I winced at the blow but was happy to see I'd struck a nerve. I had no clue who my dad was. The only bit of information I had was that he was Turkish. I might have my mom's curvy figure and pretty face-though I could smugly say mine was much prettier than hers nowadays-but the rest of my coloring was from him. Lightly tanned skin with dark hair and eyes.

"How'd it happen?" I asked. "Were you on some assignment in Turkey? Meet him at a local bazaar? Or was it even cheaper than that? Did you go all Darwin and select the guy most likely to pass on warrior genes to your offspring? I mean, I know you only had me because it was your duty, so I suppose you had to make sure you could give the guardians the best specimen you could."

"Rosemarie," she warned through gritted teeth, "for once in your life, shut up."

"Why? Am I tarnishing your precious reputation? It's just like you told me: you aren't any different from any other dhampir either. You just screwed him and-"

There's a reason they say, "Pride goeth before a fall." I was so caught up in my own cocky triumph that I stopped paying attention to my feet. I was too close to the red line. Going outside of it was another point for her, so I scrambled to stay within and dodge her at the same time. Unfortunately, only one of those could work. Her fist came flying at me, fast and hard-and, perhaps most importantly, a bit higher than the permissable according to rules of this kind of exercise. It smacked me in the face with the power of a small truck, and I flew backward, hitting the hard gym floor back-first and head-second. And I was out of the lines. Damn it.

Pain cracked through the back of my head, and my vision went blurry and sparkly. Within seconds, my mother was leaning over me.

"Rose? Rose? Are you okay?" Her voice sounded hoarse and frantic. The world swam.

At some point after that, other people came, and I somehow wound up in the Academy's med clinic. There, someone shone a light in my eyes and started asking me incredibly idiotic questions.

"What's your name?"

"What?" I asked, squinting at the light.

"Your name." I recognized Dr. Olendzki peering over me.

"You know my name."

"I want you to tell me."

"Rose. Rose Hathaway."

"Do you know your birthday?"

"Of course I do. Why are you asking me such stupid things? Did you lose my records?"

Dr. Olendzki gave an exasperated sigh and walked off, taking the annoying light with her. "I think she's fine," I heard her tell someone. "I want to keep her here for the school day, just to make sure she doesn't have a concussion. I certainly don't want her anywhere near her guardian classes."

I spent the day moving in and out of sleep because Dr. Olendzki kept waking me up to do her tests. She also gave me an ice pack and told me to keep it close to my face. When the Academy's classes let out, she deemed me well enough to leave.

"I swear, Rose, I think you should have a frequent patient's card." There was a small smile on her face. "Short of those with chronic problems like allergies and asthma, I don't think there's any other student I've seen here so often in such a short period of time."

"Thanks," I said, not really sure I wanted the honor. "So, no concussion?"

She shook her head. "No. You're going to have some pain, though. I'll give you something for that before you go." Her smile faded, and suddenly she looked nervous. "To be honest, Rose, I think most of the damage happened to, well, your face."

I shot up from the bed. "What do you mean 'most of the damage happened to my face'?"

She gestured to the mirror above the sink on the far side of the room. I ran over to it and looked at my reflection.

"Son of a bitch!"

Purplish red splotches covered the upper portion of the left side of my face, particularly near the eye. Desperately, I turned around to face her.

"This is going to go away soon, right? If I keep the ice on it?"

She shook her head again. "The ice can help…but I'm afraid you're going to have a wicked black eye. It'll probably be at its worst tomorrow but should clear up in a week or so. You'll be back to normal before long."

I left the clinic in a daze that had nothing to do with my head injury. Clear up in a week or so? How could Dr. Olendzki speak so lightly about this? Didn't she realize what was happening? I was going to look like a mutant for Christmas and most of the ski trip. I had a black eye. A freaking black eye.

And my mother had given it to me.

I angrily pushed through the double doors that led into the Moroi dorm. Snow swirled in behind me, and a few people lingering on the main floor glanced up upon my entrance. Not surprisingly, several of them did double takes. Swallowing, I forced myself not to react. It would be okay. No need to freak out. Novices got injured all the time. It was actually rarer not to get injured. Admittedly, this was a more noticeable injury than most, but I could live with it until it healed, right? And it wasn't like anyone would know how I'd received it.

"Hey Rose, is it true your own mother punched you?"

I froze. I'd know that taunting soprano voice anywhere. Turning slowly, I looked into the deep blue eyes of Mia Rinaldi. Curly blond hair framed a face that might have been cute if not for the malicious smirk on it.

A year younger than us, Mia'd taken on Lissa (and me by default) in a war to see who could tear apart the other's life most quickly-a war, I should add, that she started. It had involved her stealing Lissa's ex-boyfriend-despite the fact Lissa had decided in the end she didn't want him-and the spreading of all sorts of rumors.

Admittedly, Mia's hatred hadn't been entirely unjustified. Lissa's older brother, Andre-who had been killed in the same car accident that technically «killed» me-had used Mia pretty badly when she was a freshman. If she weren't such a bitch now, I would have felt sorry for her. It had been wrong of him, and while I could understand her anger, I don't know that it was fair of her to take that out on Lissa in the way she did.

Lissa and I had technically won the war in the end, but Mia had inexplicably bounced back. She didn't run with the same elite that she once had, but she had rebuilt a small contingent of friends. Malicious or not, strong leaders always attract followers.

I'd found that about 90 percent of the time, the most effective response was to ignore her. But we had just crossed over to the other 10 percent, because it's impossible to ignore someone announcing to the world that your mother just punched you-even if it was true. I stopped walking and turned around. Mia stood near a vending machine, knowing she'd drawn me out. I didn't bother asking how she'd found out about my mother giving me the black eye. Things rarely stayed secret around here.

When she caught full sight of my face, her eyes widened in unabashed delight. "Wow. Talk about a face only a mother could love."

Ha. Cute. From anyone else, I would have applauded the joke.

"Well, you're the expert on face injury," I said. "How's your nose?"

Mia's icy smile twitched a little, but she didn't back down. I'd broken her nose about a month ago-at a school dance of all places-and while the nose had since healed, it now sat just the tiniest bit askew. Plastic surgery could probably fix it up, but from my understanding of her family's finances, that wasn't possible just now.

"It's better," she replied primly. "Fortunately, it was only broken by a psychopathic whore and not anyone actually related to me."

I gave her my best psychopathic smile. "Too bad. Family members hit you by accident. Psychopathic whores tend to come back for more."

Threatening physical violence against her was usually a pretty sound tactic, but we had too many people around right now for that to be a legitimate concern for her. And Mia knew it. Not that I was above attacking someone in this kind of setting-hell, I'd done it lots of times-but I was trying to work on my impulse control lately.