Playlist:

Carrie Underwood - Something in the Water

Fall Out Boy - Immortals

Jessie J; 2 Chainz - Burnin' Up

Steve Martin; Martin Short - Playing With The Big Boys - The Prince Of Egypt/Soundtrack Version

Shakira; Alejandro Sanz - La Tortura (feat. Alejandro Sanz)

Taylor Swift - ...Ready For It?

Auli'i Cravalho; Vai Mahina; Olivia Foa'i; Opetaia Foa'i; Matthew Ineleo - Know Who You Are

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


Something in the Water


The next morning, after a brief sleep that Bella had managed to squeeze in following the wild party, soldiers packed up their stuff. Bella sent the small group of stewards and guards ahead with Alexandra and Lizzie, who were both beaming in the strong morning light. Josephat, the Cullens, and Kaedra hung back, fending off well-wishers bearing strange gifts and feeding the horses. Eventually, their group too hit the road back to Camp. Bella had promised her vampires a quick hunt on the way back, laughing as she rebuffed Kaedra's concerns about being out in the open. "Honestly Kay, you don't have to wrap me in bubble wrap. We're far enough from the battlefront here, there shouldn't be any trouble. Besides, I can take care of myself."

It was apparent to Carlisle now that Bella could, indeed, take care of herself. She allowed her friends and family to gift her their protection because it made them feel good. The more Carlisle observed his human daughter, the more he realized she was the same girl who had befriended his family in Forks. Her personality was simply fully-realized here.

Carlisle thought to himself suddenly that Bella reflected the Fae themselves, in all their varied culture. After three hundred and sixty-seven years on this earth, Carlisle had thought he knew everything it was possible to know about the world. But in this strange place, he had found what seemed a bottomless well of new stories.

The most compelling story belonged to his Fae-daughter, but it remained shrouded in mystery. Bella still held herself away from them, even as she brought his family new life. She tied his family together in a way Carlisle had never seen, turning them from individuals with affection towards one another into something resembling a true spirit-bound family. Though the process was not without friction, Carlisle was grateful for it. He only hoped that Bella could see how much his family cared for her.

It was late afternoon when Bella insisted they stop to allow the vampires to hunt. She spread the picnic Lizzie had left for them on the red-checkered blanket magically and shooed the Cullens to the sparse woods around them. "Don't eat anything with scales!" Edward lingered until Bella had settled down with Kaedra and Josephat beside her, then took off after his family.

Instead of taking the group back the way they had come, Bella had led them around the long-way, closer to the ridge of mountains that protected Camp from the raging battlegrounds. Against the background of the woods to their right stood the ruins of a simple white church with a round tower extending above it. The steep hill where Bella had stopped them lay under the bridge which connected the church to the surrounding land, and to their right was a steep cliff's edge with a narrow walking path winding down the rocky cliff face. The path led to an unseen river that bubbled along, marking the edge of the forest.

As Carlisle returned from his hunt to where Bella and Kaedra sat on the front lawn of the church, he overheard a tense conversation between the two.

"You manipulated Alex and Lizzie wonderfully. Are you hoping she'll re-join the rest of the soldiers? Maybe Alex can secure your improbable victory for you."

"Shut up, Kay. Alex is a dear friend, and Lizzie deserves all the happiness she can find. They were knocked off course by a force I released, and I would've fixed it even if it didn't serve to unite the Shaman and Ipswitch lines."

"Worked out pretty well for you though, didn't it?"

"Not everyone is on a quest for more power, Shannara, especially not at the expense of all else. Ancient times are long behind us." Kaedra snarled and stalked away, past Carlisle's still form. "Talk some sense into her, please, Carlisle. She's being ridiculous." Kay shot the words behind her as she walked past him, leaving him and Bella alone.

"Hey. Just ignore her. My old friend lost her faith a while ago." Sadness flitted across Bella's face as she greeted him, though she erased it quickly. Generous affection showed on her angular features. "How's it going? Are you enjoying the Healer's training?"

Carlisle took a moment to think over the insane marriage of eastern and western medical philosophy he had encountered in this pocket world as Bella stood from the wet grass, the sun glinting off her dress. "It is going well. I'm quite excited by how psychology plays into the energies of auras and how the strengthening of character traits translates into more magical control."

"Talking like a healer already? You'll be legendary in no time."

Bella dusted off the back of the scandalously short skirt on her backless gown and motioned to him. "Come on - I've been meaning to show you something."

Edward ran into view and accompanied Carlisle and Bella on their short, silent trek to the church entrance. The comfortable silence broke as Bella mused at them softly. "Discovering your elemental magic and getting carted off to a new place where everyone treats you weird is a lot to take in at eight years old. When I first entered Havana, my head wouldn't stop spinning. I ran off one day, escaping my handlers and going off on my own. I got lost in the woods, and when night fell, I got scared. Seeing the white tower of this church was like receiving a long-anticipated gift. I was disappointed to find it abandoned."

"Well, not that this place is abandoned." Bella threw open the wide brown set of doors that led to the interior of the church, revealing a quiet sanctuary swathed in stained-glass colors as the evening sun set outside. In front of them was a small brick altar on which lay a small offering, with vines growing up the large crucifix mounted behind.

The stained-glass sunlight streaming in through the broken window moved across the space slowly, colors beading against one another like oil on glass before bursting brightly into the translucent form of a slim, white-haired priest. The man bowed to them before turning away. With a wry grin at Bella, he addressed a second echo; that of a dark-skinned parishioner in a simple white sundress and extraordinarily intricate body paint.

"Look who's back, dear one."

Edward and Carlisle felt a tap on their shoulders and turned to face the woman in white.

"She brought friends. Oh, wait, more than friends." The woman laughed as she caressed Edward's face in the same way Bella always did.

The priest turned to Carlisle. "She's been here before, you know. All little bitty and still untried. Poor thing had no idea what to do. We knew what was to come, so we gave her a gift. Well, Destiny did. She likes to visit here, sometimes."

"Destiny?" Edward raised his eyebrows skeptically.

"Oh-ho-ho! I'll tell you the same thing I told your Bella as a little girl. One does not need to believe in Destiny to be touched by her. Angels, I think you Christians call her."

The parishioner behind them squealed her joy as Bella embraced her. The woman was still insubstantial, and Bella's arms went right through her. She didn't seem to mind.

"What are you?"

Bella laughed. "They're echoes, Carlisle- the imprint of memory left on this place. They used to go to church here. This chapel has been here since the Beginning, since Havana was formed." When she turned to the priest, her eyes were begging. "So? Can we go swimming? Please?"

The priest looked sternly at Edward and Carlisle. "Let me have a look at you." He pulled out old-style glasses and peered through them at Edward and his father. Edward felt strange under his gaze, warmed by sunlight for the first time in a century.

The man closed his glasses with a snap. "Well, I suppose that would be alright. They are your family after all, and perhaps many more things still to come. Do not forget the rose, Cullen-line."

Bella thanked the priest with an excited clap of her hands and threw open a smaller set of doors to the left of the altar, joyfully sprinting past the rest of their startled group outside to run at full speed down the steep and winding path that led to the river. The echoes of the priest and smiling parishioner met Carlisle's eyes before the ghosts disappeared in a burst of golden sunshine.

Bella dove from the wall of the cliff while she was still a few feet above the raging water, panic flitting to life in Edward's face as she was fully submerged in the deep river. He took off after her. Carlisle and the rest of the group followed more sedately; grins were painted across their faces.

When Bella's head broke above the water, a million ghostly echoes sprang to life on the surface of it - an entire chorus of varied people, in dress spanning hundreds of years of fashion. They bowed to Bella elegantly before the crowd parted to make way for a new echo. Bella levitated to the surface of the water and turned to the shadowy echo of her younger self in fancy body paint. She caressed the young girl's serene face, running a finger across the ghostly image's insubstantial jaw. The girl smiled softly, and suddenly Bella stood alone, golden eyes glittering in the fading light.


Immortals


Carlisle watched as his family frolicked in the waters of the river until late into the night; Bella materialized swimwear from nowhere for his family and dressed herself in a knotted white shirt and bikini bottom. The outline of her white top peeked through the wet t-shirt. His family jumped from the cliff edges merrily and Bella squeaked from her hold on Edward's back.

Kaedra and Josephat were engaged in serious conversation on the rocky bank of the river, but their postures had relaxed as well. Carlisle's healing mentor was leaning back on his arms with his shirt unbuttoned to his navel, tan skin exposed to the cool of the night. Kaedra's arms were curled around her knees, rubbing sore feet distractedly as she spoke.

Esme swam to where he rested on the edge of the water. Her olive bikini was modest but alluring, and Carlisle tucked his wife into his side, relishing for a moment the sensation of her skin on his bare chest. She clung to him in the water distractedly, her eyes on Bella.

Bella was climbing to the riverbank on the opposite side of the deep water, magically growing a thick vine from a rocky outcropping above them so that she could swing into the middle of the narrow river. As she clambered out of the water, Carlisle could make out the bite-mark on her inner thigh, the tissue paler than the surrounding skin and slightly raised. His Fae daughter's delicate skin was also marked in thin bands around each ankle, the scars wider on the inside where Bella had rubbed the skin raw trying to escape her binds. Again, he banished Bella's medical chart from his mind, remembering X-rays of shattered femur and fractured pelvis.

Esme turned to him, a desperate question in her eyes. Before she could ask him anything, Bella swung to the middle of the river, hollering loudly as she fell into Edward's waiting form with a splash.

"Healing is a process, dear one. She's happy in this moment, and we're a part of that. She will be alright, my love. We'll make sure of it."

Josephat's eyes gleamed at him as he overheard Carlisle's comment from further up the shore. Before Jo could say anything the ancient healer turned his head, suddenly alert, towards where Isabella stood clutched in Edward's embrace. Bella was urgently focused on the top of the canyon, above where Carlisle and Esme rested against the shore of the river. Edward whipped his head around and up, following Bella's gaze with fear on his face.

Carlisle smelled old blood, lots of it, and mixed with the sickly-sweet smell of magical herbs. He turned his head upward and watched the trio of malevolent strangers leap to the ground only a few yards from him and his wife. He leapt out of the water, bringing Esme with him and running towards the sparse tree line against the sheer wall of the rocky cliff-face for cover. They were trapped on the wrong side of the shore, with no cover between them and their family.

Edward was frozen a few feet from Bella in the middle of the water. Bella's expression was focused and angry as she psychically stopped the spout of fire being thrown at her by the stranger's two guards. The wicked flames ended a few feet in front of her and his very-flammable son, spreading along an invisible wall and curling back towards their casters. The rest of his family stood on the opposite shoreline, eyes fierce but bodies frozen, though Jasper's face was twisting in an adrenaline-fueled grin that was full of bloodlust.

Jasper's eyes narrowed, his upper lip curling back over his teeth. Finally, his enemy had shown themselves. The stranger's grin was crooked and sadistic, short stubble coloring his strong jaw and lending him a rebellious edge. Long eyelashes framing feverish blue eyes were offset by thick brows tilted at a playful angle.

Out of the corner of his eye, at the edge of his forcibly frozen vision, Jasper saw Jo creeping towards his parents. Bella extinguished the roaring flames, throwing the guards back against the cliff wall and knocking them momentarily senseless. Kaedra, it seemed, had disappeared.

Jasper could suddenly move again, though he ignored the stretch of force that felt like a rubber-band pulled taught across his body. He raced to the disoriented form of the rougher-looking guard and picked him up off the ground one-handed, wrenching his arm viciously. Jasper reveled in the crack of the guard's bones as he pulled back his opposite arm to punch the guard in his smug face with all his vampiric strength.

The blow landed glancingly and without the intended force when Jasper was telekinetically thrown backward, ripping the guard's shirt as he flew towards the river. The other guard approached them with a fast and confident stride, hand splayed. The ground shook beneath Jasper as he landed on his feet. He had to cut off his attack to dodge a boulder flying with incredible speed towards his head.

The rough guard now sported a broken arm and a rapidly swelling black eye, but he calmly lit a cigarette with his unbroken hand. He ripped off his thin tank top as he approached Jasper. "Aw come on, Hito. Let 'im fight. I'll rip him up good."

Bella was squaring off with the blue-eyed man, water rising around her rapidly as Edward was shifted to the safety of the opposite shore, where Alice and his brother and sister stood. Edward stumbled as he regained freedom of movement, before slamming against a golden shield around the group. Jasper met Bella's shocked eyes briefly with a shake of his head; signaling his wish to remain where he was. He turned his attention back to the two guards attacking him.


Burnin' up


Jasper fought fiercely to keep the two guards' attention focused on him, and Edward glanced at the fight briefly as the disaster unfurled before his eyes. He was trapped far from his love, unable to do anything but watch helplessly as she spread her stance, planting her bare feet and raising her hands in a boxer's pose with fear and hatred on her face. The river glowed where she planted her feet in it and from far away Edward heard the rush of floodwaters gathering. The wicked man on the shore opposite turned to Edward and his siblings trapped behind Bella's shield; he bowed from the waist with a flourish.

"I am Tomas, my surprisingly vampiric friends. Greetings from Master's court."

Bella snarled, and a shard of ice flew at Tomas, which he deftly dodged. "Better keep a hold of that temper, young Isabella. Wouldn't want to rush anything after such a long intermission. Who are the corpses?"

Bella threw another ice shard in pointed silence, this one at least a foot long and wicked sharp. Tomas held out a hand, palm up, when the shard was three feet from him and it disappeared, flashing across to the fight on the shore and piercing Jasper's shoulder as Edward's brother howled in pain.

Bella winced and dropped her hands, looking nervous as she took in those Cullens scattered across the shore where her enemy stood, trapped against the wall of the cliff-face with nowhere to go.

Edward let a frustrated scream leave his mouth as he threw himself once more against the barrier. Suddenly, Tomas was meeting his eyes, grinning sharply at him and raising a hand towards where his parents stood against the trees; Josephat was nearer now, but not close enough.

The fireball flew directly towards Esme.

Bella moved, shifting in front of his mother to absorb the flaming attack that would have disintegrated her to ashes. The moment stretched impossibly as the shield around Edward, Alice, Rosalie and Emmett thinned, snapping time back to normal with its disappearance. Edward saw:

As time slowed, Bella's back arched, fire racing from the center of her chest and along her limbs as her spine bowed backwards. Her mouth stretched in a silent scream; agony painted across her face as convulsions spread through her scantily clad body. Her toes curled, and Edward had no idea how she remained standing so long.

She collapsed to the floor of the riverbed, and out of the corner of his eye Edward saw Jasper pinned in the path of a magically summoned avalanche rolling down from the cliff-face. Time sped up again just before the floodwaters reached them, sweeping enemy and friend alike down the river's narrow path in the raging current.


Playing with the Big Boys


Edward swam towards Bella's unconscious form, reaching it just before Tomas and kicking out at the man's shoulders as he headed towards the surface. His mouth was already pushing precious air past his lover's lips. When he reached the surface, the rushing floodwaters were petering out on the open desert plain that stood between them and Camp.

As the waters receded, Edward took a moment to take stock of his surroundings, and that was his mistake.

His father was clutching at Esme as he stood, but his mother was already being assisted to her feet by a half-drowned Josephat; his parents were still in their swimwear. The two troublesome guards had Jasper suspended mid-air in a malicious headlock. The Asian one with bleached hair was tying his feet with the thick vine Bella had been using as a swing. His brother struggled uselessly against the injured guard's hold.

Rosalie and Emmett were scrambling to their feet as well; they were in the perfect position to attack the guards. Alice had been swept further from them, on the other side of where Jasper struggled, but she was already on her feet and racing towards her husband.

Bella shifted in his arms, and suddenly Tomas filled Edward's field of view, on his feet and sopping wet, snarling. Edward's grip tightened on his love, but he was as frozen as before. Tomas plucked Bella from his arms, and with the heavy force of magick he psychically forced Edward and his family to their knees. The guards cackled and kicked Jasper hard in the ribs.

Bella's eyes fluttered but remained closed.


La Tortura


Bella's sudden intake of air and the subsequent coughing fit called everyone's eyes to her as she took in the hopeless scene that welcomed her back to the land of the living. The group had been taken to a dimly lit stone dungeon. Edward, Emmett, Alice and Jasper were standing unnaturally straight at the back of the cell, with their feet and arms bound in ice against the surface of the wall. There was no doubt they were magically restrained from any movement as well. Carlisle, Josephat, Rosalie and Esme were huddled in the corner, blocked from reaching her by a wall of flames that reached the ceiling. Kaedra was still missing-in-action. Bella had to push down the desperate panic that rose in her at the sight of her vampires trapped in Tomas' grasp.

Well. That's nightmare material.

Tomas had changed from his wet jeans and open leather jacket, and now he sat in one of the two chairs in the room, the one closest to the exit of the large cell. He was dressed in a suit jacket, with a deep V-neck in his white button-down shirt and his tie crooked, sitting on the backwards chair with a leg thrown over either side. His two guards stood behind him, and Bella was disappointed to see that the ugly one's eye had already been partially healed.

Tomas inclined his head at her in a mocking bow as she sat up from where she had been dumped unceremoniously on the floor.

There was a routine to this.

He offered her a cigarette as he motioned to the chair across from him. Bella sighed, accepting the small offering without touching Tomas. She climbed into the chair and leaned forward so Tomas could light up the cigarette with a snap of his fingers. Her legs were still weak beneath her, refusing to hold her weight. She had to take a draw off the cigarette awkwardly because her hands were bound tightly to one another at the wrists in front of her body. Bella was still in her white swimsuit, her slim hipbones jutting out against the scanty bikini bottom where they were showing below the knotted waist of her still-damp shirt. She fleetingly wished she had swum in a turtleneck and jeans as Tomas eyed her lustfully.

"I believe we were discussing the identity of your friends." Tomas began after a moment of tense silence, during which Bella dragged on the cigarette with practiced ease. Bella blew smoke in his face with a purse of her lips, raising both eyebrows at him in silent challenge. A pin-drop could've been heard in the space, only broken by the crackling of the fire and Edward's soft grunts as he tried to free himself with renewed passion.

Tomas let out a weary sigh, giving off an air of boredom as he motioned to the guards behind him. Idiots one and two, Bella decided to call them as they fell on her, throwing her to the ground and striking out with kicks and punches.

Curling into a defensive ball, Bella smiled with blood bubbling on her lips as Carlisle growled in the corner. Her compassionate father-figure prepared to pounce at Tomas through the flames before Rosalie and Josephat held him back, whispering at him urgently.

Tomas snapped his fingers after almost a full minute and the guards backed away.

Squinting one eye where a steel-toed boot had caught her and cut her forehead, making blood obscure her vision, Bella got up as quickly as she could and hobbled back to her chair. The enchanted ropes around her hands were beginning to smoke with the magick she threw at them, but their hold on her was stronger than she would've hoped. Shit, she was too tired for this.

Scowling, Tomas sent his guards away. Once they were gone, he leaned intently over the back of the chair to meet her bloody gaze. He was inches from her face, and his drug-sweet scent made her head spin.

"See here, Isabella. Master does not have to be called. You know what lays guarded by my forces in this castle, and you are in a very delicate position." He gripped her jaw, forcing her to look towards the vampires trapped against the wall.

"Think about it, pet. No one screams quite like you. I'd hate to share it, even with him." Tomas' grip on her jaw turned to iron, and he forced his mouth on hers in a harsh and filthy kiss.

Then, he stood without another word and turned his back to her. His gait was steady and relaxed as he left his prisoners behind. The second Tomas was out of sight, Bella scrambled to her feet and towards the vampires trapped by ice to the back wall, putting out the flaming boundary with her mind as she approached Edward, Emmett, Alice and Jasper. She released Edward first, stretching on tiptoe to touch her fingertips to the ice that bound his arms above his head.

Edward caught her as her legs gave out, wiping the blood from her forehead tenderly and mindful of the cuts that littered her form from the beating she had received. Another convulsion wracked her body as Josephat rushed to help him, steadying Bella with an unnecessary hand on her shoulder as he touched his fingertips to the ice that bound Alice and Emmett.

When he reached Jasper's ice-bound form, Bella stepped back from Edward and stopped him.

"How did you break Tomas' cast?" she addressed Jasper in a hoarse whisper while he was still bound, helpless, to the wall. Jasper struggled against the ice, panicking and muttering threats frantically. Bella grabbed his chin and forced him to meet her gaze, sending him an empathic wave of calm which Jasper gratefully absorbed.

She examined his butterscotch eyes closely as she continued. "While we were fighting, Tomas held you guys motionless with a freezing spell. I've never seen someone break their own telekinetic hold so easily. Vampires can't do magick. How did you set yourself free?" Josephat cut in over Jasper's denials and confused protests, turning from his examination of Jasper's aura. "He is true, my lady. He is not a Shade."

Bella's suspicion faded and she released the ice's hold on Jasper. He shot to Alice's side, clutching her close in a panic. He took a deep breath, and when he addressed Bella his voice was once again calm and composed. "I truly don't know, Bella. I just wanted to be able to fight, to protect Alice and my family." His gaze was surprisingly affectionate as he looked at his Fae sister.

"I'm sorry they were able to hurt you." Bella stated, subdued. Jasper nodded and lowered his chin to rest on top of Alice's head; his wife grabbed at his waist, turning so her body clung to his.

"Well, fuck. So much for not finding trouble. Kaedra is never going to let me hear the end of this." Josephat had finished freeing the Cullens and was quick to turn his attention to his brave and noble Queen.

"I need to heal your injuries, my lady. Carlisle, come and assist me." Jo hoped his addition of her vampire-father figure to the conversation would keep Bella from punching his lights out. Bella knew what he was about to say and shot him a dirty look.

"You can pout all you want, child, but you know that I am right. The fire's blessing is near and being immortal would be nothing but an advantage." Josephat pointed out the obvious as he examined the cut on Bella's forehead, directing her to sit in her abandoned chair before she could fall over from the shivers wracking her form. The burning spell had done significant damage, and any other Fae would be a screaming mess on the floor.

But Isabella was not any other Fae, and she looked at him scathingly as she replied. "Yeah, as long as I didn't mind spending eternity with Tomas in my bed. Oh wait; I do mind." She rolled her eyes, knocking Jo's hand away from her forehead and getting up to pace, heedless of Carlisle's restraining hand on her shoulder.

Carlisle turned to Jo. "I don't understand. The fire's blessing? Eternity?"

The queen looked at her healer as the scent of fresh blood pooled in the air and joined the dying scent of her older wounds, silently commanding him to explain and spitting the result of the silence's curse onto the floor.

"There are five blessings given to the Fae by Destiny. These blessings are entrusted to us to guard. The blessings can be anything. Usually, the fire's blessing takes the form of a roaring flame which can never be extinguished. It grants an almost impenetrable immortality to all that it chooses when they drink of the flames. This blessing fell to the Master's forces in the beginnings of the war, and Tomas is charged with keeping it safe. His interest in young Isabella started when he became the first commander in the Master's forces, right after his Chosen was killed. He has gone quite insane, and desires nothing more than to make Bella his pet. He would give Isabella the flames freely, just to have the chance to make her spend eternity at his feet."

Bella continued for him. "That's why he hasn't called the Master yet, he wants to give me the chance to submit to him." She snorted. "His memory must be pretty fucking short, because I never submitted to him before. But that doesn't matter. I wouldn't touch the eternal fire with a ten- foot pole."

Carlisle raised an eyebrow at his headstrong daughter. "You seemed eager for immortality in Forks." Bella waved his mild objection away as though it didn't matter at all, slapping Josephat's approaching hand away from her aching ribs as she threw herself back in the chair, exhausted.

"Eternity is all about who's keeping you company. I don't want to live forever just for the hell of it. The only reason I wanted to be turned was because your family and Edward were involved. Well, that and I thought it might wipe the slate clean."

Carlisle blinked, in shock at this new bit of information about his son's lover. In the back of his mind, he had always wondered if Bella was simply manipulating his son to gain what many humans considered the ultimate prize. What he had just learned shut that quiet suspicion quite firmly out of his thoughts.

Bella shook her head at him, reading the emotions on his face with ease. "Honestly Carlisle, I'm disappointed in you. Hell, there are a lot of magicks about eternity, the fire's blessing is just the root of all of them. Jo would've made me immortal anytime I asked him to. He's even offered a few times. I've never pursued immortality for its own sake, I never saw the point. And vampiric immortality would render me incapable of performing magicks."

Carlisle gently wiped the blood from her chin with a bit of his still unbuttoned shirt, wet from the river and the floodwaters that had risen as Bella defended his family. He noticed that she was still shaking from the attack she had taken for Esme. Bella had saved his wife from sure death. "I shouldn't have doubted your intentions, my dear daughter. I'm sorry."

Bella blinked at him in the grungy light, opening her mouth to speak with a question on her face. Before she could ask him anything she cast her attention outwards urgently, turning towards the announcing footsteps of a group of guards that were rapidly approaching their cell.


...Ready For it?


Bella shot a warning glance at her vampires and turned back to face Josephat. "You and Tomas were pretty close before all this. What can you tell me about his hold on the flames? Be quick."

The guards' footsteps were interspersed with raucous laughter now, their taunts and jabs echoing down the dim hallway as they approached the cell.

"I know that the fire's blessing does not bow to anyone and rejects Tomas' possession of it. It has been tainted by his evil, but it has not chosen him, much to his annoyance."

Bella snapped him a soldier's nod, her outfit shimmering as it was replaced with her golden dress. The scars on her back were revealed once more and cast deep shadows on her skin where the suddenly strobing light caught them. The battalion of guards corralled them out of their cell and into the main room, which was enormous and empty of all decoration. The cold gray stone of the castle was intimidating in the crowded space. Tomas stood on an elevated stage at the opposite side of the room, across from an ornate dish of fire that burned wildly. The fire took the shape of a Phoenix in flight as their group was led through the mass of black-clad soldiers.

Edward read the despair rising in Jasper's mind as he took in the huge, already-rowdy crowd of burly men between them and the exit. They were held near where Bella stood: bound, helpless, and heavily- guarded. She was calm in the face of the jeering crowd. His love stepped on to the stage with grace and poise, as though she wasn't being led to her eternal imprisonment.

She turned to address their captor in a loud voice that echoed over the crowd. "Tomas Shaman, I will never yield to you. I take your actions against me as Challenge. Let strength decide your fate."

She flashed in front of the now feral-eyed Tomas, her useless binds falling to the floor of the stage as Bella attacked him head on with grace. She shoved Tomas before he could react, pushing him to fall away from the complex altar where the eternal fire burned.

The crowd of soldiers exploded into frenzied motion, and Edward felt the freezing-spell drop from him as Bella snapped her fingers. He leapt towards a guard who was between him and the stage, twisting the man's neck brutally and bloodlessly, killing him before the shock faded from his features. Alice and Rosalie covered him from the rear, with Emmett and Jasper clearing his path to where Bella fought. Carlisle and Esme took up a defensive stance with Josephat's arms already rising behind them, water pooling into ice at his fingertips.

Tomas rushed Bella desperately, throwing his arms around her waist and dragging her closer to the altar where the fire burned. Bella struggled against Tomas' hold, and Edward feared he wouldn't get there in time, too many bodies between him and his love. He had to twist in mid-leap to avoid a fireball aimed at his chest.

Suddenly, light broke into the enormous room. Kaedra and Marcos were leading the charge as hundreds of Camp's soldiers flooded the space. Black-clad enemies began to teleport away, realizing the battle was lost.

Edward made it to where Tomas was restraining his struggling lover and snarled fiercely as he ripped him from her. He drew Bella close to him and set her on her feet before turning to face the wicked man. A sudden earthquake split the room where the stage was raised above the floor, heat rising as lava poured from the crack to halt the approaching forces of Bella's soldiers.

Tomas was looking behind Edward; his focus was on Bella, who was sprinting towards the altar where the fire lay in its ornate dish. Confusion flitted across his face, and then realization swept across it, followed swiftly by horror. His lip curled into a snarl, and Tomas focused on Edward's approaching form, already raising his hand to strike down the annoying vampire.

Bella's shout distracted the two fighters from their half-begun battle. She was bracing her weight against the ornate dish on the altar, shouting a battle-cry and glowing gold brightly through her skin. The dish teetered on its edge for a half-second, before falling from the stage and landing upside-down on the stone floor with fire spreading from it. Edward's love turned to Tomas and spat on the floor at his feet.

"You lose. Run home to your Master, sweetheart. I hope he is merciful to you; I'd hate to lose the chance to kill you myself."

Tomas shifted away in a whoosh of air with a snarl. Bella watched him go before she turned her back to where Edward stood, approaching the embers and ashes of the eternal flame.


Know Who You Are


Edward froze of his own accord, fear racing through him. The shadows were turning long and distorted in the suddenly darker room, a supernatural sense of foreboding rising in the air. He felt his family stiffen and draw together behind him, and Josephat conjured a weak, blue-tinted light that illuminated nothing but his parents' frightened faces.

The blackness was reminiscent of the void before the Cullens entered Havana, though there was no brightly lit doorway to break the menacing dark.

Quiet, ghostly whispers rose from all that remained of the eternal fire.

Soft light rose from the embers and illuminated his love's face. Bella's expression was gentle and hope-filled, focused as she approached the overturned dish on the floor. She cupped her hand around the embers and coated them in a soft exhale. The embers flared and sparked, and the weak morning sunlight floated back into the room slowly. When Bella removed her hand from where it covered the flaring embers, a red stone pendant embedded with a complicated mandala lay innocently on the scorched stone floor.