Author's Note: Yes, I'm quite alive! I must apologize for taking so long to update. Being a full-time college student has taken its toll lately. However, I'm back and ready to revive this story. The next five chapters have already been written and updates should be regular for most of the summer. The focus of the story is slowly shifting to Sulpicia's relationship with the rest of the coven and I intend to dedicate the next few updates to her interactions with characters such as Caius, Jane, Felix, Demetri, Alec, etc. By the way, if you have any requests, please don't hesitate to ask. I always do my best to please my readers. ^_^ Thanks again for your patience!
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Stephenie Meyer's work.
Chapter Thirteen
There is some manner of relief after the great matter of Aro's mating. A sigh and a tremor that ripples through the Etruscan foundation of the Volturi's stronghold, settling in the high, pigeon-nested rafters. Life in the coven resumes, with all its weary decadence, only now the air is spiced with the perfect fecundity of an aria.
Enchanting, Aro remarks and he is dreamy with love, no longer Agamemnon, but Aphrodite's blessed Paris.
But his brothers remain uneasy. Unsure of this strange music. Unsure of their new, forlorn sister and the discord she has inadvertently culled.
It surprises the coven then, (especially Didyme and Athenadora, who have spent the most time in Sulpicia's company and first guessed her to be perilously apathetic) when Aro's new mate attempts to befriend Caius.
A short time after her wedding, Sulpicia is often seen not in her preferred solitude, but on the very fringe of the brothers' notice. She comes quietly into the atrium every dawn and stands with the wives, appearing awkward and boney in the ill-fitting gowns Didyme has loaned her until a suitable tailor might be found to craft her the robes of a queen.
Neither Didyme nor Athenodora press their skittish sister into conversation, but even they cannot help but watch her as she attends to the business of the coven, all from behind the wary lens of a recluse.
Sulpicia is keen in her despondency and she observes the brothers' judgments, their quarrels and compromises, listening with the tact of a composer for dissonance in a sonata she has written. In the morning hours, when the sun shines the brightest and colors every immortal's glance red, Sulpicia's eyes are carefully misted. And she waits, patiently, standing with her shoulders hunched, not regal, but quietly broken.
And after a month of this practice, she abandons her post between her sisters and crosses the atrium to Caius.
Her footsteps are subdued, lost amongst the fluting voices of the brothers. Caius has risen from his throne and descended the steps of the dais, the excess length of his robes resting over one spindly arm.
Sulpicia stops before him.
And on the edge of the atrium, Athenodora grips Didyme's fingers with her own.
"Brother Caius?" Sulpicia's voice is no longer resilient, but cracked and creaking like old wood.
For the first time in centuries, Caius is startled. "My lady." His silken eyebrows dart up his forehead, rendering his expression thoughtful, iron streaked with the weakening rust of age .
Sulpicia takes a shuddering breath. "Will you walk with me?"
Caius, for all his private discontent, is not rude. He extends his arm and supports Sulpicia's gangly frame with his shoulder. Together, they stride across the echoing chamber, into the shadows where their voices carry only as whispers, offering tantalizing hints that leave even the most indifferent guards curious.
Sulpicia's mouth moves quickly and she chews over her words like an inelegant wolf lapping at the fat of a deer. "Do you pity me, Brother Caius?" The muscles of her hands work furiously and she notices, much to her shame, that she is shaking.
Caius looks at her hard, as he looked upon her when she first came to the coven and stood before them shrieking and sobbing and begging to be brought back to Egypt. "I think Aro deceived you."
"He is lying to me?"
"No. But he hunted you and trapped you and offered you freedom where there was none."
"Then I am indeed a prisoner." Sulpicia tries not to let her disgust show, but it trickles into her limbs, tightening the flesh about her cheeks as she frowns.
Caius notices how drawn she looks.
And he hopes that Aro is watching them and that his brother realizes, once and for all, how wrong he was.
"Is it because you think I am mad?" Sulpicia asks suddenly, tugging upon his arm and snagging his attention. "Or do you think I am dangerous? Ah! How can I be dangerous now? You know I am held here." She holds out her wrists, showing him the chains that are not there.
Caius shifts his weight from one foot to the other, a new worry gnawing at his mind.
"Do you wish me to work against your husband?" he asks frankly.
The panic in her eyes reassures him. "I could not!" she gasps. "For how unfortunate it is for me to love him." Suddenly, her crafty pretense of sanity departs and she is left standing before him, bare and boney in a gown that doesn't fit and her face so pained that Caius must look away.
"Ah," she growls, and it is indeed a growl, no longer obscured by her strained sighs, "Ah let me weep, my cruel fate!"*
Her hand slips from his arm and she turns away, leaving Caius to ponder just how difficult it is for her to admit that survival will not suffice. In the coven, one must thrive.
And somewhere on the very fringe of the room, Athenodora releases her hold on Didyme's fingers.
*This line comes from Handel's famed aria Lascia Ch'io Pianga, featured in the opera Rinaldo.