Last Sacrifice

the normal vampiric schedule. Now, she simply wanted to get back to Court, find her room, and sleep for a few hours. She wanted some peace.

Instead, she found a mob waiting for her.

NINETEEN

THE VANS PARKED IN A semi-remote part of Court, so seeing the area packed with eager Moroi was quite a shock to Lissa. Guardians moved through the people like ghosts, just as they had at the nomination session, keeping as much order as possible. The crowd kept getting in the way as the vans attempted to reach the garages, and faces looked in the windows, trying to get a glimpse of the royal candidates.

Lissa stared at the masses in shock, almost afraid to get out. Ariana gave her a comforting smile. 'This is normal. They all want to know who made it and who didn't. They especially want to know.' She inclined her head toward the front of the van. Peering through the windshield, Lissa spied the other six candidates. Because the forest course could only accommodate so many people, the group had been split in half. The rest of the candidates would take the same test tomorrow and were no doubt curious who among their competitors had passed today.

Lissa was used to order and decorum around royals, so she was astonished to see such eagerness and frenzy among them now. And of course, the 'common' Moroi who'd been arriving at Court were mixed into the crowd too. Everyone was pushing, peering over the heads of others to find out what had happened. People were shouting some of the candidates' names, and I was half-surprised they hadn't come up with songs and banners.

Lissa and her companions exited the van and were met with a wave of cheers that rippled through the crowd. It became obvious pretty quickly who had passed and who hadn't. This sent the crowd abuzz even more. Lissa stood rooted to the spot, staring around and feeling lost. It was one thing to rationally discuss the pros of her running for queen with her friends. It was an entirely different matter to suddenly be thrust into what the elections truly meant.

Her focus had been limited to a few things: my safety, finding the murderer, and surviving the tests. Now, as she took in the crowd, she realized the election was bigger than her, bigger than anything she could have imagined. For these people, it wasn't a joke. It wasn't a scam to twist the law and stall for time. Their lives were figuratively on the line. Moroi and dhampirs lived inside various countries and obeyed those laws, but they also obeyed this government, the one that operated out of the Court. It reached around the world and affected every dhampir and Moroi who chose to stay in our society. We had some voting, yes, but the king or queen shaped our futures.

The guardians in charge of the crowds finally gave the okay for family members to push through the masses and collect their nominees. Lissa had no one. Both Janine and Eddie—despite earlier claims—were occasionally given temporary tasks that prevented them from being with Lissa 24/7, and she certainly had no family to come for her. Adrift, she felt dizzy in the chaos, still stunned by her moment of clarity. Conflicting emotions warred within her. Deceiving everyone made her feel unworthy, like she should resign her candidacy right now. At the same time, she suddenly wanted to be worthy of the elections. She wanted to hold her head high and walk into the tests proudly, even if she was taking them for ulterior motives.

A strong hand at last caught hold of her arm. Christian. 'Come on. Let's get out of here.' He pulled her away, shouldering through the onlookers. 'Hey,' he called to a couple guardians on the crowd's periphery. 'A little help here for the princess?'

It was the first time I had ever seen him act like a royal, throwing around the authority of his bloodline. To me, he was snarky, cynical Christian. In Moroi society, at eighteen, he could now technically be addressed as Lord Ozera. I'd forgotten that. The two guardians hadn't. They rushed to Lissa's side, helping Christian part the crowd. The faces around her were a blur, the noise a dull roar. Yet, every once in a while, something would come through to her. The chanting of her name. Declarations about the return of the dragon, which was the symbol of the Dragomir family. This is real, she kept thinking. This is real.

The guardians efficiently led her out of it all and back across the Court's grounds to her building. They released her once they considered her safe, and she graciously thanked them for their help. When she and Christian were in her room, she sank onto the bed, stunned.

'Oh my God,' she said. 'That was insane.'

Christian smiled. 'Which part? Your welcome home party? Or the test itself? You look like you just . . . well, I'm not really sure what you just did.'

Lissa took a quick survey of herself. They'd given her dry towels on the ride home, but her clothing was still damp and was wrinkling as it dried. Her shoes and jeans had mud all over them, and she didn't even want to think about what her hair looked like.

'Yeah, we—'

The words stuck on her tongue—and not because she suddenly decided not to tell him.

'I can't say,' she murmured. 'It really worked. The spell won't let me.'

'What spell?' he asked.

Lissa rolled up her sleeve and lifted the bandage to show him the tiny tattooed dot on her arm. 'It's a compulsion spell so I won't talk about the test. Like the Alchemists have.'

'Wow,' he said, truly impressed. 'I never actually thought those worked.'

'I guess so. It's really weird. I want to talk about it, but I just . . . can't.'

'It's okay,' he said, brushing some of her damp hair aside. 'You passed. That's what matters. Just focus on that.'

'The only thing I want to focus on right now is a shower—which is kind of ironic, considering how soaked I am.' She didn't move, though, and instead stared off at the far wall.

'Hey,' said Christian gently. 'What's wrong? Did the crowd scare you?'

She turned back to him. 'No, that's the thing. I mean, they were intimidating, yeah. But I just realized . . . I don't know. I realized I'm part of a major process, one that's gone on since—'

'The beginning of time?' teased Christian, quoting Nathan's nonsensical statement.

'Nearly,' she answered, with a small smile that soon faded. 'This goes beyond tradition, Christian. The elections are a core part of our society. Ingrained. We can talk about changing age laws or fighting or whatever, but this is ancient. And far-reaching. Those people out there? They're not all Americans. They've come from other countries. I forget sometimes that even though the Court is here, it rules Moroi everywhere. What happens here affects the whole world.'

'Where are you going with this?' he asked. She was lost in her own thoughts and couldn't see Christian as objectively as I could. He knew Lissa. He understood her and loved her. The two of them had a synchronicity similar to what Dimitri and I shared. Sometimes, however, Lissa's thoughts spun in directions he couldn't guess. He'd never admit it, but I knew part of why he loved her was that—unlike me, who everyone knew was impetuous—Lissa always seemed the picture of calmness and rationality. Then, she'd do something totally unexpected. Those moments delighted him—but sometimes scared him because he never knew just how much a role spirit was playing in her actions. Now was one of those times. He knew the elections were stressing her, and like me, he knew that could bring out the worst.

'I'm going to take these tests seriously,' she said. 'It's—it's shameful not to. An insult to our society. My ultimate goal is to find out who framed Rose, but in the meantime? I'm going to go through the trials like someone who intends to be queen.'

Christian hesitated before speaking, a rarity for him. 'Do you want to be queen?'

That snapped Lissa from her dreamy philosophizing about tradition and honor. 'No! Of course not. I'm eighteen. I can't even drink yet.'

'That's never stopped you from doing it,' he pointed out, becoming more like his usual self.

'I'm serious! I want to go to college. I want Rose back. I don't want to rule the