It had been so long since I had last set foot in a school. As the daughter of Queen Tatiana, it was expected that I was to complete my formal training at a traditional academy in Romania or at the very least Russia, where most of the royal families came from. I was sent to St. Vladimir’s Academy by order of the queen herself to watch and protect Princess Vasilisa Dragomir, the last princess of the Dragomir line. When her brother, Andre was alive, it had been my duty to marry him. At age 3 we were betrothed, but as I was attending St. Basil’s and he was attending St. Vladimir’s, we barely saw each other. Occasionally, I would see him around the royal court during the summers, when their family would visit once in a while for a party hosted by my mother. I hadn’t seen him in a couple years had left the royal court for a few years of training in Russia only to return and discover that he had died in a car crash. The only survivors: Lissa Dragomir and her best friend, Rose Hathaway. I had never known much about Andre and I had never been close to him, but I got the impression he was not an all around nice guy. He was known particularly for sleeping around and that was not the type of reputation I was trying to build.
As a child I had not been allowed to play with other children and so I grew close to my nephew, Adrian, who happened to be older than me. Tatiana was the sister of Adrian’s grandfather. However our friendship and time together was short-lived, as his father, Nathan, decided that he would be attending a school in the U.S. Though we saw each other a lot more than I had seen Andre, it wasn’t enough to cement a relationship. I spent a lot of time alone and as I grew older, I spent a lot of time forming political bonds and maintaining relationships that would eventually help me hold onto power at the Moroi court.
It was at St. Basil’s I was introduced to Dimitri Belikov, a Dhampir, best friends with Ivan Zeklos, a friend of mine. He was charming. I could see why Ivan would say that he always got what he wanted from Dhampirs and Moroi alike. He was tough and a good fighter. A well rounded guardian, I was looking forward to a fight with him, but I knew that could never happen. I was a royal, what would the world think? Though I was petite and fragile looking like most Moroi looked, I was far from it. I could decapitate a Strigoi in less than a minute, stake him in about forty seconds and incinerate him in five. I was rather proud that I was able to fight, but not all Moroi were comfortable with the idea. They had always thought that fighting should be left to the Dhampirs, but I always believed it was a good skill to have, just in case.
Dimitri and I turned out similar in many ways, bound by our duty. They always came first. For Dimitri, it was us, the Moroi. We were the number one. For me, it was our people. A ruler must always be fair, she must rule with an iron fist, but she must listen to her people, support them and know when to relax and care for them.
It was because of these similarities that we grew close and I had requested that he be my guardian. But Ivan was quicker and my mother made sure that I didn’t have Dimitri as a guardian. Ivan and Dimitri were the only true friends I had ever made. The last I saw of Dimitri was at graduation, when he had been assigned to Ivan as his guardian. Ivan was now dead and I never knew what had happened to Dimitri. Both of them gone until today.
***
I walked down the halls; I was supposed to be posing as a student. I mean I was young enough to pass for one, but I was a bit rusty on what exactly it meant to be a student. I had been trained for the royal court and schooled in our traditions. St. Vladimir’s was a little bit more Americanized and it would take some getting used to. It wasn’t that the royal court was situated somewhere completely foreign, it wasn’t. The royal court was in Pennsylvania and St. Vladimir was in Montana…so there was some stuff I knew of, but being a “regular, American student” wasn’t one of them.
I wandered around aimlessly, lost, looking for someone I knew. Up ahead in the distance, I spotted Lissa’s familiar figure walking along.
“Lissa,” I called to her, running towards her.
