn't matter that it was Victor. I killed him in cold blood."

Honor had never really come up, but suddenly, it meant a lot to me. "There was no honor in what I did to him."

"I should have been stronger than it." There it was. The thought behind all my guilt, all these horrible emotions. "I should have been stronger than it. I was weak."

"I do. What I did . . ." I swallowed. "What I did was unforgivable." His eyes widened in shock. "That . . . that's crazy, Rose. You can't punish yourself for something you had no power over." "Yeah? Then why are you still—"