Sorry for the time away.
She spun on her heel and disappeared inside, black cloak blending into the darkness. Her steps were short and clipped, purposefully clapping on the marble floors.
My breath was needlessly shaky, hiccupping in my throat as I battled that aching pressure in the pit of my stomach.
Felix put his hand on my shoulder. His palm was warm- but not warm enough to be a comfort, to be a painful reminder. I looked up at him at my side and craned my neck to meet his eyes. They were still a blazing scarlet in the late summer night, a crimson flame against the dark sky. A small smile tugged on the corner of his lips in a regretful, sympathetic curve.
I knew what it meant. Centuries had passed but Felix clearly bore no ill will, and instead remembered our time together fondly. It was a surprise, but it really shouldn't have been. Felix loved a fight and enjoyed his place a power, but there was only one reason he had advanced so far. He didn't have any sort of tangible power like everyone else in the inner circle of the Guard.
Felix was loyal, almost to a fault. It ran deeper than anything Chelsea could ever hope to touch on, and clearly spanned across time without the need to be continuously tended to or cultivated. That same time had poisoned my thoughts of Felix, but it was obviously not warranted because every gesture he imparted said only one thing:
I'm sorry.
I strode up the short steps swiftly with the breath of the summer air and outdoors held in my lungs where it would stay as long as I could keep it. Felix was right behind, and the doors swung closed behind us.
This had been a pagan place of worship, once. Long, long before my time, I was sure it had been a place of warmth and goodness, and I was sure those humans who visited to this day might still hold those views.
It had been the seat of the Volturi power for centuries now, and every aspect was constructed with the intent of conveying that to those who knew, and shrouding it from the rest of the world. The interior was purposefully laid out in the pattern of the Romanesque Latin cross, with two aisles flanking the central nave. Rosy granite columns held up the rich ceiling, with sumptuous golden gilding that contained Catholic designs and radiated holiness.
It would have appeared the traditional and luxurious Italian cathedral constructed and designed under the Holy Roman Empire. They couldn't know that the marble busts of Saint Ottaviano and Saint Vittore that sat right above the altar and presided over the central place of worship were modeled exactly after Aro and Caius, and that those same faces appeared in the biblical storytelling carved into the ceiling as God and Jesus and angels. The depictions in Mary were more subtle, odes to Sulpicia or Athenodora with a similar nose or the shapes of their eyes.
It was intimidating. Every glance up, I could see their eyes watching, observing our every step with piercing scrutiny as I followed Jane down a hall and out of the main church and into one of the flanking chapels.
There were small chapels scattered all throughout the building. Some often went unused, some were quaint and sparse, others likely used for activities like choir practice and small baptisms.
This was nothing so benign, though. The walls were arching and glorious in their depiction of the Volturi overthrow of their predecessors described as Biblical wars, the floors a polished white marble that shone like the moonlight with not even the hint of a scuffmark. The pews were nothing so simple as plain wood, but instead a glossy dark mahogany, perfect roses carved exactingly into the arms and plush red velvet cushions that appeared so pristinely maintained, one would think no one had ever sat there. In fact, the entire room was so immaculate, it was almost as if those who frequented this chapel had no need to sit or rest at all.
"Why don't you take a seat?" Jane offered, the sweetness in her voice sick and forced. I could see the way her jaw clenched, the gritting of her small, pearly teeth in her stiff smile. Her hand was stretched in front of her, leading me to the front pew where I shuffled in obediently, an obsequious little mouse to her predator. Was she a snake, circling me and waiting until she could swallow me whole? Or maybe a cat, toying with her food until her master told her she could go in for the final blow.
Felix remained standing, at the other side of the aisle but still close by, an unfamiliar frown fixed on his bowed lips, his cloak now buttoned tightly up to his neck. Jane, however, had slipped in beside me, perching on the cushion delicately, her legs crossed and dainty hands clasped together and resting on her knees. Her posture was straight, her shoulders braced. One small brow arched expectantly, the corner of her lip turning up.
I decided she was the cat after all. The snake would have struck by now, and Jane would never do anything so drastic without permission first.
"I thought we could do some catching up, while you're here. I heard you chatting with Felix and felt rather left out."
Her words turned with a lilt, modern Italian I was unfamiliar with mixed with an accent that sounded like that which I had grown up with. Unlike Lorenzo, colored with youth, Jane was defined and driven by something more ancient. It was maybe the one trait we shared, that antiquated essence that felt stuck in a past we could never return to.
Once, I might have thought that renascence to be my humanity, or at least my human family and everyone I was forced to leave behind. Now, however, that past was much more recent. Just a few weeks ago, my existence was blossoming into blissful perfection.
It was a strain to force myself to believe my recrudescence in Volterra was brief and fleeting, just a hiccup in a fantastical love story. This wasn't Romeo and Juliet or War and Peace, it would Pride and Prejudice. This would be just a quick trip, a silly misunderstanding before I could be Jane Eyre and announce to my fictional audience, "Reader, I married him".
I was in a church, but I had never felt so far removed from the idea of a marriage, a binding in the eyes of the law and of God. If there was a God, I doubted He could peer into this site of desecration and violence. Under the guise of the saccharine politeness Jane was trying to embody, the flawless patina of devotion, something was profoundly wrong.
My gaze drifted forward, away from Jane, away from Felix. There were two kneeling pads in the front of the chapel, facing towards the ornate, white marble sarcophagus engraved with pure gold. The painting behind it was impossible not to look at, drawing any passing stare. A man, young and improbably tall, with skin that glimmered like fresh fallen snow, actual diamonds pressed into the paint so it was sure to cast a rainbow chiaroscuro in the daylight. His hair hung to his shoulders and shone like black silk, a halo of gold lead surrounding his head. He was a presiding presence, commanding attention from all who stepped foot. The city of Volterra only existed because of him, after all, the saint who drove out the demons and freed the people from terror.
The sarcophagus held what the world believed to be his remains. Rome had demanded them returned to the Vatican to be held as relics, but for some reason relented, and St. Marcus had been protecting Volterra ever since.
"I don't know what there is to tell you, honestly. I'm sure our lives aren't nearly as eventful as yours," I replied, my answer coming after only a moment's pause.
"Oh, I don't know about that!" Jane laughed. With anyone else, it might have sounded playful, but she wasn't capable of anything beyond disingenuity and cruelty, the perfectly epitomizing plenipotentiary for the Volturi. "We all saw how busy you've been. I have to say, I was a little surprised by all your new additions. Eleazar hadn't filled us in on just how many Cullens there are these days."
I felt a tightness in my throat, a clutching terror sinking into the pit of my stomach.
I came here under duress, with the expectation of further threats against me, sure, and maybe even my family if Carlisle's goodwill didn't extend so far, but Eleazar? Our family in Denali?
This was everything Aro could hope for to make a play for power. With me ensconced in Volterra, there was nothing between our family and the Volturi. Demetri could track them down in the blink of an eye, Alec could immobilize scores more than our numbers without a second thought. Jane would revel in using her torturous gift to extract information. And there was so much to keep secret.
Alice would be found out. The hundreds of miles I had trekked through, searching for her, and Demetri would be able to find her in an instant. There would be no place to hide.
And Edward. Human Edward, what chance did he stand? I knew our family would try to protect him, but there was no chance against such unflappable power.
Even if she couldn't inflict it, Jane could see my terror clearly. She didn't need her gift to send me into this state, and she knew exactly what she was doing. Her smile grew, and I could almost see the ghost of blood stained on her teeth, dripping and ready for more.
"Jane?" Felix interrupted, needlessly clearing his throat. He was frowning, his weight shifting from one leg to another. The dark grey of his cloak clung like a shadow in the darkness, choking up to the hollow of his throat. Jane rose soundlessly and followed Felix out of the chapel, their steps fading quickly as they disappeared into another chamber somewhere else in the cathedral.
My exhale was shaky, colored with a sob that I was trying to swallow back. My hands were impossibly unsteady, trembling as I tried to steel myself. I curled into myself in the pew, pressing my fingers into my temples and trying to hold myself together. It felt like I was fracturing, like I was some fragile mosaic of glass that would shatter under the stress and break into countless pieces.
It was an inevitability. If I had ever thought I could manifest this journey into a quick and painless one, I was beyond naïve. I would break, and even if I managed to pull myself back together again, there was no way I would be able to glue back every piece. I had already been torn in half, my heart ripped from my chest and left on the other side of the world. With every passing moment, it became even more clear that I would never be whole again.
I inhaled again, the dust of the chapel tickling into my lungs. My hands were still, the pain in my chest demanding and unignorable, but I could manage it. Even if I would never be the same, might never get the chance to even try, I would do everything I could to protect my family, and the one that held my heart.
Jane's clipped steps were suddenly audible, and she returned alone. I couldn't make out where Felix had gone off to, he was no longer an option of a buffer.
I couldn't imagine the words that passed between them. From what Felix had told me, nothing had really changed. The inner Guard, with the exception of Demetri's mate, was the same as it had always been. His stories of suppressing any sort of dissent, of punishing wayward lawbreakers, it was all the same as it had always been. I had spent a century of my own existence doing the same thing with them, except it was now more than likely that Felix didn't bother going to the theater, and Alec wasn't reading any poetry anthologies. There had been nothing I could imagine that kept them human.
Somewhere below our feet, Aro and Caius were plotting some scheme or power ploy, their wives hidden away in some other room, buried beneath stone and plied with Corrin's gift to keep them happy and compliant.
"Excuse us," Jane said. "Felix had something to attend to."
I hummed noncommittally, unconvinced. Jane must be stewing in aggravation if she felt threatened by any semblance of an ally I might have here, but I hoped it wouldn't keep Felix away for too long.
"So, why don't we talk?" Jane offered, returning to her seat beside me.
"Did you catch the Seahawks game?" I offered weakly.
Alec and Demetri would have at least cracked a smile. Felix would have laughed outright.
Jane stared at me blankly, her small lips pursed in blatant disapproval.
"Bad joke," I admitted, pulling my bottom lip into my mouth. When I did this, I used to be able to taste him on me, the memory of his lips on mine lingering. It was gone now, nothing more than an actual memory. "I just don't know what to say."
"Well, what were you and Felix talking about for so long? I know you've been here for hours, there must have been so much to catch up on."
"Nothing very interesting, just talking." I wouldn't tell her the details Felix had given me. I didn't know how much she knew, but the one kindness I could give him would be this protection, even if Aro would just find out about it all the next time their hands brushed.
"Well, why don't we start with you and Carlisle, hmm?" Jane asked. I wondered how much Felix told her.
"We're not together, if that's what you're implying," I said. "He's married." I hoped it would be the last time I had to dispel that thought. For decades, everyone in the Volturi thought we were intimate, especially when we went off to hunt together. And in the human world as well, before Esme, that was the first misconception before we could spin out the lie about being brother and sister.
"Married!" Jane exclaimed, lips curling sadistically. "I thought so. The brunette woman, in the black sweater? She had been chasing one of those silly newborns when we found you."
"That's Esme," I confirmed.
"How lucky for Carlisle. And you?" Her voice trailed off, a brow arching.
"Not yet," I said quickly. My nerves were jittering, venom slamming into my mouth and instinct driving me to go for the kill. But I had to hold it back. I couldn't let her think me too eager, to lead her to believe I had something to hide.
A mote of luck seemed to fall from the heavens. Jane believed me. "That's too bad."
I shrugged. "I'm sure you understand, as well. Unless there's some news I haven't heard?"
Her lips tightened again, and I could see the fury in her crimson eyes. I had long wondered if that was even possible for Jane, or for Alec. They were so very young, verging on immortal children. The impulsivity and desperation for instant gratification were evident in their behavior, baring their physical age. They were older than me, but in so many ways more immature. I wondered what it would have been like, if they had been changed at an older age. Even late teens would have been better than eternal early pubescence, but Aro was wont to wait and so Jane and Alec were condemned to this frozen existence.
I grimaced in kind. "I didn't think so."
"Well," Jane said, shaking her head slightly before reassuming her snide tone, "I don't suppose your kind are in high supply. Unless you make one and raise him in your lifestyle, of course."
"It's worked out before," I retorted. "Everyone in our family was created with the intention of abstaining from human blood, and we've been by and large successful in that regard."
"That makes three you've bitten, three added to your ranks."
"Three to our family, changed with love and guided by kindness and compassion. We bear no ill will, Jane."
"You speak for your coven, then?"
"They're not some meek and obsequious little followers, if that's what you're implying. They're my family. We love each other as we are. We forgive our mistakes and share in our joys. I'm by no means a leader, directing them in some sort of cause."
"You have no goals?"
"Beyond helping others, bettering ourselves?"
"Everyone has ulterior motives."
I stared at her, unsure. Her gaze was fiery, unwavering. There were lies, even in my truths. My family, we weren't operating in some kind of covert mission to overthrow the Volturi, but rather a clandestine coverup of breaking a sacred law, and protecting my indiscretions with humans. If I had just maintained that boundary, kept my distance like the others… Carlisle managed to participate in human society without ingratiating himself the way I always seemed to. Now more than ever before, and the stakes were eternally, permanently high.
"I'm here with the intention of protecting my family. It's all I've ever tried to do."
"That was your reason to be in Seattle?"
"I wouldn't have gone there looking for trouble. That situation had gone on far too long. If you had intervened sooner-"
Jane cut me off, her jaw tight and tone terse. "I'd watch your next words, Isabella."
I sighed, clasping my hands together on my lap. With my head bowed, I felt a bit like I was praying. But there was no God here, not in this chapel dedicated to a demon. If there was anyone to listen to my prayers, they had never answered before, and I had no reason to think they would now.
Instead, I again allowed myself a fleeting thought, even if it was against my better judgement.
His face. The sharpness of his jaw, the straight edge of his nose, set slightly crooked but resembling a patrician sculpting. Every curve in his body held the elegance of Praxiteles, the strength of Augustus from Prima Porta. Could see the rich, verdant leaves that fanned his irises, the smoldering capture of his stare. The smile he gave me, crooked and devastating, as he handed me my hand-picked flowers. Hands in mine. Fingers flying over the keys of a piano. Unbuttoning my blouse. Warmth. Heat. Heart beating, beating, beating.
"I apologize," I murmured, kowtowed and acquiescing. This was surrender. I was too weak to fight, I couldn't even control my own memories. I wasn't strong enough to fight those newborns and finish James and Victoria off, nor could I manage to keep my shield maintained long enough to save those I held dearest. I didn't deserve mercy at all. And with the pain I was bearing, heavy and sharp, enduring and unforgettable… What was even the point?
I felt it grip me. Warm hands on my throat, heat searing fingerprints into my skin. The promise I had made whispered through my mind. To take care of myself, to not do anything stupid or reckless that would put me in danger. To keep myself safe.
I had failed him over and over again. I wasn't enough, wasn't good enough. But I could do one thing, couldn't I? Couldn't I at least try?
"Carlisle met Esme, his mate, when she was still human," I continued, voice quiet but still echoing over the stones as I recounted the story again, for the second time in just a few hours. I couldn't hear anyone nearby, but there was always the possibility of an eavesdropper. In Volterra, there was a fly on every wall. "She was sixteen and had fallen from a tree. He attended to her broken bone, and fell in love. He stayed away as she grew, married, had a child. But another accident befell her, and she was on death's door when he found her. Changing her was the only choice.
"Rosalie was mine. She had been attacked and was laying on the street when Carlisle and I were leaving work that night. She was beyond saving, even to us, but I couldn't let her die." I shook my head, dispelling the vivid memories and focusing on the words, plain and bare, spoken only to convey the story. "I bit her right then and there, and she changed. The following year, while hunting alone, Rosalie came across a man who had been brutally mauled by a bear. You know how that connection is, or so they tell us. She carried him home, and Carlisle changed him. That's our Emmett."
"Esme, Rosalie, Emmett," Jane repeated, their names sounding like curses, spoken by a little witch who had once been tied to the stake and set up in flames.
"Not a coven, a family."
"You seem to like that word."
"It's the truth," I promised.
It was Jane's turn to hum, more of a dismissive huff than anything else. She stared away, her eyes fixing on some engraving in the ceiling, distant as thoughts unspooled in her vicious mind. Strategies were unfolded and discarded with just a blink. Centuries of practice, never trusting and not a moment of kindness.. Her gaze returned to mine after only a moment, expression blank with not even a hint at the direction of her thoughts.
"Did you think of us as a family?" She asked. Her chin jutted out slightly, short hair brushing along her jaw.
My mouth popped open momentarily, caught in surprise. Neither sentimentality nor earnestness were characteristics I had ever witnessed from Jane, but if she was bluffing, her poker face was exceptional. Her hair was tucked behind her ears, her chin jutting out so her face was open and exposed. I could see nothing beyond the twelve year old girl she inherently was, despite the centuries of hardened violence.
The line of inquiry wasn't one I could doubt or question. I worried that if I brushed her off, or pressed her for her reasoning, I would only dig a deeper hole for myself.
"I don't think these situations are comparable."
"Try." Her tone was clipped, inarguable.
My sigh was brief, and my teeth worried my bottom lip while I searched for the least offensive explanation. I hadn't been expecting this angle. Of all things I thought Jane capable of, empathy wasn't one of them.
"When I'm home, with my family, I'm not forced to be anyone but myself. They accept me for who I am, with unconditional love and open arms. I don't have to hide to hunt, or conceal my nature to appease anyone else." I closed my eyes, willing away the stinging venom that had welled there, and the demanding rush of it in my dry throat. I could see Esme in front of me, I could smell her sweet, earthy scent and feel the soft embrace of her arms around me, my face in her hair. "We work together. Carlisle may be the head of our family, but we make all our decisions together, and we would never do anything that would make another feel uncomfortable."
I thought of that time in the woods, before Carlisle had found me, when I thought I was the lone, strange outlier in our supernatural world. The girl's body, cut and mutilated, her blood seeping into the ground, right in the path of my hunt. And I thought of the one who had put her there, who had condemned an innocent girl all with the intent of corrupting me, whether it was a childish prank or a directive of their master.
"I love them all. And they love me. No matter the mistakes we make, we forgive them and help each other to grow and learn. We value each other not on the basis of strengths and powers, but on our kindness and generosity, with all the flaws and faults that make us who we are."
Jane was still unreadable, even when I again opened my eyes. Getting lost in memories would do me no good here. There was that terrifying nausea again, down in the pit of my stomach, and the familiar pain in my chest that was constant and yet unignorable.
I was a fragile mosaic of a person, held together with finely spun web of hope and stubbornness. I couldn't afford to break before I even had my chance.
"You admit to faults, then," Jane said finally.
"None of us are flawless, no matter how divine we think we are."
Blasphemy, in a setting such as this, designed with the very intent of deifying the masters Jane had served since the moment she was changed. Since I had changed Rose, and now Alice as well, my perspective had changed. I had never met the vampire who changed me, never felt any connection to them, but I did to Rose and Alice, and I didn't need to speculate to know that in the very least Rose felt the same way towards me. I wondered how it must feel for one such as Jane. She had been changed by Aro himself, saved in the nick of time as she burned at the stake, condemned to death as a child by a village that had vilified her and her brother for nearly their entire lives.
The loyalty that must instill would probably rival the ties Chelsea bound her with.
Jane snorted, and the wonderment seemed to be broke. Her shoulders straightened and brought a rigidity to her posture, and I could see the haughty glow return to her pale skin.
Outside, the morning was beginning. Light purposefully had no way of entering this chapel, but I could hear it through the stone walls. Shopkeepers opening, the priest scribbling away at his notebook, no doubt preparing for a liturgy. Soon, the streets would be crowded and the city full and awake, and there would be no path out for me until the sun set again.
Jane stood, and I did as well. We were close, right next to each other in the pew. The top of her head barely reached my shoulder, and she had to look up to address me.
Even with the long passage of time, I knew some of her tells. I noticed the slight, brief squint of her eyes, the knitting of her thin brows. She tested my shield again, trying to inflict her torture on me. It was only a fraction of a second, but she still tried, and I knew that whatever spell she had been under that created such a fascination with the idea of a family, with the concept of love, had been broken.
"Wait here. Someone will collect you."
She turned on her heel and threw the black hood over her head. She swung one of the heavy doors open easily and stepped through, closing it firmly behind her as she disappeared down the hallway we had walked through.
I lost track of her steps right away. She was too quiet, and the world too loud. And besides, I wasn't at my best. There was a nagging thirst in my throat, but that was beyond easy to ignore in the face of all else.
I couldn't give myself over to them. Not the memories that pressed forward like a demand, nor the ebb and flow of a heartbreak that coursed with the strength of all the oceans' tides. If I did, I would only break myself further. And there was so little of me left, anyways.
I had left my whole heart behind, and what makes a person without a heart? A shadow? A phantom of an idea, projected and persevering only through sheer force of will, and that will was fast dwindling.
I promised. That was the only hope, because I promised I would keep myself safe and now I had no choice.
There was a horrible truth at the depth of this all, and it was frighteningly apropos for the epiphany to come in a church, no matter how corrupted that church may be.
If I was destroyed, it would not be the end. My family would mourn, they would be sunk with grief, and it hurt to even think about the pain that would cause. I didn't want to even think about Esme's unshed tears, or the way Rose would lash out at everyone else. And Carlisle, who I would leave behind to preserve all the memories we had shared in our existence, would be forced to carry that burden into eternity.
But they would survive. Their grief would endure, and they would never be able to forget, but they would have each other. Mates, their other halves, to shoulder the grief and heal with love, would be their path to a new normalcy.
But if I was destroyed, I would not be entirely gone.
He would live on, however fleeting his life would be. He would live in a world without me, carrying my heart even if he didn't realize he had it. And even if he found a new love, which I could only aspire to hope for him because of how he deserved it, deserved better, he would still be without me.
I could only exist in a world with him in it, but I couldn't not exist while he was still alive. If I was to be destroyed, it would be at the end of his life, because the world could simply not spin on without our whole.
There's an ancient Greek myth, one that is often overlooked and which I had never found much solace in before. It was Plato, in his book The Symposium, who detailed the history that was told by the playwright Aristophanes. He wrote of the history of humanity, in the age when humans knew the gods, and the gods knew humans.
Humans didn't always exist as we know them today, at least not in this reality. They were formed differently, with four legs and four arms, two heads, conjoined at the back. They knew no other way, for this was the way humans had always been, and they assumed it would continue like this for all the time they lived.
These people had never known pain or loss. They were children of the Sun and the Earth, born in divinity and blessed at that. They were fearless and empowered with strengths that are inconceivable to modernity.
But as with so many tales in the Greek canon, hubris was their downfall. The humans thought themselves rivals to the gods, and plotted to conquer them and rule in their stead.
The gods were faced with an issue. They considered destroying humanity, striking them down and obliterated them as they had done to the Titans.
It was not compassion that saved humanity, but selfishness. The gods had grown accustomed to the sacrifices humans burned for the gods, their halls filled with the sweet smell of honeyed wine during celebrations, the comfort of warm bread and smoky meat that was ubiquitous. The gods expected adoration and worship, and without humans, there would be nothing to fill that void.