Shadow Kiss recap

Rose returns to St. Vladimir's for her final term haunted by Mason's death and by Mason himself, whose silent ghost keeps appearing to her. She is assigned to guard Christian Ozera for the novices' six-week field experience rather than Lissa, and her visions cost her badly when she freezes during a staged attack and is hauled before a disciplinary hearing. At the Royal Court, Victor Dashkov is convicted and imprisoned for what he did to Lissa. Rose learns that being shadow-kissed, brought back from the dead, is why the dead can reach her, and that Mason has been trying to warn her rather than accuse her. She and Dimitri finally give in to what they feel and spend a night together, and he says he will step aside as her instructor so they can be together openly. Hours later the Strigoi come. The wards have been broken by human accomplices, the school is overrun, and the survivors are taken into nearby caves. Rose fights in the rescue, but Dimitri is taken alive and turned Strigoi. Rose leaves school and the country to hunt him down and keep the promise they made each other.

Previously: Rose Hathaway is a dhampir novice at St. Vladimir's Academy, training to guard the living Moroi vampires against the undead Strigoi. She is bonded to her best friend Lissa Dragomir, the last of a royal line, because Lissa unknowingly used spirit magic to bring Rose back from death as a child; Rose can feel Lissa's emotions, enter her mind, and absorb the madness spirit leaves behind, and is called shadow-kissed for it. Lissa was tormented and finally kidnapped by Victor Dashkov, a family friend who wanted her healing for his own fatal illness; he was caught and awaits trial. Rose trains under the guardian Dimitri Belikov, and the two are in love and forbidden to act on it. Over the winter, coordinated Strigoi attacks with human helpers forced the school to move the holiday to a guarded ski resort. There Rose met Adrian Ivashkov, an idle royal Moroi who is also a spirit user, and learned that Christian's aunt Tasha had asked Dimitri to leave the Academy for her. Rose repeated a rumour about a Strigoi nest in Spokane, and her friend Mason went after it. All of them were captured, and Mason was killed in front of Rose before she destroyed the two Strigoi. Dimitri refused Tasha and stayed. Rose came back marked as a Strigoi killer, silently grieving, and seeing Mason's ghost.

The final term opens with the novices' field experience: for six weeks each novice is assigned a Moroi to guard around the clock while guardians stage surprise attacks to test them. Rose expects Lissa and is given Christian Ozera instead, because the bond would tell her where Lissa is and make the test meaningless; Eddie draws Lissa. Rose takes the assignment as an insult and Christian enjoys it. Underneath the routine, Rose is in worse shape than anyone knows. She refuses to talk about Mason's death, she is carrying more of Lissa's spirit darkness than ever, and she has begun seeing Mason himself, standing silent and unmoving at the edges of crowds. She tells no one, on the reasonable assumption that they will conclude she has lost her mind.

During a staged attack, Stan Alto grabs Christian while Rose stands frozen, staring at Mason's ghost, and does nothing. Stan reports it as deliberate, and Rose is put in front of a hearing where she cannot explain herself without admitting to hallucinations. Dimitri argues for her, but the damage to her record is real and she is punished. Her temper is worse, her mood swings sharper, and she begins to suspect the darkness she draws off Lissa is doing more to her than she has admitted. Lissa, meanwhile, is being drawn deeper into royal politics and is quietly using compulsion in situations that do not require it, which unsettles Rose more than the ghosts do.

Rose, Lissa, Christian and Dimitri travel to the Royal Court for Victor Dashkov's trial, and Rose is required to testify about the kidnapping and about the charm Victor used on her and Dimitri. Victor, visibly dying, defends himself as a man who did what the situation required and warns Lissa that she will end up understanding him. He is convicted and sentenced to prison. At Court, Rose sees Mia Rinaldi, now living there and training seriously, and spends time with Adrian, who reads her aura and tells her something in it has changed since Spokane. The ghosts follow Rose the whole trip, which finally convinces her they are not simply a symptom of grief.

Back at school, Rose stops hiding the visions from everyone and starts working out what they mean. She learns that being brought back from death has left her standing partly on the other side of it: the dead are drawn to her, and outside the school's wards they can reach her freely. There is precedent in the history of St. Vladimir, a spirit-using saint whose own shadow-kissed guardian was said to have gone mad. Mason is not accusing her. He is trying to tell her something, and Rose begins to follow him instead of turning away. The strain of taking Lissa's darkness keeps rising, and the field experience grinds on with Christian, who has started teaching younger Moroi to use their magic offensively.

Rose and Dimitri stop pretending. After the field experience ends and Rose reaches the end of what she can hold in, the two of them spend a night together in a cabin at the edge of the campus and say plainly that they are in love. Dimitri decides he will resign as her instructor and ask to be reassigned so that they can be together without either of them being compromised, and for the first time Rose can see a future that contains both her duty and him. That same day Mason's ghost appears again, more insistent than before, and leads Rose to look beyond the wards, where she sees Strigoi assembled in numbers no one has ever reported and realizes the school is about to be attacked.

Rose raises the alarm and, after some resistance, is believed. It is already too late. The wards have been sabotaged by humans working for the Strigoi, and the attackers come through the campus at night in a coordinated assault, killing students, staff and guardians. Rather than feeding on the spot, many Strigoi drag captives away alive into a cave system beyond the school grounds, to keep as a food supply until they can be turned or killed. The surviving guardians assemble a rescue party, and Rose insists on going in with it. The fighting in the caves is close, dark and brutal, and Rose kills more Strigoi than she can keep count of, with Christian burning a path beside her.

Most of the captives are brought out alive, Eddie among them, and the Strigoi in the caves are destroyed. When the losses are counted, Dimitri is not on either list. His body is not found, and a guardian confirms what Rose saw in the caves: he was bitten and taken alive, which means he has been awakened as a Strigoi. Every adult treats him as dead and unreachable. Rose remembers what she and Dimitri promised each other, that neither would leave the other to exist that way, and decides she is the only person who will keep it. She turns down the chance to graduate, tells Lissa she is going and breaks their bond of trust in the process, and leaves the country for Russia, where she believes he would have gone, carrying a stake and no plan beyond finding him.

Warned by Mason's ghost, Rose sees Strigoi gathering outside the school's wards, and the attack comes that night. Humans working for the Strigoi have broken the wards, and the Strigoi come through in numbers no one has ever faced on Moroi ground. Students and staff are killed, and many are dragged away alive into a cave system nearby to be kept as food. A rescue party goes in after them. Rose fights through the caves alongside Christian, kills several Strigoi, and most of the captives, including Eddie, are brought out. Dimitri is not among them. When the dead are counted his body is missing, and the guardians conclude what Rose refuses to hear: he was bitten and taken alive, and has been awakened as a Strigoi. He and Rose had promised each other that neither would be left in that state, and everyone around her treats the promise as impossible to keep. Rose does not. She leaves St. Vladimir's without graduating, breaks with Lissa, who begs her to stay, and sets out for Russia, where she believes Dimitri would go, intending to find him and end it herself.