Chapter Text
“No one could handle all that magic, not without losing her mind."
Alex ran as fast as her feet could carry her to where her friend was lying on the ground, dropping to her knees next to her. She was vaguely aware of Jake following close behind her, but it was like her brain wouldn’t allow her to really focus on anyone but Cass. A quick glance told her that the dhampir was at least breathing , but that didn’t do anything to ease the panic she felt at seeing the blood matting Cass’s blonde hair.
Help her. Help her. Help her.
That voice felt like it was inside of her, thrumming underneath her skin like some kind of current, desperate to get out. It was as if her body was demanding that she do something. She’d felt that once before, on a warm May evening at St. Vladimir’s. She’d felt it underneath the fear, something demanding that she help. Save. Heal.
Then, she’d been able to grab onto it, use it like it was second nature. Now, it felt like it was just out of reach and she wanted to scream and pound her fists on the pavement like a child because she needed it .
“Alexandra, someone’s on their way—”
“Just let me help her,” Alex said, eyes never straying from Cass. She just had to dig a little deeper, that was all. She’d helped Cass before, she could help her again. She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to push past all the shit blocking her way.
Something golden and warm glittered ahead of her, like a beacon of light in the pitch black darkness. She was so close , all she had to do was grab onto it and not let it get away from her again. She watched as it crept along the edge of her mind, almost as if it were hiding away from her; it was like her body needed it, but her mind wouldn’t let her have it.
Finally, finally , she closed her fingers around it, warmth running through her body at the sensation of having it back in her grasp, this beautiful golden thing that had been out of reach for too long. Alex felt herself reaching for Cass, felt her hair beneath her fingertips, damp with blood. But beyond that, she could feel the warmth of this thing spreading out from her fingertips, could see in the back of her mind that the wound on Cass’s head was healing.
That thrumming beneath her skin suddenly ceased, the world around her almost eerily quiet. She slowly opened her eyes, finding that the blood that had once coated Cass’s blonde hair had disappeared. Relief flooded every nerve in her body, but only for a moment before the exhaustion set in, overwhelming her senses. Her vision started to spin and she fell back, right into Jake’s arms as if he’d been waiting there for her.
Alex heard people approaching, heard Jake instruct them to take Cass to the infirmary, though it all sounded a little fuzzy and faraway. Suddenly, it was as if the world shifted, Jake lifting her up into his arms, her head falling back on its own accord. In that moment, her vision cleared and the last thing she remembered seeing was dawn breaking through the blue-black sky above her…
Cass’s eyes flickered open before immediately being assaulted by the harsh fluorescents hanging above her. “Jesus,” she muttered, forcing herself into a sitting position, the papery sheets of the bed she was laying on crinkling beneath her fingers as she did so. There was a dull ache in her head, but a cursory brush of her fingers over the afflicted area didn’t reveal any bumps or come back covered in blood. Small wins.
“You’re awake.”
She looked to the open doorway of her room, finding Jake there, the guardian watching her carefully. “Awake and confused. Where’s Alex?” she asked, her skin prickling a bit the way it always did when the other girl was close by but still out of sight.
“She’s fine,” Jake said, and Cass narrowed her eyes.
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
He looked at her for a long moment before he sighed. She watched as he shut the door and stepped further into the room, his arms folded over his broad chest. “She’s with some feeders right now in a room down the hall. She’s been going through them like crazy all night trying to get her strength back.”
“I need to see her,” Cass started, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, but Jake was in front of her before she could even get up.
“You can see her later. For now, you and I need to talk about what happened.”
“You and me both, Wilson, because why the hell is Alex in the hospital? What did she do?” Cass asked, an edge of desperation clinging to her voice. She didn’t like this at all. It was like everyone around her knew something that she didn’t. She fucking hated being out of the loop.
“I think you know, Cassia,” he answered, his eyes searching her face. She started to argue that, no, she didn’t know what he was talking about, but he spoke again before she could. “How long have you and Alexandra been bound together?”
“What are you talking about—”
“She healed you tonight. I watched her do it. I saw Spirit users during my last mission, but I never saw any that could heal. Dream walking, aura reading, enhanced compulsion, sure. But healing? The only person I know who can heal is—”
“Queen Vasilisa Dragomir,” Cass said, her throat a little dry all of a sudden.
The thing about the Moroi was that they were all connected to the elements. Each Moroi could wield a small amount of each element, but there was always one that they were stronger in. One they specialized in. For the longest time, it was always one of the four: Earth, Fire, Water, and Air. It wasn’t until Queen Vasilisa that they became aware of another element: Spirit.
Cass knew about Spirit—knew that it existed—but she had chalked Alex’s never specializing up to her just not really trying . She’d seemingly never wanted anything to do with the magic aspect of being a Moroi, wanting to lean as heavily into her “normal girl” persona as she possibly could.
Spirit users had a lot of special abilities, some they still weren’t entirely aware of even today. While all Moroi could use compulsion, Spirit users could use it on a level that was almost unheard of, going so far as to be able to compel even other Moroi. Then, there were Spirit users who could appear in other people’s dreams, Spirit users who could read auras of those around them. And then, of course, there was the legend of Spirit users being able to turn Strigoi back into their old selves; they could turn them back into humans, into Moroi, into dhampirs…whatever they had been before.
Cass wasn’t really sure she believed that.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Cass said, her mind back-tracking to what he’d said mere moments ago. Bound, he’d called them. For some reason, the word made her a little queasy. “Queen Vasilisa was only bound to her guardian because she brought her back from the dead. Alex didn’t bring me back from the dead, Wilson. I mean hell, I think I would have remembered something like that.”
Jake sighed, rubbing a hand along the sharp edge of his stubbled jaw. One thing she’d noticed about him was how careful he was. Not just the way he worked, the way he guarded , but how he spoke. It was like he poured over each and every word before it left his lips.
“You two…it’s like you’re connected,” he finally said. “I saw it once, when I was hunting Strigoi in Russia. There was a couple there and they…they reminded me a lot of you both. It was like they could read each other’s thoughts, like they knew what the other needed before they themselves even knew. Bond or not, I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people more in tune with one another.” He was quiet for a beat. “Not until I started protecting Alexandra.”
“So what? You tell everyone and they study us like a couple of bugs? Fuck that,” Cass bit out, getting to her feet and shoving past him. “I don’t know what you think you saw tonight, but forget it. Maybe you should focus on finding out who the hell attacked me. Huh? Did you think of that?” she muttered as she shoved her shoes on, making her way to the door. She’d barely gotten her hand on the knob before he spoke again.
“Levi Green and Noah Zeklos are missing, Cassia. I think whoever attacked you is connected to them.”
Cass let the words sink in, trying not to think about how fucking scary it was that a dhampir—a guardian, at that—and another royal had disappeared from Court. “Well, we at least know it’s actually not Strigoi. Which somehow makes it fucking worse,” she muttered, turning to face him. “Someone inside of Court is doing this.”
Jake nodded, looking as solemn as she’d ever seen him. “That’s what we think.”
“So really, none of us are safe, then? That’s basically what I’m hearing, isn’t it?”
“That’s not entirely true. We just have to be more aware. More focused. I imagine the Queen will implement some sort of curfew—”
“And what the fuck does that do?” Cass said, that same anger she’d felt last night dealing with fucking Allegra of all people bubbling up in her stomach. “What-what if they come after Alex? Unless you’re fucking watching her twenty-four-seven which, I’m sorry, is nearly impossible, then she’s as vulnerable as anyone.”
“I’m good at what I do, Cassia. Same as you. They come first, always. That doesn’t change whether I’m in Court or outside of it,” Jake said, seemingly unfazed by her little temper tantrum. “I would die before I let anything happen to Alexandra. I need you to know that.”
The fiery fury she’d felt just a moment ago had dwindled into a small flame. She was still frustrated—how could she not be?—but she knew that Jake was right. She knew his history, knew that he was more than qualified to watch over Alex. And when he told her that he would die for Alex? She believed him. As much as it pained her to admit it, she believed him.
“I need to see her,” was all she said, and Jake nodded. The older dhampir moved towards the door, pulling it open for Cass before he guided her down the hallway.
Alex had only been a few doors down for her, though Cass would have figured it out from the feeder that had been wheeled out of the room, their blissed out expression giving Alex the fucking heebie jeebies. She’d never understood why anyone would volunteer to get their blood sucked out of their body, no matter how good a bite supposedly felt. And yet, people did. Regular humans answered the ads, disappeared for a few months to some discreet location, and then got compelled to forget it all. It was so goddamn weird.
She stopped in the doorway, finding Alex sitting up in bed, wiping at her full lips with a napkin one of the nurses had offered her. Cass watched as the Moroi’s blue eyes instantly brightened at the sight of her, and then she was at her side, the two of them hugging one another so tightly that Cass could barely breathe but she didn’t even care .
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Alex whispered, and Cass felt tears prickle her eyes. It was so strange, the feeling of having someone care for you so fiercely. Her own parents didn’t care what happened to her, and yet this girl she’d known for only a few years did .
When Cass finally drew back, her gaze flickered to the doorway where Jake stood, the same as he had in her room mere moments ago. But there was something about his expression that caught her off guard, such fierce relief that it had her wondering if when Jake said he’d die for Alexandra, it was because he was a guardian doing his job or because it was Alex .
She was leaning towards the latter.
He caught her gaze and seemed to understand what she was getting at, because he stepped out of the room and shut the door behind himself, leaving the two of them alone. “We need to talk, Alex,” Cass said, settling on the edge of her friend’s bed.
“I know,” Alex whispered, eyes flickering to her hands intertwined in her lap. Cass had never seen the other girl this nervous. Not even that day when they’d found out about Jasper Voda had Alex looked as anxious as she did now.
“Jake thinks that you and I have a bond. And not the fun, best friends kind of bond, but the kind that only comes about when…” Cass’s voice trailed off, unable to force the words past her lips. “This wasn’t the only time you healed me, was it Alex?”
The evening air was stuffy.
That was the first thing Alex noticed when she left her dorm hall. Priya Lazar had sent out a text not too long ago, telling all the royals about a party going on in Jasper Voda’s room. With end-of-year trials for the guardians quickly approaching, campus security was a bit more relaxed than it normally was. Especially since the big project for the soon-to-be guardians had recently finished, which she imagined was the reason for the celebration.
Every year, the senior class of dhampirs were tasked with protecting a Moroi student from “threats,” the guardians-in-training attached to their hips, with their faux charges every minute of every day. These threats were usually instructors posing as Strigoi, instigating random attacks to observe the responses of the dhampir students. It was great practice for the future guardians, a chance to see how they might handle an attack out in the real world. But as good of practice as it was, Alex hated it.
It was bad enough knowing that she would have to be on edge the next four years at college, but inside the safety of St. Vladimir’s? She hated feeling even an ounce of that anxiety, pretend or not.
At least her faux-guardian was one of the good ones. Skilled. Cassia was her name, though she’d learned that everyone called her Cass. She was cool, the type of person that Alex never would have sought out had they not been forced together, but still the kind of person she might have admired from a distance. She was effortlessly funny. Sharp. Whoever got her as a guardian would be in amazing hands.
She hadn’t seen much of her since the project had ended, only in passing in the lunchroom or in the hallways between classes. She always made an effort to say hi when she did see her, but they weren’t actively seeking each other’s company in their spare time. Granted, that probably had everything to do with the fact that they’d spent every waking moment together for two weeks—
Alex stopped dead in her tracks.
A scream pierced the air, shrill and so full of fear that it made her blood run cold; she whipped her head around, searching for the source of the noise, and another yell forced her eyes straight ahead. She watched in horror as a girl dangled from a windowsill, her fingers clasped around the stone edge, her body suspended at least four stories off of the ground. Her feet started moving before her brain could tell her otherwise, even though her brain started asking her just what the hell she thought she could do to save a girl about to fall from a window.
But she couldn’t.
And she didn’t.
It was like she watched the girl fall in slow motion, watched her arms scramble for something to hold onto that was simply nonexistent. And when she hit the hard ground…Alex knew for a fact she would never be able to forget that sound as it echoed through the air.
Even though she knew what she would find when she finally reached the girl, there was something inside of her that pushed her on—that told her she could do something to help her. It was a whisper, that voice, soft and gentle in her ear, but when she saw exactly who the girl was—when she saw the blonde hair damp with blood and the stillness of her chest and the features that had been ingrained in her minds from spending weeks attached at the hip—that voice turned into a scream, roaring in her ear.
Help her. Help her. Help her.
Alex dropped down next to Cass before she could think twice, laying her hands on her unmoving body because the thing inside of her demanded that she do it. She didn’t know what this thing was truly asking of her, what it thought she was capable of, but she still did what it told her to, nonetheless.
Something golden and warm spread through every part of her body, stretching across every nerve like the heat of the sun was inside of her, lighting her up from the inside out. It burnt brighter and brighter still, overwhelming her senses with the feel of it. The glow of it.
It was the most beautiful thing in the world, she’d thought, this feeling inside of her.
Then it was nothing at all as the darkness overtook her.
For a long moment, Cass didn’t say anything at all. It was like Alex could see the wheels inside her head turning, probably wondering why she didn’t remember falling from a fucking window . Maybe it had been wrong of Alex to keep that information to herself for as long as she had, but the alternative had truly terrified her. She’d brought someone back from the dead; this wasn’t the sort of thing you just told people, and that included the circumstances of what had led her to doing it. As much as she’d always wanted to know why Cass was in that position, she knew she couldn’t investigate it without bringing what she’d done to light.
“I was scared to ever say anything,” Alex finally admitted, desperately needing to break the silence that had settled around them. “I know I shouldn’t have kept this from you, Cass, but I thought you’d—”
“You saved my life that night,” Cass whispered, looking at Alex with wide brown eyes. “I’m alive because of you, Alex,” she said, taking her hand and squeezing tightly. “And tonight…well, tonight I’m still alive because of you. If that means we have this bond, then I guess that’s just something we’ll deal with. Hell, we’ve been dealing with it for almost four years, what’s a few more?”
“You’re not upset?” Alex asked, unable to stop herself from doing so.
“Jesus, Alex, of course I’m not upset. I mean, a heads up could have been nice but I’m alive . I’ll take that any day.”
Alex felt herself smile, some of the tension escaping from her body. Leave it to Cass to take news that she’d been brought back from the literal dead in stride. But in an instant, all of that tension came back full-force when she saw someone enter the room just behind the dhampir. And not just anyone, but the Queen of the Moroi world herself. Panic started to prickle her skin at the realization that the Queen was likely there to see her because why the hell else would she be there?
“Your Majesty,” she said, her voice a little uneven.
“Alexandra. Cassia,” the royal said, those jade green eyes laser-focused on both of them. “I thought it best that we meet in person, and I’m afraid what I needed to say couldn’t wait.”
Cass shifted a little, and Alex could see the tension in her body, taut like a wire. Even though they both knew the Queen wasn’t a threat, they didn’t have a damn clue what she might say to them. What she might ask of them.
“Guardian Wilson came to me and told me what happened.” Queen Vasilisa moved farther into the room, her hands clasped gently in front of her, and something akin to betrayal twisted Alex’s stomach. Had telling the Queen really been necessary? Alex had hoped she could live in this little bubble where only three people in the world knew what she’d done for a bit longer, as impossible of a dream as that was.
“I’m disappointed in myself for not noticing it sooner. Then again, it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen a bond like the one you and Cassia share. Decades, even, since I experienced it with my own guardian.” There was something in her expression that Alex felt down to her core, a wistfulness that was there but also something darker. Something that she unfortunately recognized.
“Spirit is a beautiful gift, Alexandra. It’s an incredible thing that very few of us are privy to. But it’s a gift that comes with a price. There’s a darkness to it, a darkness that can drive some of us to madness. I’ve seen it happen, seen good Moroi choose to become Strigoi in acts of desperation. And then…and then I’ve seen how it affects people like you, Cassia,” she said, turning her striking eyes onto the dhampir.
“You’re Shadowkissed, Cassia. You’ve been to the other side and had Death lay her hands on you, and then Alexandra brought you back. In doing so, she’s created a bond between you two that is truly unbreakable. But it’s a bond that, just like the thing that created it, has immense consequences.”
“What kind of consequences?” Cass asked, and Alex couldn’t ignore the way her stomach knotted at the mere mention of any dangers that had come about because of what she had done.
“The darkness that lives in Alexandra, the darkness that creeps in whenever she uses Spirit, will also live in you as long as you’re bound together.”