Last Sacrifice recap

Rose is imprisoned at the Royal Court awaiting trial for Queen Tatiana's murder, and is broken out by her friends and her father Abe before it can happen. She goes on the run with Dimitri and the Alchemist Sydney Sage, hiding in human towns and with the Keepers, a community living outside Moroi law, while Lissa is drawn into the election for a new monarch. Tatiana's ghost tells Rose that the Dragomir line is not finished: Lissa has a half-sibling, and finding them would give Lissa the Council seat she needs. The search leads to Sonya Karp, a former teacher who became Strigoi and knew Eric Dragomir's secrets; Lissa restores her with a spirit-charmed stake, and Sonya names the child. She is Jill Mastrano, a shy Moroi girl at St. Vladimir's. With a second Dragomir, Lissa can stand for the throne. Meanwhile Rose and Abe trace the murder to Tasha Ozera, who killed the queen to force Moroi society into fighting for itself and framed Rose for it. Tasha is exposed and stopped, Rose is cleared, and Lissa is elected queen with Rose as her guardian.

Previously: Rose Hathaway is a dhampir guardian bonded to her best friend Lissa Dragomir, the last of a royal Moroi line, because Lissa used spirit magic to bring Rose back from death as a child. Rose feels Lissa's emotions, can enter her mind, absorbs the madness spirit produces, and as one of the shadow-kissed can be reached by the dead. Rose and the guardian Dimitri Belikov fell in love; Strigoi overran St. Vladimir's Academy and turned him, and Rose went to Russia to hunt him. He held her prisoner instead, she staked him into a river, and he survived. Back home, Rose learned that a Strigoi can be restored to life with a silver stake charmed by spirit, broke Victor Dashkov out of prison to reach the spirit user who knew the method, and was captured by Dimitri along with Lissa; Lissa used the charmed stake and brought Dimitri back to life. Restored and consumed by guilt, he told Rose his love for her was gone. Queen Tatiana forced through a law sending novices into service at sixteen, and Rose confronted her publicly over it. Days later the queen was found murdered with a silver stake traced to Rose, and Rose was arrested for the assassination. Rose also learned in that time that Abe Mazur, the dangerous Moroi who had attached himself to her in Russia, is her father.

Rose sits in a cell at the Royal Court waiting for a trial she is going to lose. The case against her is circumstantial but tidy, the political appetite for a quick conviction is enormous, and the penalty is death. Her father Abe Mazur, her mother Janine, Lissa, Christian, Adrian and Eddie all work the problem from different directions and get nowhere through legal channels. So they stop using them. Rose is broken out of the cell and out of Court, and becomes a fugitive rather than a defendant, with the guardians she was about to join now hunting her. Her escape also removes the one thing holding Moroi politics together: with no monarch and an accused assassin at large, the Council has to elect a new ruler.

Rose goes on the run with Dimitri, who was released to help get her out, and Sydney Sage, the Alchemist assigned to move them through the human world without leaving a trace. They hide in small towns, living as ordinary humans, and the enforced closeness makes Dimitri's refusal of Rose harder for both of them. At Court, Lissa is pushed towards the succession and hits a wall: Moroi law requires a royal family to have more than one living member before it can hold its Council seat, so the last Dragomir has no vote and cannot stand. Then Tatiana's ghost comes to Rose, visible to her because she is shadow-kissed, and says that Eric Dragomir fathered another child.

The three fugitives take shelter with the Keepers, a community of Moroi, dhampirs and humans living off the grid in the Appalachian mountains, who reject Moroi law and marry across the lines their society forbids. The Keepers settle disagreements by fighting, and a young dhampir named Angeline complicates things by claiming Dimitri. Rose learns that Tatiana had left a letter with Ambrose, her dhampir attendant, saying the same thing her ghost said: there is another Dragomir. Rose passes the information back to Lissa through the bond and through Adrian's dreams, and the search becomes two searches, one for a sibling and one for whoever actually killed the queen.

The trail to the Dragomir child runs through people who knew Eric Dragomir's private life, and it ends at Sonya Karp, the St. Vladimir's teacher who became Strigoi years ago rather than lose her mind to spirit. Rose, Dimitri and Sydney track her, and taking a Strigoi alive is a far harder problem than killing one. At Court, Lissa navigates an election in which the royal families are openly bargaining, and Christian, Adrian and Eddie work on the murder from the inside, trying to establish who had access to both the queen and to Rose's belongings. Rose's own investigation, run largely by Abe, starts producing names.

Sonya Karp is captured and restored to life with a spirit-charmed stake, becoming a Moroi and a spirit user again, and Mikhail Tanner gets back the woman he had spent years hunting. Sonya tells them what she knew: Eric Dragomir had a daughter by a woman he never married. The search leads to Jill Mastrano, a shy Moroi girl at St. Vladimir's who has no idea what she is. With a second living Dragomir, Lissa can claim her family's Council seat, and she is put forward as a candidate for the throne. Victor Dashkov, still at large since the prison break, crosses the group's path again during all this, pursuing his own interest in Lissa's magic.

Jill is brought to Court and acknowledged as Eric Dragomir's daughter, and the Dragomir seat is restored. Lissa, who never wanted the throne, enters the election and submits to the tests the monarch's selection requires, and she passes them. Rose returns to Court under Abe's protection and is close enough to the investigation to see it finish. The evidence about the queen's death narrows to someone who could reach Tatiana without being questioned and who could take a stake from Rose's own things. Rose and Dimitri stop fighting what is between them and are together again, and Rose ends her relationship with Adrian, who does not take it well.

The murderer is Tasha Ozera. She killed Queen Tatiana with a stake taken from Rose's belongings and allowed Rose to be charged, on the reasoning that Tatiana's death would break the deadlock and force Moroi society to arm and train itself rather than spend dhampir lives defending it. Exposed at Court in front of the people who trusted her, including her nephew Christian, she is subdued after a violent struggle and taken into custody, and Rose is cleared of the assassination. Jill is gravely wounded in the violence and dies before Adrian reaches her with spirit and brings her back, which leaves the two of them bonded in the same way Rose and Lissa are.

Lissa is elected queen of the Moroi. Rose is exonerated, restored to guardian standing and finally assigned as Lissa's guardian, the post she has wanted since childhood, and Dimitri is accepted back into service alongside her. Sonya Karp is alive and a spirit user again, and the fact that Strigoi can be restored is now known to the people who most need to know it. Jill's existence is the only thing holding Lissa's claim to the throne, which makes her the obvious target for anyone who wants the new queen removed, so she is sent away into hiding under Alchemist protection with a guardian escort. Adrian, who lost Rose to Dimitri and gained a bond with a girl he barely knows, cuts himself off from all of them. Rose and Dimitri are together, Lissa rules, and the changes Moroi society has resisted for centuries are now being made by a queen who does not accept them.

The queen's murderer is Tasha Ozera. She killed Tatiana with a stake taken from Rose's belongings and let Rose take the blame, believing that removing the queen would force Moroi society into arming and training itself instead of hiding behind dhampirs. Exposed at Court, she is subdued after a violent struggle, and Rose is cleared of the assassination. Lissa, having claimed the Dragomir Council seat through Jill and passed the tests the election requires, is chosen as the new Moroi queen. Rose is finally assigned as her guardian, the position she has wanted since she was a child. In the violence surrounding the reveal, Jill is gravely wounded and dies briefly before Adrian brings her back with spirit, which leaves the two of them bonded exactly as Rose and Lissa are, whether either of them wants it or not. Because Jill's existence is the only thing keeping Lissa on the throne, killing her is now the simplest way to unseat a queen, and she is sent away into hiding under Alchemist protection. Rose and Dimitri are together again, and Dimitri is accepted back into guardian service. Adrian, dropped for Dimitri and left with a bond he never asked for, walks away from all of them.