CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE:

Bella's POV:

There was only one shadow over the happiness that was my new life as a vampire, one distasteful task I had to complete. I needed to take a trip to Volterra. And it had to be a solo trip.

This was the only argument that Edward and I had gotten in since I'd become a vampire. The main point of contention was the "solo" part. But the facts were what they were, and my plan was the only one that made rational sense. I had to go see the Volturi.

Even freed from old nightmares, from any dreams at all, it was impossible to forget the Volturi. Nor did they leave us without reminders.

The Volturi needed to see that I was immortal, that the Cullens had been obedient to the Volturi's orders, and they needed to see this soon. They could not be allowed near Forks. There was only one way to keep our life here safe.

The only way to keep Elizabeth hidden, a secret from those monsters. Because she needed to be- the Volturi must never find out about her.

Even in the short time I'd known Aro, I'd been able to see that he was a collector— and his most prized treasures were his living pieces. He coveted beauty, talent, and rarity in his immortal followers more than any jewel locked in his vaults. It was unfortunate enough that he'd begun to covet Alice's, Edward's and my own abilities. I would give him no more reason to be jealous of Carlisle's family. Elizabeth was beautiful and gifted and unique, one of the very few existing of her kind. He could not be allowed to see her.

Alice did not see any trouble with my trip, but she was worried by the indistinct quality of her visions. She said they were sometimes similarly hazy when there were outside decisions that might conflict but that had not been solidly resolved. This uncertainty made Edward, already hesitant,

extremely opposed to what I had to do. He wanted to come with me as far as my connection in London, but I wouldn't leave Elizabeth without both her parents. Carlisle was coming instead.

We bought the tickets for Italy the day after Elizabeth turned three months. I planned for it to be a very short trip, so I hadn't told Charlie about it.

I was confident that everything would be fine, that the ordeal would soon be over and I could concentrate on my happily ever after. And then everything came toppling down.

I'd been hunting with Elizabeth and Jacob, who I'd allowed to accompany us in order to encourage my competitive daughter- Elizabeth wasn't a fan of hunting, or animal blood in general. I'd spotted Irina, the third Denali sister, a stranger to me, yet upon spotting her in the distance, those golden eyes gave away her identity. Before I could say anything, do anything, though, Irina had fled.

Carlisle and Edward had not been able to catch up with her before her trail disappeared into the ocean.

They'd swum to the other bank to see if her trail had picked up in a straight line, but there was no trace of her for miles in either direction on the eastern shore.

I hadn't been able to help but feel it was all my fault. She had come, as Alice had Seen, to make peace with the Cullens, only to be angered by my camaraderie with Jacob. I wished I'd noticed her earlier, before Jacob had phased. I wished we'd gone hunting somewhere else.

There wasn't much to be done. Carlisle had called Tanya with the disappointing news. Tanya and Kate hadn't seen Irina since they'd decided to come to my wedding, and they were distraught that Irina had come so close and yet not returned home; it wasn't easy for them to lose their sister, however temporary the separation might be. I wondered if this brought back hard memories of losing their mother so many centuries ago.

Sasha, who had been a mother to the three 'sisters', the same way Esme was for the Cullens, had been killed by the Volturi for creating an immortal child, one of the biggest sins a vampire could commit, punishable by death. The three sisters had only been spared because of their ignorance to the vampire child's existence. Sasha had burnt in front of the three with the child in her arms, a little toddler. To this day, the sisters didn't know who the little boy was and why he was so important to their mother.

Alice had been able to catch a few glimpses of Irina's immediate future, but nothing too concrete. She wasn't going back to Denali, as far as Alice could tell. The picture was hazy. All Alice could see was that Irina was visibly upset; she wandered in the snow-swathed wilderness— to the north? To the east?— with a devastated expression. She made no decisions for a new course beyond her directionless grieving.

Days had passed and, though of course I forgot nothing, Irina and her pain moved to the back of my mind, with the more important fact that I would leave for Italy in just a few days taking up a majority of my thoughts, and the thoughts of my family.

Of course, it didn't stay like that for long.

Hermione was in England, attending a funeral, when Alice had the vision. The body of one of her Hogwarts friends, a Susan Bones who had been missing for over a year and a half, had been located during a raid on one of Voldemort's old hideouts. She would be returning early tomorrow. Alice, out of respect for the wishes that only close friends attend- Susan had no family left- had agreed not to go.

Alice was unnecessarily tidying the already immaculate living room at the time, impatient for Hermione's return. I could see from the way her face fluctuated— aware, then blank, then aware again— that she was searching the future. I assumed she was trying to see through the blind spots that Jacob, Hermione and Elizabeth made in her visions as to how my trip to Italy would go until Edward said, "Let it go, Alice; she's not our concern," and I realized Alice must have been worrying about Irina again.

Alice stuck her tongue out at Edward and then lifted one crystal vase that was filled with white and red roses and turned toward the kitchen. There was just the barest hint of wilt to one of the white flowers, but Alice seemed intent on utter perfection as a distraction.

Staring at Elizabeth again, I didn't see it when the vase slipped from Alice's fingers. I only heard the whoosh of the air whistling past the crystal, and my eyes flickered up in time to see the vase shatter into ten thousand diamond shards against the edge of the kitchen's marble floor.

We were perfectly still as the fragmented crystal bounced and skittered in every direction with an unmusical tinkling, all eyes on Alice's back.

My first illogical thought was that Alice was playing some joke on us. Because there was no way that Alice could have dropped the vase by accident I could have darted across the room to catch the vase in plenty of time myself, if I hadn't assumed she would get it. And how would it fall through her

fingers in the first place? Her perfectly sure fingers...
I had never seen a vampire drop anything by accident. Ever.
And then Alice was facing us, twisting in a move so fast it didn't exist.

Her eyes were halfway here and halfway locked on the future, wide, staring, filling her thin face till they seemed to overflow it. Looking into her eyes was like looking out of a grave from the inside; I was buried in the terror and despair and agony of her gaze.

I heard Edward gasp; it was a broken, half-choked sound.

"What?" Emmett growled as he moved into my peripheral vision, his teeth bared while his eyes darted toward the window, anticipating an attack. Rose had darted to her feet, Teddy cradled protectively in her arms, a ferocious look on her face. "What did you see?"

There was only silence from Esme, Carlisle, Jasper and Maggie, who were frozen just as I was. "What is it?" Emmett demanded, again, voice harsh in his upset.

"They're coming for us," Alice and Edward whispered together, perfectly synchronized. "All of them."

Silence.

For once, I was the quickest to understand— because something in their words triggered my own vision.

It was only the distant memory of a dream— faint, transparent, indistinct as if I were peering through thick gauze.... In my head, I saw a line of black advancing on me, the ghost of my half-forgotten human nightmare. I could not see the glint of their ruby eyes in the shrouded image, or the shine of their sharp wet teeth, but I knew where the gleam should be....

Stronger than the memory of the sight came the memory of the feel— the wrenching need to protect the precious thing behind me.

I wanted to snatch Elizabeth up into my arms, to hide her behind my skin and hair, to make her invisible. But I couldn't even turn to look at her. I felt not like stone but ice. For the first time since I'd been reborn a vampire, I felt cold.

I barely heard the confirmation of my fears. I didn't need it. I already knew. "The Volturi," Alice moaned.
"All of them," Edward groaned at the same time.
"Why?" Alice whispered to herself. "How?"

"When?" Edward whispered.

"Why?" Maggie echoed.

"When?" Jasper repeated in a voice like splintering ice.

Alice's eyes didn't blink, but it was as if a veil covered them; they became perfectly blank. Only her mouth held on to her expression of horror.

"Not long," she and Edward said together. Then she spoke alone. "There's snow on the forest, snow on the town. Little more than a month."

"Why?" Carlisle was the one to ask this time.
Esme answered. "They must have a reason. Maybe to see..."

"This isn't about Bella," Alice said hollowly. "They're all coming— Aro, Caius, Marcus, every member of the guard, even the wives."

"The wives never leave the tower," Jasper contradicted her in a flat voice. "Never. Not during the Southern Rebellion. Not when the Romanians tried to overthrow them. Not even when they were hunting the immortal children. Never."

"They're coming now," Edward whispered.

"But why?" Carlisle said again. "We've done nothing! And if we had, what could we possibly do that would bring the entire guard?"

"There are so many of us," Edward answered dully. "They must want to make sure that..." He didn't finish.

"That doesn't answer the crucial question! Why?" Maggie demanded, frustrated.

I felt I knew the answer to the question, and yet at the same time I didn't. Elizabeth was the reason why, I was sure. Somehow I'd known from the very beginning that they would come for her. My subconscious had warned me before I'd known I was carrying her. It felt oddly expected now. As if I'd somehow always known that the Volturi would come to take my happiness from me.

But that still didn't answer the question.

"Go back, Alice," Edward pleaded. "Look for the trigger. Search." Alice shook her head slowly, her shoulders sagging. "It came out of nowhere, Edward. I wasn't looking for them, or even for us. I was just looking for Irina. She wasn't where I expected her to be...." Alice trailed off, her eyes drifting again. She stared at nothing for a long second.

And then her head jerked up, her eyes hard as flint. I heard Edward catch his breath.

"She decided to go to them," Alice said. "Irina decided to go to the Volturi. And then they will decide...."

"It's as if they're waiting for her. Like their decision was already made, and just waiting on her..."

It was silent again as we digested this. What would Irina tell the Volturi that would result in Alice's appalling vision?

"Can we stop her?" Maggie asked.

"There's no way. She's almost there. Even portkeys wouldn't reach her fast enough." Alice whispered.

"What is she doing?" Carlisle was asking, but I wasn't paying attention to the discussion now. All my focus was on the picture that was painstakingly coming together in my head.

I pictured the day I'd spotted Irina, pictured her poised on the cliff, watching. What had she seen? A vampire and a wolf-shifter who were best friends. I'd been focused on that image, one that would obviously explain her reaction. But that was not all that she'd seen.

She'd also seen a child. An exquisitely beautiful child, showing off in the falling snow, clearly more than human...

Irina... the orphaned sisters... Carlisle had said that losing their mother to the Volturi's justice had made Tanya, Kate, and Irina purists when it came to the law.

Just half a minute ago, Jasper had said the words himself: Not even when they were hunting the immortal children.... The immortal children— the unmentionable bane, the appalling taboo...

With Irina's past, how could she apply any other reading to what she'd seen that day in the narrow field?

She had not been close enough to hear Elizabeth's heart, to feel the heat radiating from her body. Elizabeth's rosy cheeks could have been a trick on our part for all she knew.

After all, the Cullens were in league with werewolves. From Irina's point of view, maybe this meant nothing was beyond us....

Irina, wringing her hands in the snowy wilderness— not mourning Laurent, after all, but knowing it was her duty to turn the Cullens in, knowing what would happen to them if she did. Apparently her conscience had won out over the centuries of friendship.

And the Volturi's response to this kind of infraction was so automatic, it was already decided.

I turned and draped myself over Elizabeth's sleeping body, covering her with my hair, burying my face in her curls.

"Think of what she saw that afternoon," I said in a low voice, interrupting whatever Emmett was beginning to say. "To someone who'd lost a mother because of the immortal children, what would Elizabeth look like?"

Everything was silent again as the others caught up to where I was already. "An immortal child," Carlisle whispered.
I felt Edward kneel beside me, wrap his arms over us both.

"But she's wrong," I went on. "Elizabeth isn't like those other children. They were frozen, but she grows so much every day. They were out of control, but she never hurts Charlie or Sue or even shows them things that would upset them. She can control herself. She's already smarter than most adults. There would be no reason..." I babbled on, waiting for someone to exhale with relief, waiting for the icy tension in the room to relax as they realized I was right. The room just seemed to get colder. Eventually my small voice trailed off into silence.

No one spoke for a long time.

Then Edward whispered into my hair. "It's not the kind of crime they hold a trial for, love," he said quietly. "Aro's seen Irina's proof in her thoughts. They come to destroy, not to be reasoned with."

"But they're wrong," I said stubbornly.

"They won't wait for us to show them that." His voice was still quiet, gentle, velvet... and yet the pain and desolation in the sound was unavoidable.

His voice was like Alice's eyes before— like the inside of a tomb. "What can we do?" I demanded.

"Hermione." Alice said, instantly, her voice rising in her hysteria with each word, each desperate pleading. "She- she can think of something! She will! She has to!"

"Ring her." That was Rosalie. Alice's cell was out of her pocket and in her hands in half a second, her fingers dancing over the keyboard. It went straight to voicemail.

"Hermione, you need to get home as soon as you hear this- I'm at the mansion, it's an emergency!" Alice's voice was thick with fear and misery.

"She must still be at the funeral," Esme said, softly.
"I've got an idea," Maggie said, suddenly. "Witnesses. Like Siobhan and Liam." "Would that work?" Edward asked bleakly, as the rest of us looked confused.

"Our friends, allies... we can call them all. If they'd just stand beside us, just long enough to make the Volturi hesitate. Bella's right, after all. If we could force them to stop and listen. Though that might take away any reason for a fight..."

"Yes," Esme said eagerly. "That makes sense. All we need is for the Volturi to pause for one moment. Just long enough to listen."

"We'd need quite a show of witnesses," Rosalie said harshly, her voice brittle as glass.

Esme nodded in agreement, as if she hadn't heard the sarcasm in Rosalie's tone. "We can ask that much of our friends," she said, softly, "not to fight, not to die, just to witness."

"We'd do it for them," Emmett said.

"We'll have to ask them just right," Alice murmured. I looked to see her eyes were a dark void again.

"They'll have to be shown very carefully."

"Shown?" Jasper asked.

Alice and Edward both looked down at Elizabeth. Then Alice's eyes glazed over.

"Tanya's family," she said. "Amun's coven. Some of the nomads—Garrett and Mary for certain. Maybe Alistair."

"What about Peter and Charlotte?" Jasper asked half fearfully, as if he hoped the answer was no, and his old brother could be spared from the coming carnage.

"Maybe."

"The Amazons?" Carlisle asked. "Kachiri, Zafrina, and Senna?"Alice seemed too deep into her vision to answer at first; finally she shuddered, and her eyes flickered back to the present.

"Jacob's almost here," she said. Rosalie took a step toward the front door. "I'll deal with—"

"No, let him come," Alice said softly. We were all silent as the door swung open, and Jacob loped in.

"What's going on?" he asked. No one answered; we all just stared.

Jacob shook the wet from his hair and pulled his arms through the sleeves of his t-shirt, his eyes on Elizabeth. "Hey, Bells! I thought you guys would've gone home by now..." He looked up to me finally, blinked, and then stared. I watched his expression as the room's atmosphere finally touched him. He glanced down, eyes wide, at the wet spot on the floor, the scattered roses, the fragments of crystal. His fingers quivered.

"What?" he asked flatly. "What happened?" I couldn't think where to begin. No one else found the words, either.

Jacob crossed the room in three long strides and dropped to his knees beside Elizabeth and me. I could feel the heat shaking off his body as tremors rolled down his arms to his shaking hands.

"Is she okay?" he demanded, touching her forehead, tilting his head as he listened to her heart. "Don't mess with me, Bella, please!"

"Nothing's wrong with Elizabeth," I choked out, the words breaking in strange places. "Then who?"

"All of us, Jacob," I whispered. And it was there in my voice, too—the sound of the inside of a grave.

"It's over. The Volturi... they've sentenced us all to die."

"No." We all turned to the doorway, where Hermione now stood, all wild hair, pale skin and glittering eyes narrowed into thin slits. She looked like a goddess of destruction and vengeance, wearing her lethality like a queen wore majesty- as if it was a birthright and nothing more.

Her gaze held none of the loving warmth she gave to those around her, but was replaced with the penetrating look of a soldier who had lived through an atrocity. "We're not going to die- and if they try to destroy us, we will destroy them."