Playlist:

The Truth Beneath The Rose – Within Temptation

The Leaving Song Pt. II – AFI

Salem Girls – Big D and the Kids Table

Rockabye – Clean Bandit, Sean Paul, Anne- Marie

It's Not a Fashion Statement, It's a Deathwish – My Chemical Romance

Jar of Hearts – Christina Perri

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the words. Stephanie Meyer owns the Twilight series, and the songs belong to their respective people.

*HARD R*

*TRIGGER WARNINGS*

The Truth Beneath the Rose

Edward couldn't bear this. He felt like dread had glued his feet to the floor. There was no jealousy towards the younger echoes, only an incredible grief at what his Bella had lost, her first love. He was distracted from his grief by the distant sound of a scream from outside the Arena. When he opened his eyes, he could only see the horrified faces of his family and the Fae people as they looked behind him, past the pillars of the throne room. Bella was gone from her throne.

He turned.

From outside the cavern, the dark clouds had concealed the approach of a malevolent force that Edward didn't have the words to describe. It was a great void of...of...Darkness; a surreal shadow. It was curling into Camp, climbing across the walls and consuming the distant cavern floor. Great tentacles of shadow spread into the city like ink spilled across paper. The darkness did no physical damage to houses or shops, but the scream had come from a soldier near the cavern entrance who had been stationed in the shadows' path. As soon as the darkness had touched the man, he screamed in agony; he had died with his face still twisted in fear and pain.

Bella stood at the far edge of the throne room platform between the shadow and her people, shaking her head as though to clear it from a trance. The darkness was only a few yards from the furthest platform of the Arena when Bella threw up her hands. A massive golden shield of light burst from the pentagram, expanding outward quickly. Where it touched the inky shadows, they were burned; they hissed and writhed to get away from the light.

The shield encompassed the whole of the Arena, but Bella couldn't shield the whole cavern for more than a few moments at a time. When she tried, the shield would shudder and flash and fail. Bella would have to cast it again, leaving the citizens in the Arena vulnerable for moments that seemed longer than they were.

Edward turned back to face the Castle and his family. Marcos was already rushing to pull his soldiers back towards the Arena, bringing as many citizens to safety as he could. Kaedra darted through the panicked crowds, pulling anyone who fell down back to their feet and going after the stragglers. Soldiers banged on any closed doors in their path, shepherding families to safety. The alarms were muffled in Edward's ears from the throne room platform.

Rosalie scrambled to reach the boundary between Bella's shield and the shadow with Lily in her arms, only making it to safety because Nhamo appeared out of nowhere to pull Rose closer to the gap. Lily's mother ran up to the child in Rosalie's arms, starting to sob as she embraced all three of them.

Bella paced on the other extreme of the spherical shield, baring her teeth at the thickest point of the darkness. Inside the shadow, at its source, Edward could barely make out something. Whatever it was, shadow or man, it had its black eyes fixed on Bella.

The last of Camp's citizens were brought to safety in the packed Arena.

Bella turned to look at Edward, and he searched for her eyes, wanting to know if she was okay. When he saw her face, he flinched. The aura-overflow of tears was back, and this time they were molten gold.

Bella's aura magicks—she must be using them to power the shield.

Bella's thoughts were still too far from his telepathic senses, but when Edward focused, he could hear the cast for the shield running just underneath Bella's surface thoughts.

...The darkness is here...I can't stop the echo-cast, it's all tangled with the protective shield! No. No, I don't want to remember!...

Between Edward and Bella, the glitches shimmered into existence over the pentagram. The flashes began: moonless night, the three royals in a circle, hands clasped and chanting; the same shadow encompassing Camp rose from Shannara's grimoire.

The shadow of the Master floated above the circle where the panicked royals stood, dark smoke and monstrous black eyes swirling menacingly. In the echo, the ground began to shake, every star blacked out by the smoke.

Fiore shouted over the wind, "He can't harm us if we maintain the circle. We have to send him back!"

The Leaving Song Pt. II

The shadow in the cavern was growing closer, and Bella was forced to surrender more ground to it. The golden shield of light withdrew completely from Camp proper, becoming a smooth sphere around the Arena that barely contained the chaos of the hasty evacuation. The shadows immediately consumed the city that Edward called home.

Bella paced at the edge of the shield, light and dark warring in her eyes as it now did in Camp. She was trying and failing to block out the glitch still being thrown by the pentagram from her thoughts; she snarled at the source of the shadows and darkness.

In the echoes, the smoke whispered to the three lovers in their protective circle, trying to encourage them to break away from each other, playing on their fears and jealousies, every little insecurity. Fiore and Adeline began to scream, and echo-Bella's form shook silently, her brow furrowed and her hands clenching into her lovers' so hard that her fingernails began to draw blood.

Fiore's body jerked, almost ripping him free of Addy and Bella's grasp. Bella's nails scratched his hand deeply, and more blood slickened her grip. A crevasse cracked through the grass in the field where the royals stood, their bodies levitating in the air above the never-ending black.

In the echo, Fiore suddenly released both Bella and Adeline, falling into the pit below. They both scrambled to follow him without letting go of one another.

His Bella'sform convulsed even outside the echo, curling up on the marble floor with her head bent over her knees as the echo was consumed in shadow. There was no hint of gold in her eyes for a long moment.

The words were sing-song, threateningly playful. Bella's mouth twisted into an empty smile around them as they echoed in the tense silence. Black eyes regarded Edward menacingly from her face; they looked at him across the pentagram as the throne platform began to shake, but they were not Bella's eyes. She wasn't there, wasn't the one looking back at him.

I know of witches who whistle at different pitches,

Calling things that don't have names...

The echoes' dim light extinguished completely; the throne room was tinged in the dark. Even the power of the elemental pentagram flashed and dimmed.

Edward could distantly hear Marcos calling for his soldiers to form a protective circle of their own around the Arena. The inky darkness spilling into the cavern spiked towards Bella in a mass of swirling smoke that was only held back by the shield when Emmett raced to complete the ring of soldiers who strengthened it. The golden shield that protected them all from the malicious shadow in the cavern shuddered, becoming tinted by the aura colors of every soldier in Camp.

The long moment finally broke.

Bella's eyes flooded a fierce gold, black poison suddenly pushed from her eyes and making tracks on her face. The echoes flashed back into being, light from the pentagram that brought the horrific images back into being but that were less frightening than the present-day shadow.

The shield held.

The new glitch showed the two girls cowering away from their male lover, who's eyes were now black holes of void. Tears of nighttime blue dripped down Fiore's cheeks, all that remained of who he was. His body was levitating above the rapidly closing crevasse; the Master adjusting to his new form.

Edward couldn't take this, not for one more second.

He rushed across the pentagram, careful to stay on the steel edges of the symbol on the floor. The heat waves from the Fire symbol burned against his skin; the swirling purple galaxy of Spirit called silently for him to look at it, even just for a moment. Edward kept his eyes front, focused on his lover. He made it to the edge between shadows and light to hold his Bella close to him, wishing the venom tears in his eyes could fall.

But Bella didn't register him; she was too far gone, consumed by the horrific memory that was the end of her world. He helped her stand and she pushed free of him, fixing her glittering eyes on the mass of shadow and snarling as she pushed the golden shield further out from the circle of soldiers, burning the darkness. Another ghostly shriek hissed through the air.

Edward took a bracing breath. He was afraid. He was afraid for the citizens of Camp, for his family, for Bella. But as he watched her pace on the edge of the throne platform, Edward realized the only truth that mattered: He wasn't afraid of Bella.

Her mental presence hummed in his mind, and if Edward was afraid of anything, it was that he would lose her. Even in the tornado of thought that was scattering Bella's overworking mind, he could sense the single quiet thought she directed at him.

...Don't be afraid...

Edward had a private glitch of his own in response- a memory that flashed in his mind's eye. For a second, Edward felt the cool of fog against his skin. He was in a quiet green forest in Forks, Washington, watching an enchanting girl shiver in the cold through her thick jacket and speak to him as though he were more than a monster.

"Are you afraid?"

"No."

Edward Cullen reached for Isabella Swan.

Salem Girls

Edward took his Bella's hand, and her furious pacing stopped. She ripped her eyes from the shadowy mass at the faraway center of the inky darkness, looking at her hand in his like the sight of their interlacing fingers was alien to her. When she finally met his eyes, there was shocked awe and affectionate wonder rippling through pools of gold. Edward disregarded the echoes, choosing to focus on his Bella instead.

She was here, now. She was alive, and she loved him.

Slowly, his Bella closed her eyes. The echoes flashed on and on, and she released him to put her hands over her ears. He tucked her into his chest, his cheek resting against her hair. He could not have stopped his whispered chant: a continuous muttering of nonsensical comfort. "Hush, love. It'll be okay. You're here now. You're alive, and I love you. You're here now..."

He wasn't sure if the words were for Bella or himself as he forced himself to keep his eyes on the glitch.

Her torture was beginning. The Master was quick to gather his followers; Tomas and Demetri took all they could from Adeline and Bella. The brutality was incomprehensible; all the men's focus was on tearing the two girls apart from the inside out.

Every time the glitch flashed or there was a break in the torture they endured, echo-Bella would heal Adeline of her physical wounds, clutching her close and protecting her when she could. The Master used her love for the red-haired girl as a sick manipulative tool, forcing Bella to do horrible things to keep Adeline alive.

Tomas began to experiment with different drugs: Bella was restrained on a hard table and injected over and over again. The Master's black eyes gleamed at her from where he stood across the room; Bella screamed, fighting the pull of chains to scratch at her neon-blue eyes. The shadow that filled the cavern swirled in the room, trying and failing to meld with Bella's skin. Where the shadow tried to touch her, bruises formed in the shape of hands and teeth. She escaped the Master's grasp only to agonize through withdrawal in a filthy and barren cell with Adeline by her side.

Tomas came on his own once a day. He would bring two prisoners with him and eat dinner while telling the two girls about the prisoners' lives. After he ate, he would offer them the only food provided to them, striking sadistic trades for it. He would give Bella a cigarette and talk with her. Then, he would set a timer next to him on the small table; Bella was to choose who would die before it ran out.

Bella was clever, finding loopholes in his reasoning and tricking Tomas into admitting the prisoners did not deserve their fate; sometimes she ignored him completely, choosing to comfort her condemned citizens instead. It just made her tormentor angry, and Tomas would kill both of the prisoners early. In the end, Bella refused to choose every time.

Over time, Tomas grew more consumed with his desire to make Bella choose. His dark obsession grew, and as it did his sick games became more cruel and cunning. Tomas began to fancy himself in love with Isabella, and he would arrange secret visits to their cell- "dates" where he would restrain Adeline so that he could assault Bella violently.

Demetri's approach was different. He took pleasure in forcing the girls into more and more depraved scenarios, pitting them against impossible odds and powerful Dark magick. He was visibly excited every time he tortured them with pleasure and pain regardless of their consent, bringing them to their limits and far past them. He used them like toys for his entertainment, often doing too much damage as he tried to see how far he could push them before they broke. The Master's black eyes gleamed with anger when a healer had to be called to treat Adeline and Bella so that they would live through their wounds. Demetri was completely driven by his obsession with the two girls from the class below him, but Bella never gave in to him; she never gave up her defiant attitude no matter how bad it got.

The young man was sick, tortured by his own guilt at what he was doing. He was often nonsensical, and his eyes flashed black with the Master's mental coercion more often as time went on. Adeline would beg him to stop, and sometimes he would; he would abandon the room suddenly.

He and Bella had a strange sort of understanding with one another, but that small connection shattered in one of the only clear echoes of Bella's time with Demetri:

They were in a dark forest on the edge of a cemetery. Bella was dirty and thin, shaking with exhaustion; she was affixed to a tree with a thick wire wrapped around her chained wrists. Her back looked like so much raw meat, and in places Edward could see viscera and bone. The fresh lashes bled heavily, and Edward didn't understand how Bella was still conscious, let alone lucid.

Bella's eyes were golden fire, and the ghosts of the chains that bound her to the tree were glowing white-hot. Her voice shimmered with her rage, lavishing heat waves into the air around her.

"I want you to understand me, Demetri." Echo-Bella's eyes were starting to bleed golden as her aura overflowed—a physical manifestation of the amount of power she was pouring into breaking her bonds. "I want you to understand that if you do this to her, if you allow this to happen, I will never forgive you. You will never be absolved, Demetri. Not by me. Do you understand? I will eradicate you like a plague upon this earth."

Demetri shuddered. He drew close to where Bella had stretched her chains taut and kissed her cheek.

"I know. That's why I have to do it. Master says monsters don't cry."

Always hovering above the echoing scenes hung a pair of black eyes, watching them scream and grinning wickedly, wearing Fiore's face.

Rockabye

The glitches began to slow to real time. Echo-Bella was being laid down in a pitiful nest of blankets in the corner of the cell carefully, by a much leaner Adeline. Starvation was starting to make the girls' faces go sallow and gaunt.

Echo-Bella was obviously feverish and ill, and the lashes on her back still bled slowly around the foul infection that consumed them. A dark-skinned Indian woman knelt on the other side of the bars from Bella, very pregnant and dabbing at Bella's brow with a damp scrap of Adeline's t-shirt through the bars that separated the cells. She hummed a lullaby to Bella softly.

Her echo seemed familiar somehow, but Edward couldn't place her face.

The Master entered the woman's cell with Tomas and Demetri. They grabbed the woman and hauled her to her feet as Bella whimpered protests. Adeline struck out weakly at Tomas and kicked him ineffectively in the calf.

The woman was strapped to a table in the center of the dungeon, and the Master turned to the two girls who had been Fiore's lovers. Motioning to the pregnant woman, he spoke to Bella in a muffled voice, materializing a small dagger from thin-air and extending it towards where Echo-Bella shook in Adeline's arms. The door to their cell swung open, and Demetri grabbed Adeline, cruelly twisting the girl's arm behind her back. Tomas threw Bella to the floor in front of the Master face-down, and the Master handed her the knife.

Flashes of blood and screaming consumed the image.

Then, the pregnant woman was clutching her child: a baby girl and singing the lullaby to her. She handed her to a bloodstained Bella with a whispered request for the child's safety. Echo-Bella nodded seriously, promising she would do all she was able. The woman died; a peaceful smile was on her face as she took in the image of the child she would leave behind, cradled between Bella and Adeline's thin forms.

From the crowd of Fae in the Arena, Edward heard Josephat cry out in pain. When he looked to find the healer, tears were streaming down Josephat's face. The pregnant woman had been his Chosen.

The child grew in quick flashes of the dungeon: Adeline and Bella protected her, enduring ever more brutality to keep the child safe and fed. The tone of the flashes changed slightly: Adeline was spending more time alone in their cell, cradling the weeks-old infant in her embrace and singing the lullaby until she was hoarse; Bella snuck around the castle that was their prison whenever she was lucid enough to do so.

Eventually the flashes resolved into a solid scene: Bella was handing the tiny child to a cloaked man in the courtyard of the castle, her dirty hair blowing in her face as she looked back to search for Adeline. When her lover failed to show, Bella kissed the infant on the forehead with a starburst of golden magicks and whispered urgently to the guard she had found for the child. He nodded.

She took one last bracing inhale, taking a moment to look at the stars above her. Then, she turned and went back through the tunnel she had come from. She turned from her last chance at freedom; she chose to return to hell to be with Adeline.

It's Not a Fashion Statement, It's a Deathwish

His Bella still tangled her fingers with his as she paced with the faraway mass of shadow, matching its every step from the other side of the glowing barrier. She stopped directly in front of the shadow, guarding Edward fiercely.

When the echo-Bella turned to return to her cell, Edward reacted with a fierce growl and clutched at Bella's hip possessively. He let his face turn vampiric and predatory as he tightened his grip, glaring past Bella at the threatening mass of voided black. His rage and determination were icy and cold, settling to live eternally in his bones. He was glad Bella could not hear the vicious and violent thoughts he threw at the shadow of the Master.

She is here, now. She will never return to your prison again. Not ever. I will never let you touch my Bella. I am Vampyr. Bella is here, now. She loves me. You will not take her from me. You are a threat to my mate, and for that I make this oath: While we both exist, you will be my prey.

Behind where Bella and Edward stood, the light flickered into more memory echoes.

Echo-Bella was set upon by Tomas and Demetri as soon as she re-entered the castle through a small opening in an unused cell. She was taken to an open room half-filled with a fiery pyre. In front of the simmering pyre was a stone altar; the dagger from the girl-child's violent birth had been thrust into the stone. Adeline was bound, helpless on the floor in front of the altar.

Bella panicked, struggling against the two men's hold on her; she was too weak to stand, much less fight. They dragged her to a pole in front of the pyre, strapping her arms behind her back as the Master picked up a white-hot brand.

As the Master pressed the brand into Bella's shoulder, the images strobed, showing the dagger from the altar moving telekinetically in slow-motion, its path growing ever closer to Adeline before the already bloodied dagger struck her directly in the heart.

Both echo-Bella and the real one in the throne room screamed loud and long: despairing, rage-filled, devastated.

Echo-Bella snapped her bindings, rushing to the quickly dying Adeline's side before the evil men in the room could stop her. She was engulfed in her grief as a portal opened in their prison, not even noticing the tear in the skin of the world that flew to consume the two shattered girls.

Bella and Adeline appeared in the mortal square in Phoenix. Adeline's hand caressed Bella's face a final time before her body went limp, eyes closing. Echo-Bella screamed, shattering every window in the square with her pain as her lover took her last breath.

Jar of Hearts

Bella raced to protect this world that felt more real than the eons of darkness and death. The shadow that coalesced in the cavern also coalesced in her mindscape. In Bella's mind, the darkness she had wandered through for an endless time stretched and came to a point. At the point where the darkness had once tried to consume the starburst of light, there stood a shadow of a man.

Bella felt her voice shimmer out from her without speaking; idly, she wondered if Edward could hear her here. She kept her mental voice cool and unaffected.

"Master."

"Issabella. Impertinent as always."

"Did you expect me to bow? I see no throne in this room for you. Leave. Now. You are not welcome here."

"You will bow, soon enough."

"I don't think so."

"Not even if I look like this?"

When the shadow of a man stepped forward, it wore Edward's face. Bella giggled at the ridiculousness of the disguise. She could see right through him in an instant.

"You can take his image all you want, Master. You will never be him."

"I will be you."

"No. You're a liar. You may wear me like some sick coat, but you won't be me. Not now, not ever. Edward will know the difference. He sees me."

A new voice broke into the in-between plane that held Bella's mind and the Master's. Bella couldn't hold back her proud, triumphant grin as Edward appeared in the blankness between her and the Master, an echo that dripped in his crimson aura.

"She is here, now. She will never return to your prison again. Not ever. I will never let you touch my Bella. I am Vampyr. Bella is here, now. She loves me. You will not take her from me. You are a threat to my mate, and for that I make this oath: While we both exist, you will be my prey."

Master-Edward's black eyes gleamed violently, and he snarled. "Tell me, Isabella, how sure are you that those abominations truly see you?"

Bella lost her focus on the Master as the echoes shimmered and died. Her magicks were reaching even her limits; she could feel her aura beginning to overflow. She couldn't hold the mental connection, and the Master laughed cruelly as he stretched out of her perception.

The sound was infuriating.

As Bella returned to reality, she struck out at the darkness in the cavern with fire. She obliterated the weak physical trails of the Master's presence as she remembered what was real- what was precious and loved.

Edward Cullen. Her family. The Fae.

Bella collapsed, and Edward caught her before her knees cracked against the floor. Bella turned into Edward's grip, pressing him onto the floor of the throne platform to shield him from the fiery blast that consumed the darkness in the Cavern. The shadow shrieked and dissipated, leaving Camp unharmed.

She would not fall, today.