Vampire Academy

Chapter 5

Dimitri

My days have become a routine, I wake up every morning to Rose's smell and I lay there for a while thinking of her before getting up for a shower. The majority of the day is spent organising the return of students, so far only novices are returning, the Maroi  are planned to return in two months time. I'm sitting behind my desk, papers covering every available space, paring novices with guardians when there was a knock at my office door. "Come in" I say through the closed door, closing the roster infant of me. The door creaked open and walked in Mason, Eddie and Meredith all three looking rather uncomfortable as they stand just before the open door. "We have to talk Guardian Belikov" Eddie says before reaching for the open door and pulling it closed. "Please take a seat" All three step forward and take a seat, each of them looking rather nervous. "Well?" I ask starting to get nervous myself. "We need to do something about Queen Tatiana" Eddie says, surprising me by looking me in the eyes. "What about her?" These three need to be careful if they are about to tell me what I think they are. There may not be any Moroi on campus at the moment but if they don't get into the habit of being careful where they discuss such things now they could get into a lot of trouble when they are caught later. "She is spreading lies about Lissa and by extension Rose" Eddie continues "We have to do something to help them so that they can return home and Lissa can become the rightful Queen." They wait for my response, Mason never meeting my gaze, "Mason?"  He lifts his head and looks at me for the first time since he entered my office "How do you feel about all of this?" I ask, if we are going to work together I need to trust them and they need to trust me. "I want Rose to come back" is all he says. Before I could reply Meredith speaks up "Thats not what he meant Mason and you know it!" she exclaims slumping slightly in her seat in annoyance. I look at her in surprise, I knew she wasn't blind and knew that she at least suspected I had feelings for Rose beyond that of a mentor. "I know how you and Rose feel about each other" She says pausing and sitting up a little, I look over at Eddie who looks both surprised and confused "What?! You would have to be blind not to" she continues now looking at Eddie and then at Mason. "Is it true?" Eddie asks looking at me, "is she right? That there's something going on between you and Rose?" I look at the three of them not knowing what to say, its not exactly a secret but this wasn't the direction I expected the conversation to in. "How Meredith knew I don't know but yes Rose and I have feelings for each other" I say looking eyes with Mason instead of looking at Eddie and waited. "Well I guess we don't have to worry about you still being on Tatiana's side" Eddie grumbles while crossing his arms across his chest. "No" I grumble out knowing what he was referring to and they didn't even know that I had kissed her, I shudder at the memory. "I was never on Her side" Silence falls again except this time its Mason the breaks it, "I'll do and work with whoever it takes so that Rose can come home." It wasn't exactly what I was looking for but I knew how much Mason cared for Rose so I nodded in his direction before clearing the papers off my desk. "What's your plane then?" I ask as I put the last of the papers in my desk draw to be sorted later, Rose was more important. "We don't know exactly but we have to prove that Tatiana is lying about every thing and that Lissa didn't do anything to Queen Marina" Eddie had sat up while he was speaking, his face the same as when he trained with Rose. Focused. "Well we know that Lissa would never do what Tatiana is saying and the fact that she is planning to drop the Graduation age of Novices has made her immensely popular to the Royal Moroi and increasingly less popular with the guardians who have found out of this plan" I say getting up from behind my desk to lean on the front of it to be closer to the three novices looking at me with shocked expressions. "Maybe we can use this to an advantage?" Meredith says as she looks at each of us to see if we agree. "But how?" Eddie asks "Its not like Dhampir have any influence over court or the board." He was right, Dhampir were seen by most Moroi as nothing more than their protection bread for their safety. There were some Moroi that didn't share this common belief, the princess and Lord Ozera being among them, but it still wouldn't be enough to expose Tatiana. "Of course we don't but not all Moroi are like the Royal Moroi who only think of themselves. If we figure out a way to show the Moroi that would get these 16 year old novices as guardians how well they would be protected by these inadequately trained novices might help them start to see that Tatiana isn't the queen we need to protect us until we come up with a way to expose her as a lier." Meredith finish with a long exhale looking at us all once again, her expression turning nervous. "It's a good starting point and even if it doesn't help to clear Lissa and Rose's names and bring them home it should save the lives of the novices they want to put in harms way before they are trained." I say giving Meredith a smile. "But how will we do it?" Eddie asked leaning forward in his seat "This week, before the other novices come back, I will record a group of seasoned guardians sparing and also do the same of some of the senior novices and start putting together a video of where the standards need to be for a Moroi to be well protected. Then when the other novices arrive I'll get a group of he 16 year olds to spar and maybe even have some guardians or senior novices act as Stregoi so that the difference between skill and ability is seen. Hopefully when people see this they'll see that the two years of training they are planning to get rid of is important." I say already putting together names of who I want to be in these videos and the best way to it.