In the aftermath of a tumultuous event that ripped their world apart, Sydney and her love Adrian need to make their way back to each other, but they must survive first.

Two years after a horrible incident made them run away, vampire princess Lissa and her guardian-in-training Rose are found and returned to St. Vladimir's Academy, where one focuses on mastering magic, the other on physical training, while both try to avoid the perils of gossip, cliques, gruesome pranks, and sinister plots.

While Rose is coping with the darker effects of being shadow-kissed, her relationship with Dimitri is finally taking off, and when he disappears during a Strigoi attack on St. Vladimir's Academy, she must make a terrible choice.

While on a school skiing trip, guardian-in-training Rose faces everything from misunderstandings between friends to fights among factions of Moroi as reports of horrific Strigoi attacks raise tensions, ultimately leading Rose and some of those closest to her into a battle that teaches her much about life, death, and love.

At a boarding school in Palm Springs, California, Sydney must protect the vampires-in-hiding from the threat of other humans, a task made harder by forbidden romances, spirit bonds, and the threat of Strigoi moving ever closer.