A/N: This update was much sooner than you'd expect huh? My muse has been running pretty high lately. I hope you enjoy the longer chapter, hopefully it sheds some light on a few of the important families around. See you at the bottom!
Summary: Bella Swan is suddenly teleported to the Bronze Age through a mysterious portal where she's suddenly accused of murder. There's a mysterious man helping her and it turns out he's the queen's son, heir to the throne! Join Bella in her quest to prove her innocence, and more importantly, to return home before it's too late.
Rating: M (For several reasons, enough said.)
Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, it belongs to SM. What does belong to me though is this plot and any original characters that I add in there. I repeat: I make no profit off of this.
CHAPTER TWELVE: THE DENALI MARKET (PART ONE)
The journey was long and hot, which Bella was alright with except for the fact that riding a horse was not as comfortable as they made it seem in movies. She felt like her legs were splitting in two because of how big the animal was plus she could feel every single bump in the road. Oh how she missed the wonderful electric cars back home.
"Up ahead is the Denali Market, their town is up ahead but we'll be staying at the market briefly for supplies. I imagine you'd want to take a break from the horse ride," Bella heard Edward say from up ahead.
The formation they were currently in made her feel quite uncomfortable. Bella had never been to a concert, so she wasn't used to seeing crowds of people except for at school but having 500 archers and 400 foot soldiers behind them was a bit overwhelming. Their march seemed strong and every time Bella looked back they were all taking the same footsteps with the same expression. Edward was leading the group with Jasper, Bella was behind him with Alice who had tagged along with 3 foot soldiers and 2 archers following them for safety. The large army however was behind them and they weren't the quietest people to have around.
"Yeah thanks," Bella mumbled.
She really needed to get off this horse and stretch her legs, she could barely stand the darn thing walking… imagine it galloping. Bella figured she should probably get training in stuff like thing before squishing that thought immediately, she didn't want to learn anything from this era… she was supposed to be finding a way back home but how was that supposed to happen if she didn't even know how she got here in the first place? This whole situation was giving her a headache.
"Bella are you alright?" Alice asked.
The poor girl had bags under her eyes but Bella was too afraid to ask why. Alice was too charming for her own good, leaving would break her heart. She already didn't want to separate from Edward and Alice but the thought of her father and Jacob worrying about her was making her feel guilty.
Jacob… Bella hadn't thought about her boyfriend for some time. A twinge of guilt fluttered through her chest and clustered around her throat. So much was happening so fast lately but that didn't mean she couldn't think about her dear Jacob. How was he? Did he miss her? Was he still acting like a sick puppy in her room? Another twinge of guilt. Damn it, she should just focus on the situation at hand.
Her father had always mentioned that if she found herself in a situation that was unusual she should try to adapt and blend in. Perhaps that was needed here. She wasn't planning on staying but perhaps she could understand the world she was now in so that life here wouldn't be too bad. Exactly, that's what she was going to do.
"Alice," Bella called out, "this place is called the Denali Market does that mean it's being governed by the Denali family or something?"
Alice's eyes brightened up, she had felt as though Bella was avoiding her for some reason but apparently that wasn't true. She cleared her throat as though getting ready for a lengthy explanation.
"Yes!" She exclaimed before motioning to the sand dunes around us, "The Denali family have been friends of ours for the longest time despite their reputation. Their leader, Lady Carman and Sir Eleazar Denali belonged to opposing kingdoms at first. To be honest, Eleazar used to belong to the Volturi family before he eloped with Carmen from the Hilda family and they both formed the Denali Family."
Bella nodded throughout the background story. This was going to be a lot to take in, she wished for pen and paper to take notes as though she were in history class.
"When the Denali Family was formed, many people were opposed to it especially the Volturis and the Hilda's because they were mortal enemies. A lot of people tried to tear them apart and destroy what they created but Carlisle decided to take their side and formed an alliance with them. The Volturis became super angry because at the time their military strength was much smaller than ours so they decided to try and take revenge by killing all of the members of the Hilda family. Aro, the Volturi King, thought it would drive them apart by making Carmen despise Eleazar for what happened but it only brought them closer. We've been their allies ever since."
Bella blinked. Once. Then twice. What a story! That could have been taken straight from a movie, when she got back to her own world Bella would make a movie out of this and make a lot of money.
"So who's Victoria. I guess she belongs to the Volturi family so she's Aro and…"
"Sulpicia, that's Aro's wife and Queen of the Volturi family," Alice filled in for her before continuing, "Actually a lot of people think Aro had an affair and that Victoria is actually another woman's child that Aro decided to pass of as Sulpicia. That's what this trial is about. Sulpicia ordered Victoria to lead troops and if she was successful, she would recognize Victoria as her daughter."
"What?" Bella hissed, she couldn't understand how one plus one equaled two in this situation, "how does that make sense? If Victoria wins then she's the child of Sulpicia and if she loses then she isn't?"
"Well yes. According to Sulpicia, no child of hers whether male or female would lose a battle such as this," Alice sighed and shook her head, "she's setting her daughter up for failure though. Alec has never won a war against us before so how could Victoria win? That's why Carlisle sent us with such a small army."
This army was small? Holy crap!
"How big is the army usually?" Bella asked, almost afraid of the answer.
"Twenty thousand or more really, it depends on the cause."
Bella tried to wrap her mind around that. How could one prince control an army that size? There was bound to be miscommunication with people delivering messages throughout the army. She tried to drop the thought for a moment.
"So you said Alec, who is Alec? Their son?"
Alice gasped, as if realizing her mistake before grinning, "Yes Alec is their son. He has a twin sister named Jane and they honestly look nothing alike. It's pretty rare to have twins that are female and male, they're usually the same."
Wow this family had a lot of children. Coming from a family where she was the only child, Bella was shocked to see these people with their four or five children.
"Do they have any more kids?" Bella probably wouldn't remember them but it wouldn't hurt to hear it.
"Yes yes, there's Alec and Jane the youngest along with Demetri and Felix who are the oldest. Too bad they're all evil rats otherwise I would have snagged Alec for myself, he's so handsome," Alice wiggled her hips in a teasing manner with a face full of naughtiness.
Edward was the one to interrupt, "last time I check, Alec was bedding his sister Jane. Sorry Alice but I doubt you could intervene between their twin kinship. Besides, I doubt you'd want to be with someone who partakes in incestuous relations. I bet Aro and Sulpicia are siblings and we just don't know it."
Alice's smile seemed to die down whether in disappointment or something else, Bella couldn't really tell. Feeling as though the history lesson was over, Bella looked away from Alice and towards the market that they had no arrived at. She missed when Alice looked towards Jasper and missed the way Jasper seemed to avoid her eyes.
Getting off the horse was the most anticipated part of this entire trip. Edward seemed to hop off the horse and landing on the sand with a dull thud. He proceeded to go over to Bella's horse and help her off hers, it was much too tall and she wasn't used to it yet.
"Commoners, they don't even know how to properly handle a horse," he sighed as though in disappointment while walking beside her towards the vendors.
"I'll have you know that where I come from, horses are everywhere you just have to find one. Besides, who uses horses anymore?" She huffed, despite knowing Edward was joking but being poked at and made fun of wasn't always nice.
"What do you mean? Everyone uses horses. Also, now that you mention it, Alice and I could never figure it out where do you come from? You mentioned a Washington but I don't remember such a place, which kingdom does it belong to?"
Bella could have figuratively gulped like in those cartoons when the characters were in a sticky situation.
"Washington is very far from here," she simply replied knowing he was going to ask more.
Edward opened his mouth as though to answer before one of the guards appeared and passed him a message. He opened it, angry about the interruption before sighing. Jasper was calling a strategy meeting.
"Here, take this. Buy as much as you want, there's enough there to probably buy a house here but I would advise against getting one, we'll be leaving sometime soon."
He dropped a sack that jingled in the palm of her hand before walking off. Bella curiously opened the little thing and there were many gold coins but after looking around for a bit, she noticed that people seemed to be trading with a coin with much less color… perhaps copper?
Alice appeared next to her and before she could begin talking about something Bella didn't care about, Bella immediately asked.
"How does money work here?"
Alice frowned, wondering what that meant. These coins were used all around the kingdoms, they were the same everywhere. Bella seemed to realize her mistake and tried to fix it,
"I mean uhh where I come from," Bella frowned, "we use different coins so I was just wondering if they were worth the same."
Alice lifted a careful brow, what sort of village used different coins from its kingdom? Surely they would have taught her of such things. She would need to discuss these matters with Carlisle.
"Well Edward probably gave you gold coins, they are worth one hundred silver and each silver is worth one hundred copper. Most of the stuff here cost coppers so you have plenty of money to buy whatever you want," the pixie smiled before grabbing Bella's hand and dragging her towards the different vendors.
The cultural differences were a bit too much right then and there. There were meats that didn't even make sense. The jewelry weren't particularly to her taste, the gems in them were too large but perhaps in the future they simply shrunk the size to gain more profit with each merchandise. The two of time finally reached a sort of animal vendor, he was selling rabbits and dogs but no one was buying them.
The man turned around when a hissing sound was heard behind him and smacked the cage holding a snake. He wasn't quite large and Bella didn't recognize the patterns either. The snake had a bandage around its body, closer to the head than the tail which was soaked in blood and seemed to be covered in pus. The poor thing, what kind of bandage was that?
"Hey!" She yelled at the guy, "Why would you hit an innocent snake? He probably hissed at you because of the way you're treating him and he's hurt. Do you see his bandages? They look like they haven't been changed in months!"
The man grumbled, fixing his hat and crossing his arms while he stared at the two. Bella and Alice were wearing commoner clothing, according to Edward, so that they didn't attract much attention and could browse peacefully without the constant interruption or attempted kidnapping.
"If you got no money, then shoo shoo!" The man waved his hands as if he were swatting bugs away from his face.
Caramel eyes widened in shock, how dare this bastard? Bella walked towards him menacingly and was prepared to punch him right in his jewels but Alice stopped her from advancing.
"You really shouldn't cause a scene here," Alice whispered.
"What am I supposed to do then? Let him mistreat the poor snake?"
"Bella, it's poisonous!"
"Alice it's not poisonous it's venem-" She sighed, "never mind that doesn't matter."
Bella reached into her pouch which was in the pocket of her strange dress and pulled out two gold coins. She set one down on the table and crossed her arms.
"Is that enough?" She growled, daring the man to say otherwise.
The man's eyes widened, he grabbed the gold coin and bit into it to probably test if it was real or not. When he realized it was, his eyes narrowed before looking at the two women, what kind of people carried gold coins around like this?
He coughed, "three gold coins, no less."
Bella was going to be outraged but Alice beat him to the punch.
"What?!" She shrieked, even the man backed away from the small woman's rage, "What kind of vendor sells an injured snake for three gold coins? I saw you trying to sell that same snake to another man for a few silver coins and even he didn't accept it. Last time I checked, I could send a request to the Kingdom's leaders and have you charged with overpricing your items. I suggest you take the gold coin and give that snake to my friend over here or I swear I will make sure Sir Eleazar and Lady Carmen know about this little problem."
Bella was shocked. The man was horrified and seemed to believe her. He dropped the gold coin in his pocket and grabbed the hissing snake, flinging it in Bella's direction. The snake was jolted throughout the process and hit himself on the bars. It lowered its head in pain and Bella glared at the merchant before walking away with Alice. The two of them made it to Edward's tent to hear shouting and yelling from the inside. The two women looked at each other before walking inside the tent.
"She's what?" Edward exclaimed, voice laced with rage while Jasper paced around the tent with his arms crossed, eyes closed as though he were thinking about something.
"She's only two village away."
"What does that mean? When we arrived, she was meant to be four villages away!"
"Well things change Edward, the warzone is a lot different from what you'd expect. It's no fun and games, things happen…things that you can't do anything about."
Edward narrowed his eyes at his brother, could he have withheld that information on purpose? "Jasper, there's no way Victoria and her troops could be a village away unless the information we had was false. Unless Victoria found a secret way to reach us faster, there's no way she could have arrived here in such a short amount of time."
Jasper was about to open his mouth to reply before being stopped by one of the guards who had just entered the tent. He was one of Edward's most trusted guards, they were even friends.
"Edward! She's in the next village, Victoria's troops are moving faster than we expected."
Edward was not pleased, not pleased at all. His mind was pulling a blank and he honestly didn't know how he could protect this many people with so little resources.
"Edward!" Bella hissed, trying to get his attention and when she did, the brunette smirked, "I think I have an idea."
Edward scoffed, "a girl shouldn't be trying to play tactician and plan a war."
Bella lifted an eyebrow, the sexism of this day and age was going to make her hang herself.
"Try me."
The room was filled with silence before Edward asked one more thing, "Is that a snake?"
A/N: Yes Edward, that's a snake. Good job. There ya have it! I'm not quite sure how many parts this particular phase of the story has, I'm writing the next one and it seems like I might be doing another. So maybe 3 parts, I don't know. Hope you guys liked it, lemme know what you think! Here's the little snippet for the next chapter (whenever it may be)
Next time on Secrets of a Murder
"Are the crops outside the Denali castle flammable?"
Edward frowned, "what is flammable?"
Oh god, his face was so serious Bella couldn't help but laugh, "can they catch fire idiot."
"How dare you call the prince of your kingdom an idiot? I have received an education far beyond your status and the-"
"Yes Bella," Alice cut in, "they are flammable."
Bella absentmindedly nodded at Alice before continuing the discussion of her plan, did Edward consider her as part of the the Cullen Kingdom? That made her feel some way she couldn't describe.