Spirit Bound (Vampire Academy 5)

"What exactly was that the definition of?" she asked, reliving how his mouth had felt.

"It means 'I'm sorry,'" he said.

She looked away and nervously plucked at some of the grass. Finally, with a sigh, she looked back up. "Christian... was there ever... was there ever anything between you and Jill? Or Mia?"

He stared in surprise. "What? How could you think that?"

"You spent so much time with them."

"There is only one person I have ever wanted," he said. The steadiness of his gaze, of those crystal blue eyes, left no question as to who that person was. "No one else has ever come close. In spite of everything, even with Avery--"

"Christian, I'm so sorry for that--"

"You don't have to--"

"I do--"

"Damn it," he said. "Will you let me finish a sent--"

"No," Lissa interrupted. And she leaned over and kissed him, a hard and powerful kiss that burned through her body, one that told her there was no one else in the world for her either.

Well. Apparently Tasha had been right: I was the only one who could bring them back together. I just somehow hadn't expected my arrest to play a role.

I pulled away from her head to give them some privacy and save myself from watching them make out. I didn't begrudge them their moment. There was nothing either could do for me right now, and they deserved their reunion. Their only course of action was to wait for more information, and really, their method of passing time was a lot healthier than whatever Adrian was probably doing.

I lay down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. There was nothing but plain metal and neutral colors around me. It drove me crazy. I had nothing to watch, nothing to read. I felt like an animal trapped in a cage. The room seemed to grow smaller and smaller. All I could do was replay what I'd learned via Lissa, analyzing every word of what had been said. I had questions about everything, of course, but the one thing that stuck with me was Daniella mentioning a hearing. I needed to know more about that.

I got my answer--hours later.

I'd fallen into sort of a numb haze by then and almost didn't recognize Mikhail standing in front of my cell door. I leapt from my bed to the bars and saw that he was unlocking the door. Hope surged through me.

"What's going on?" I asked. "Are they letting me go?"

"I'm afraid not," he said. His point was proven when, after opening the door, he promptly put my hands in cuffs. I didn't fight it. "I'm here to take you to your hearing."

Stepping into the hall, I saw other guardians gathered. My own security detail. A mirror of Dimitri's. Lovely. Mikhail and I walked together, and mercifully, he spoke along the way instead of maintaining that awful silence that seemed to be common treatment for prisoners.

"What's the hearing exactly? A trial?"

"No, no. Too soon for a trial. A hearing decides whether you're going to trial."

"That sounds kind of like a waste of time," I pointed out. We emerged from the guardians' building, and that fresh, damp air was the sweetest thing I'd ever tasted.

"It's a bigger waste of time if you go to a full-fledged trial, and they realize there was no case to stand on. At the hearing, they'll lay out all the evidence they have, and a judge--or, well, someone acting as a judge--will decide if you should have a trial. The trial makes it official. That's where they pass the verdict and dole out the punishment."

"Why'd they take so long for the hearing? Why'd they make me wait in that cell all day?"

He laughed, but not because he thought it was funny. "This is fast, Rose. Very fast. It can take days or weeks to get a hearing, and if you do go to trial, you'll stay locked up until then."

I swallowed. "Will they move fast on that too?"

"I don't know. No monarch's been murdered in almost a hundred years. People are running wild, and the Council wants to establish order. They're already making huge plans for the queen's funeral--a giant spectacle that'll distract everyone. Your hearing is also an attempt to establish order."

"What? How?"

"The sooner they convict the murderer, the safer everyone will feel. They think this case against you is so solid, they want to rush it through. They want you to be guilty. They want to bury her knowing her killer is moving toward justice, so that everyone can sleep easy when the new king or queen is elected."

"But I didn't--" I let my denial go. There was no point.

Ahead of us, the building that housed the courtroom loomed. It had seemed forbidding the first time I'd been here for Victor's trial, but that had been owing to fear of the memories he sparked in me. Now... now it was my own future on the line. And apparently not just my own future--the Moroi world was watching and waiting, hoping I was a villain who could be safely put away forever. Swallowing, I gave Mikhail a nervous look.

"Do you think... do you think they'll send me to trial?"

He didn't answer. One of the guards held the door open for us.

"Mikhail?" I urged. "Will they really put me on trial for murder?"

"Yes," he said sympathetically. "I'm pretty sure they will."

Chapter Twenty-Seven

WALKING INTO THE COURTROOM was one of the most surreal experiences of my life--and not just because I was the one being accused here. It just kept reminding me of Victor's trial, and the idea that I was now in his place was almost too weird to comprehend.

Entering a room with a troop of guardians makes people stare--and believe me, there were a lot of people packed in there--so naturally, I didn't skulk or look ashamed. I walked with confidence, my head held high. Again, I had that eerie flashback to Victor. He too had walked in defiantly, and I'd been appalled that someone who had committed his crimes could behave that way. Were these people thinking the same thing about me?

On the dais at the front of the room sat a woman I didn't recognize. Among the Moroi, a judge was usually a lawyer who had been appointed to the position for the purposes of the hearing or whatever. The trial itself--at least a big one like Victor's--had been presided over by the queen. She had been the one to ultimately decide the final verdict. Here, the Council members would be the ones to decide if I even reached that stage. The trial makes it official. That's where they pass the verdict and dole out the punishment.

My escort took me to the front seating of the room, past the bar that separated the key players from the audience, and motioned me toward a spot next to a middle-aged Moroi in a very formal and very designer black suit. The suit screamed, I'm sorry the queen is dead, and I'm going to look fashionable while showing my grief. His hair was a pale blond, lightly laced with the first signs of silver. Somehow, he made it look good. I presumed this was Damon Tarus, my lawyer, but he didn't say a word to me.