A/N for 2020-01-23: The word murmuration refers to a group of starlings - and no, I'd never heard it before I looked it up as an alternative to flock :-)

As always, my many thanks to Chayasara and Eeyorefan12 for their work on this story.

Erin


Edward didn't know the precise time that Victoria and her army would attack, but he knew it would be today. To that end, he and Carlisle had chosen to assemble everyone two days early at the location Alice had foreseen in order to explore its possibilities and to strategize their defense. While it was no inconvenience for the few Cullens to stay near the meadow for hours, or even days on end, it was more difficult for the wolves. They needed sleep and water and food, and even though Jacob had insisted they could make do in their wolf iterations, Edward was keenly aware that this was not a universally held feeling. In addition, he was the only one who could communicate fully with them in their shifted forms, and he had neither the time nor the patience to serve as translator between them and his family when he already felt pulled in so many directions at once.

It was Emmett who had helpfully suggested finally making use of all the camping gear the Cullens had amassed over the years, setting up tents, coolers, and cookers for the Quileutes to use. Though well intentioned, the gesture was also not entirely well received. The younger wolves were more tractable, the older ones less so.

Leah, the only female member of the pack, frequently decorated her silent and Cullen-related phrasing with colourful obscenities.

Edward did not mind, largely because he didn't really care.

It felt as if half of him had been wrenched away at the dark runway where he'd parted from Bella just under a week ago, and it was a sensation he'd promised himself to never have to endure again. Bella was as eternal as he was now, and yet here they were, separated again. Not that he had a functional heart, but if he did have one, it would have missed half its beats, its supporting anatomy half a world away.

He would be whole again, he told himself, and so would his family. He promised himself this. He promised Bella this as well as he waited in the shade at his appointed station. She was strong, he reminded himself, and she would have allies in Alice and Jasper, as much as they could be allies in that poisonous place. He had taught her as much as he could in the short time he'd had, provided her with every scrap of knowledge he had gleaned from the minds of the Volturi members, and they had discussed ways to prepare for as many contingencies as he could imagine. Although his worst fear had been confirmed by the message she had sent, he had felt little surprise. Her coded words had been enough to calm him for the present, knowing that she was not in immediate danger. Now all that remained was to have faith—in her and in himself. Bella was not the defenseless human girl she had been when she'd last been in Volterra. She wasn't alone either, he reminded himself again. Besides her family members, she had some friends there, if she was able to connect with them.

They would all find a way to extricate themselves from the nest of Volturi business. This was a certainty.

Now he just had to find a way to eliminate the complication that Victoria had become from their present circumstances. It was the morning of day two, and the wolves' tempers were growing short. His kind could seemingly wait forever, frozen in stillness if necessary, but for the Quileutes, the waiting was a struggle. At least, he consoled himself, their impatience was silent to all but him. They maintained an outward display of calm. They didn't think it would do to look testy to their allies.

Reluctant allies, but allies nonetheless, Edward thought. Although Jacob's loyalty could not be stronger, this feeling seemed thinly spread amongst his packmates. They stayed because not to do so would endanger the lives of all human inhabitants nearby. Even so, the pack bonds were clearly strained. Edward could hear in Jacob's thoughts that it was particularly difficult for him to obey Sam's orders. Despite his young age, Jacob's birthright was showing.

The meadow was unique for several reasons: it was remote and unobservable by humans from the ground or air. It was also one of a very few breaks in the trees in a thick band of greenery that stretched from west to east along the peninsula. No roads traversed the direct path, and no airplanes flew overhead. This was a natural travelling path for a band of skittish newborn vampires led by a clever strategist. It was also highly defensible, a feature for which Edward gave silent thanks again. The numbers that Bella had relayed through Chelsea were startling: an army of twenty newborns, give or take, and Victoria controlling them all.

Each of the Cullens and the wolves was located at a precise point now, every one chosen for sightline, cover, and height. They'd surveyed the area carefully, grateful for the rain that had washed away their tracks and scents before they finally set up camp. With the prevailing winds in their favour, they would have the advantage of surprise.

This will work, Edward told himself. It must.

A twig snapped.

Positioned at the head of the natural bend that funneled into the meadow, Edward became a statue, intent on listening with all his senses. Nothing yet.

Further away, a wind-rattled leaf brushed against a piece of fabric. Beyond that unmeasured point, a flock of starlings swept into the air, their swarming murmuration undulating in a low swirling pattern and then shattering briefly.

Unfamiliar and violent thoughts assailed Edward next. He lifted his hand high above his head, signalling Emmett behind him, who would raise the next signal, and the next person, the next.

Twelve wolves and five vampires. This against twenty newborns and Victoria. God knew what else was coming their way.

He'd never wanted Jasper at his side more.

- 0 -

The stack of books that Jasper had assembled for Bella was, well, tall. Imposing. She knew her mind was up to the challenge, but gosh . . . her human insecurities flared up quickly. Would she be able to use all that information as Jasper expected?

"May I suggest another text as well?" Marcus the Lesser stood a respectful distance away.

She wondered, not for the first time, about the scope of knowledge that Marcus must possess—that all the librarians must possess. Given her own ability to read at previously incomprehensible speeds, she could only imagine the centuries of accumulated knowledge and wisdom housed in the brains of Marcus and his compatriots.

"Yes, please." The rest of the Volturi guard might condescend to Marcus and his other colleagues, but she would not make that mistake.

It was a slender book that he quietly placed on the table beside her, slipping away before she had a chance to make eye contact.

"Thank you," she said softly.

If Marcus replied, she missed the silent gesture, the swish of his robe already lost with others in the stacks around her. She'd chosen to read where Jasper had left the books, at the penultimate level of the library, where the sounds of the training room, as Erastus had referred to it, did not easily reach her.

"God," she muttered to herself. Some things were better left unknown.

She had already skimmed through two of the books Jasper had left. And goodness, if the man didn't pick some of the driest material ever. It was informative, she supposed, but if she had retained the capacity to sleep, the books would have easily ensured her slumber.

The slim volume to her left was bound in fine leather and appeared to be very, very old. The smell of the text only confirmed what her sight had surmised. There were hints of oak and iron in the ink, and the paper was not paper, but parchment. Exceptionally old.

Turning the cover gently, Bella read the title: Annals. Below this in tidy script was what she presumed was a name: Didyme. She flipped further, dates and notes in . . . Italian? She tilted her head sideways, as if this would untangle some of the unfamiliar words. Etruscan perhaps?

Bella's gaze swept the space around her and she realized that she was alone on the library level. Why had Marcus given her this? It appeared to be a historical record and probably had nothing to do with war, battle strategy, or any of the other topics related to the readings Jasper had given her.

Lips still turned downwards, Bella looked again at the page, knitting together the phrases she knew and her best guesses at the ones she didn't into a rough understanding of the words before her: "I, Didyme, set down my record of the Volturi succession and the routing of the Croats."

Didyme? The name was vaguely familiar. And who the heck were the Croats?

She kept reading. The terse prose was rich with information. The bare facts of the Volturi's violent history were laid out for Bella to read. How they'd battled the Croats—whoever they were—and how they'd infiltrated the castle.

The building was much older than Bella had ever suspected. Her prior wanderings in the city had exposed her to the regular tourist guff which gave the city's originating date as the 8th century. This text was older by at least one century, and it recalled events even farther back.

If the record before her was accurate, and Bella did not doubt that it was, the Volturi had taken the castle from the vampires that had ruled before them, coming through not the sewers, but something called hypocaust chambers that ran beneath the lowest floors. She checked the word again. No, she hadn't misread it. She racked her brain, trying to remember what she'd learned about Roman architecture. Weren't those tunnels heated with bonfires or something? Visions of flaming vampires emerging from the floors didn't add up. There was no way she was reading this correctly. But maybe the hypocaust chambers had not been lit? She frowned, trying to puzzle out more of the words.

A short trip to the closest computer confirmed her views. No. The chambers were fitted with hot air pipes then—not firepits. Huh. Apparently, the former vampire inhabitants had made use of the most sophisticated of human building techniques. Interesting.

Didyme had left a helpful, hand-drawn map noting the location of these subterranean passages. In her mind, Bella connected what was in front of her with what Edward had shown her in the diagrams he had drawn for her to memorize.

The terse notes went on, spanning several decades in concise and increasingly detailed notes. Didyme had been Marcus' mate, she now remembered Edward telling her. But what had happened to her? She hadn't asked Edward. Frowning, she recalled what he had told her about each of the guard and the Volturi leaders. He hadn't said anything about the fate of Marcus's mate—beyond the fact that she was long dead.

The records stopped abruptly, an entry noting the discussion of new measures for investigating the existence of an uncontrolled and immortal child—whatever that was—and then nothing.

"What happened to you?" she wondered aloud. She listened to the words echo gently back to her, bouncing off the stone walls. Closing the book, she considered Marcus the Lesser's strange addition to Jasper's collection of texts. She trusted Marcus, though, and if he felt this text had something to offer her, she would not discount his opinion.

- 0 -

Edward yanked off the newborn's arm before the hand on its end could do more damage to Seth. The creature hissed, but with its hold broken, it turned to launch itself at Edward. It never got the chance, Seth's teeth crunching closed around its neck, the head neatly spat out on the grass.

Flicking on the lighter as soon as it was free of his pocket, Edward dropped the flame and fuel onto the creature's head, pushing the remainder of the corpse on top of it. He only caught the next brief thought, followed by a flicker of movement as it was nearly on him, Seth shoving the next newborn—a woman—out of his way.

Edward scanned the field for more adversaries, taking in the battles each of his family members and their wolf allies were engaged in. Scattered, smoldering piles throughout the field were evidence of the strength of their coalition with the wolves, and all were holding their own. As Seth pinned the newest assailant, Edward twisted off the head, trying not to flinch as long brunette hair was caught by the breeze.

She's fine, he told himself. She would continue to be fine. Any other outcome was unacceptable.

The whoosh of flames and smoke obscured his vision slightly, and he jumped out of its path, looking to see what other attackers were coming his way.

There weren't any.

They're running! Edward heard the thought in Seth's head.

"I know," he told him. He strained his mind, trying to catch with his gift the jumbled thoughts of the fleeing vampires.

Edward ran, too.

"At least five are heading west," he said over his shoulder to Carlisle. They were just over a half mile from the main field of battle now, and the wolves had remained behind, as agreed.

"Don't follow them!" Carlisle called back, yanking at a male vampire's hair, pulling him off of Esme and efficiently decapitating him while she dealt with the second of the two newborns who had teamed up on her.

As he indexed the faces in the minds of his family and allies, Edward knew that the one he wanted to see dead had not made her presence known. He caught the briefest flash of Victoria's mind before the impression was gone again. "She's with them," he said, not continuing on but turning back towards the battlefield, conscious of where he was and striving to stay out of reach of the wolves' influence on Alice's vision. She needed to see this.

"If we go after her, we could be running into a trap," Carlisle replied. His words were urgent, but his tone was not. He directed his next thought silently to Edward. Are we far enough away?

"If we don't go after her, we won't get her." Edward eyed Carlisle meaningfully, and the two of them nodded at each other. Of course, Carlisle was right. It could be a trap, and without Alice, there was no way but the riskiest to know. Edward wondered how much of all this Alice was seeing, but he did not wonder that she was seeing it. Aro would want to know what the outcome of his brutal bargain was. Edward planned to oblige him.

The handful of Victoria's cohorts that remained were fighting their most desperate battles. Visibly outnumbered, their panic was palpable, and the scent of their odiferous venom filled the air as they hissed and snarled. Their skirmishes were short though.

Carlisle had turned back suddenly and was trying to offer quarter to what looked to be a young girl. It wasn't going well—Edward could hear nothing but incoherence and rabid fear from her—and when she turned to lunge at Esme, it was over.

The sickly stench of thick smoke was everywhere, clinging to their clothes, their hair, the trees. Any vampire that came near here would know what had happened for weeks to come. It would take months of rain to wash the smell from the trees.

Edward faced the treeline and made a show of watching for more attackers. His senses and gift told him there were none. The few living remnants of Victoria's army were long gone to the east, the greater part of her force stuck to the trees as gritty ash. She would meet her end eventually but not today—and not at his hand.

No, he'd had his fill of Victoria. He was done playing her games. He was done playing anyone else's game. He thought ruefully about the mess that Victoria might make in the nearby cities and towns and how much press such deaths had already attracted. The Cullens' "failure" today would draw Aro's attention—Edward would make sure of it. And then he smiled to himself, knowing who would be dispatched to finish the job. Yes, he was done with Victoria. It was the Volturi's turn to deal with her.

And it was his turn to deal with the Volturi.


DISCLAIMER: S. Meyer owns Twilight. No copyright infringement intended.