Vampire Academy season 1 episode 7 Recap: Beyond the Wards

This article contains SPOILERS for Vampire Academy season 1 episode 7.

To find answers, Rose and Lissa must go outside of the world they’ve always lived in.

Catch up here on everything from the last episode!

The episode begins with an older woman writing about the Moroi. She writes that once there were 13 saints, and their descendants are now called Royals.

Yet back then, they were saints, the best of the Moroi. The best of them all was St. Vladimir.

Vladimir had a vision of a world for the Moroi; secret and isolated from humans, which was embodied in the human treaty. The treaty gave the Moroi a home and the Dhampirs a purpose in the great Holy Elemental Order.

Vampire Academy season 1 episode 7:  The truth will come out

The woman writes that this story is the first great lie. She says that the truth will come out because it always does.

She writes that it would be bad if they let the lies make them forget the dangers that are out there, which are very real. Meanwhile, Victor asks the Queen to nominate him as her successor to the throne.

The Queen says that she can’t mandate this. The only way to hold the throne is to win the crown legitimately, without her help.

She believes that if Victor can persuade three of the more open-minded heads of families, he can defeat Tatiana 6-5. Rose runs, and Dimitri catches up with her.

They kiss until Lissa interrupts them, with Rose pushing him away. Lissa needs a favor from Rose: she wants to go into the human world and get answers from Adrian about how to keep the Darkness of Spirit at bay.

Rose tells Lissa she’ll need to get Dimitri on her side as well. He is afraid of what could happen to her when she goes.

Lissa asks Dimitri if he will let her go into the human world with only Adrian to protect her. Adrian adds that he’s useless in a fight.

Vampire Academy season 1 episode 7: The heretic

Dimitri follows Lissa, when Adrian says that he was promised his own guardian. That is when Rose shows up, apologizing for being late.

She asks Lissa if this is the guy and says she wants to drive. Dimitri asks her if she has ever driven a car before, and Rose gives him the keys.

While the group is on the way to their destination, Lissa and Adrian discuss their different Spirit abilities. Adrian apparently can’t heal people or compel them like Lissa, but he can go into people’s dreams and see their auras.

Adrian and Lissa are apparently going to see a Moroi scholar whose writings have made her unpopular with the church and the Queen. So much so that she has been accused of heresy.

Victor talks to the heads of family whose votes he needs and suddenly seems weak. Meanwhile, Adrian and Dimitri discuss where the scholar lives.

Apparently, Adrian doesn’t know exactly where she lives but knows someone who might know. Lissa and Rose come out of a store wearing clothes to make them look like humans, and Dimitri and Rose share a moment.

Vampire Academy season 1 episode 7: Strigoi senses tingling

They all head to a club where Lissa and Rose are surprised by the number of people there. Rose is also stunned that she is in a room where she doesn’t know anyone.

Dimitri is worried about protecting Lissa and Adrian in the club, as they could be walking into a trap. Rose says she would know if there were Strigoi around.

Adrian and Lissa discuss her engagement with Jesse. He says that Jesse makes him look eligible.

Lissa says that she doesn’t have much of a choice. If she wants to get her quorum back, she has to marry Jesse.

Adrian tells her that other Moroi would look at a room full of humans and see only a feedlot. However, if a Moroi spends enough time in the human world, they start to look back at their world and see it as pretty small.

Adrian then tells Lissa it’s time. Rose and Dimitri dance together until Rose suddenly keels over, sensing Strigoi.

Dimitri tells Lissa and Adrian to go.

Vampire Academy season 1 episode 7: Scary freedom

They all get out of the club when Lissa asks Rose about her and Dimitri dancing together. Lissa tells her friend she likes it and that it took her long enough.

They head to their next destination, which is a boat. Rose tells Dimitri that Lissa and Adrian are brainstorming questions for the heretic and that it’s the nerdiest she has ever seen Lissa.

She asks Dimitri if he ever thought of another life outside of the Dominion. Dimitri tells Rose a story about his Royal Moroi father and him fighting.

He didn’t realize how angry he was at his father until he was already fighting him. He needs the code of Guardian life to keep that force inside him in check.

Dimitri tells Rose that freedom scares him, or at least it did until now. The two kiss.

Once Rose, Lissa, Dimitri, and Adrian get off the boat, Dimitri asks Adrian how he’s never come to ask these questions before. Adrian responds that sometimes you need the right answers to ask the right questions.

Vampire Academy season 1 episode 7: Spirit Bond

Lissa and Adrian find the heretical scholar. At first, she’s not going to let them in, but then Adrian suggests that Lissa compels her.

Once she hears that Lissa has compulsion abilities, she calls her a Messenger. Lissa says that she can make her talk if she wants to.

The scholar then lets them in. Adrian closes the door behind him.

Meanwhile, back on the Royal Tour, Victor tells Sonya he will be king, but she says that they won’t allow it if he doesn’t look well enough. She offers to heal him again, to which Victor eventually agrees.

Tatiana tries to persuade her aunt, the High Priestess, to stop Victor once and for all. Dimitri tells Rose that he wants to know all of what is going on.

Lissa and Adrian talk to the scholar about Spirit use and its effects. Lissa tells her that she’s seen her own eyes go black, like St. Vladimir’s were in a painting.

The scholar tells Lissa about how St. Vladimir healed his guardian, Anna, about something called a Spirit Bond and how he passed the Darkness to Anna through the bond.

Vampire Academy season 1 episode 7: Shadow-Kissed Anna

Dimitri is shocked when he hears about Spirit. Rose responds that it isn’t too shocking that the Moroi would have edited the story.

Then she senses Strigoi nearby. Lissa is upset that St. Vladimir was just another parasitic Moroi because he was supposed to prove that her abilities could be a good thing.

Rose bursts in, warning Lissa about the Strigoi and that they have to go. The scholar scolds them for leading the Strigoi to her, but Rose replies that they’re going to leave anyway.

Dimitri then comes in, closing the door. He says that the Strigoi are there.

The scholar says that Rose knew they were here; that she could sense them in her gut. Rose and Dimitri fight the Strigoi, while Adrian suggests that maybe Anna willingly took Vladimir’s Darkness.

Lissa wonders what Shadow-Kissed means and how any of it makes sense. The scholar tells Lissa that the Spirit Bond was the fruit of Vladimir’s ultimate sin.

Vampire Academy season 1 episode 7: Hunted by the Strigoi

Then a kid who has been turned into a Strigoi bursts in on where Lissa, Adrian, and the scholar are hiding. Rose senses Lissa’s feelings and goes to help her.

She hesitates to kill the child Strigoi, so the scholar sends some fire in the Strigoi’s direction. She warns Rose not to hesitate.

High Priestess Irene discusses the next ruler with the Queen. She warns that the Church will not support Victor as king and that without their support, he will fail.

Rose recognizes one of the Strigoi, saying that they followed her, Lissa, Dimitri, and Adrian from the club. Dimitri wonders why they would when they had so many humans they could eat.

The scholar tells Lissa that her life there is ruined, not because of the Strigoi but because of those that come after them. She says she will give Lissa what she came for and whispers something in her ear.

Back on the Royal Tour, Victor hears that the Queen is not going to submit his name to the Council. Meanwhile, Sonya feeds on a feeder and gets far too into it.

Vampire Academy season 1 episode 7: Rose what?

Victor tells the Queen that she just has to submit his name and that he has enough votes to win the throne. The Queen apologizes to Victor saying the Church forced her hand.

However, she adds that she has one final card to play. She announces that she’s suspending the caucus to choose the next ruler and invokes the right to Royal Trial instead.

The candidates will go through a series of sacred tests, and whoever wins will be the next ruler of the Dominion. Dimitri tells Rose that she can’t be torn between him and Lissa, and therefore he breaks up with her.

The scholar writes about how the Strigoi are not the only danger out there. Beyond the wards, they watch and wait to catch the Moroi making a mistake.

However, the first wound will be self-inflicted as the Moroi turn on their own first. Lissa opens a card from Adrian that tells her about her fun options for marriage, one of which is Christian.

Rose comes to talk to Lissa, who says that she doesn’t want her to be her guardian because she doesn’t want to exploit her friend. Rose yells at Lissa for making the choice for her and says that the only thing that makes being a guardian worthwhile is her.

She proclaims she would die for Lissa. Lissa says that she knows that because Rose did.

Vampire Academy season 1 episode 7: The truth comes out

Lissa explains to Rose that Vladimir’s ultimate sin was resurrecting Anna after she died. That was what created their bond and is why Anna is called Shadow-Kissed.

Apparently, Rose died saving Lissa in the accident, but Lissa brought her back. She doesn’t want to pass her Darkness onto Rose, not if she can help it.

Rose is upset and bangs on Lissa’s door, but Lissa doesn’t let her in. She takes some pills.

Victor arrives back to find Sonya’s feeder in bad shape, possibly dead, and Sonya is nowhere to be found.

What will Rose do now that Lissa doesn’t want her as a Guardian? How will Lissa handle Spirit’s Darkness without Rose?

Let us know your answers and opinions in the comments below.

Watch new episodes of Vampire Academy Thursdays on Peacock.