CONTRIVANCES
Aro did not rejoin his anxious guard waiting on the north side of the clearing;
instead, he waved them forward.
Edward started backing up immediately, pulling my arm and Emmett’s. We
hurried backward, keeping our eyes on the advancing threat. Jacob retreated
slowest, the fur on his shoulders standing straight up as he bared his fangs at Aro.
Renesmee grabbed the end of his tail as we retreated; she held it like a leash,
forcing him to stay with us. We reached our family at the same time that the dark
cloaks surrounded Aro again.
Now there were only fifty yards between them and us—a distance any of us could
leap in just a fraction of a second.
Caius began arguing with Aro at once.
“How can you abide this infamy? Why do we stand here impotently in the face of
such an outrageous crime, covered by such a ridiculous deception?” He held his
arms rigidly at his sides, his hands curled into claws. I wondered why he did not
just touch Aro to share his opinion. Were we seeing a division in their ranks
already? Could we be that lucky?
“Because it’s all true,” Aro told him calmly. “Every word of it. See how many
witnesses stand ready to give evidence that they have seen this miraculous child
grow and mature in just the short time they’ve known her. That they have felt the
warmth of the blood that pulses in her veins.” Aro’s gesture swept from Amun on
one side across to Siobhan on the other.
Caius reacted oddly to Aro’s soothing words, starting ever so slightly at the
mention of witnesses. The anger drained from his features, replaced by a cold
calculation. He glanced at the Volturi witnesses with an expression that looked
vaguely… nervous.
I glanced at the angry mob, too, and saw immediately that the description no
longer applied. The frenzy for action had turned to confusion. Whispered
conversations seethed through the crowd as they tried to make sense of what had
happened.
Caius was frowning, deep in thought. His speculative expression stoked the
flames of my smoldering anger at the same time that it worried me. What if the
guard acted again on some invisible signal, as they had in their march?
Anxiously, I inspected my shield; it felt just as impenetrable as before. I flexed it
now into a low, wide dome that arced over our company.
510
I could feel the sharp plumes of light where my family and friends stood—each
one an individual flavor that I thought I would be able to recognize with practice.
I already knew Edward’s—his was the very brightest of them all. The extra empty
space around the shining spots bothered me; there was no physical barrier to the
shield, and if any of the talented Volturi got under it, it would protect no one but
me. I felt my forehead crease as I pulled the elastic armor very carefully closer.
Carlisle was the farthest forward; I sucked the shield back inch by inch, trying to
wrap it as exactly to his body as I could.
My shield seemed to want to cooperate. It hugged his shape; when Carlisle
shifted to the side to stand nearer to Tanya, the elastic stretched with him, drawn
to his spark.
Fascinated, I tugged in more threads of the fabric, pulling it around each
glimmering shape that was a friend or ally. The shield clung to them willingly,
moving as they moved.
Only a second had passed; Caius was still deliberating.
“The werewolves,” he murmured at last.
With sudden panic, I realized that most of the werewolves were unprotected. I
was about to reach out to them when I realize that, strangely, I could still feel
their sparks. Curious, I drew the shield tighter in, until Amun and Kebi—the
farthest edge of our group—were outside with the wolves. Once they were on the
other side, their lights vanished. They no longer existed to that new sense. But the
wolves were still bright flames—or rather, half of them were. Hmm… I edged
outward again, and as soon as Sam was under cover, all the wolves were brilliant
sparks again.
Their minds must have been more interconnected than I’d imagined. If the Alpha
was inside my shield, the rest of their minds were every bit as protected as his.
“Ah, brother…,” Aro answered Caius’s statement with a pained look.
“Will you defend that alliance, too, Aro?” Caius demanded. “The Children of the
Moon have been our bitter enemies from the dawn of time. We have hunted them
to near extinction in Europe and Asia. Yet Carlisle encourages a familiar
relationship with this enormous infestation—no doubt in an attempt to
overthrow us. The better to protect his warped lifestyle.”
Edward cleared his throat loudly and Caius glared at him. Aro placed one thin,
delicate hand over his own face as if he was embarrassed for the other ancient.
“Caius, it’s the middle of the day,” Edward pointed out. He gestured to Jacob.
“These are not Children of the Moon, clearly. They bear no relation to your
enemies on the other side of the world.”
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“You breed mutants here,” Caius spit back at him.
Edward’s jaw clenched and unclenched, then he answered evenly, “They aren’t
even werewolves. Aro can tell you all about it if you don’t believe me.”
Not werewolves? I shot a mystified look at Jacob. He lifted his huge shoulders
and let them drop—a shrug. He didn’t know what Edward was talking about,
either.
“Dear Caius, I would have warned you not to press this point if you had told me
your thoughts,” Aro murmured. “Though the creatures think of themselves as
werewolves, they are not. The more accurate name for them would be shapeshifters.
The choice of a wolf form was purely chance. It could have been a bear or
a hawk or a panther when the first change was made. These creatures truly have
nothing to do with the Children of the Moon. They have merely inherited this
skill from their fathers. It’s genetic—they do not continue their species by
infecting others the way true werewolves do.”
Caius glared at Aro with irritation and something more—an accusation of
betrayal, maybe.
“They know our secret,” he said flatly.
Edward looked about to answer this accusation, but Aro spoke faster. “They are
creatures of our supernatural world, brother. Perhaps even more dependent upon
secrecy than we are; they can hardly expose us. Carefully, Caius. Specious
allegations get us nowhere.”
Caius took a deep breath and nodded. They exchanged a long, significant glance.
I thought I understood the instruction behind Aro’s careful wording. False
charges weren’t helping convince the watching witnesses on either side; Aro was
cautioning Caius to move on to the next strategy. I wondered if the reason behind
the apparent strain between the two ancients—Caius’s unwillingness to share his
thoughts with a touch—was that Caius didn’t care about the show as much as Aro
did. If the coming slaughter was so much more essential to Caius than an
untarnished reputation.
“I want to talk to the informant,” Caius announced abruptly, and turned his glare
on Irina.
Irina wasn’t paying attention to Caius and Aro’s conversation; her face was
twisted in agony, her eyes locked on her sisters, lined up to die. It was clear on
her face that she knew now her accusation had been totally false.
“Irina,” Caius barked, unhappy to have to address her.
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She looked up, startled and instantly afraid.
Caius snapped his fingers.
Hesitantly, she moved from the fringes of the Volturi formation to stand in front
of Caius again.
“So you appear to have been quite mistaken in your allegations,” Caius began.
Tanya and Kate leaned forward anxiously.
“I’m sorry,” Irina whispered. “I should have made sure of what I was seeing. But I
had no idea. . . .” She gestured helplessly in our direction.
“Dear Caius, could you expect her to have guessed in an instant something so
strange and impossible?” Aro asked. “Any of us would have made the same
assumption.”
Caius flicked his fingers at Aro to silence him.
“We all know you made a mistake,” he said brusquely. “I meant to speak of your
motivations.”
Irina waited nervously for him to continue, and then repeated, “My motivations?”
“Yes, for coming to spy on them in the first place.”
Irina flinched at the word spy.
“You were unhappy with the Cullens, were you not?”
She turned her miserable eyes to Carlisle’s face. “I was,” she admitted.
“Because… ?” Caius prompted.
“Because the werewolves killed my friend,” she whispered. “And the Cullens
wouldn’t stand aside to let me avenge him.”
“The shape-shifters,” Aro corrected quietly.
“So the Cullens sided with the shape-shifters against our own kind—against the
friend of a friend, even,” Caius summarized.
I heard Edward make a disgusted sound under his breath. Caius was ticking
down his list, looking for an accusation that would stick.
Irina’s shoulders stiffened. “That’s how I saw it.”
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Caius waited again and then prompted, “If you’d like to make a formal complaint
against the shape-shifters—and the Cullens for supporting their actions—now
would be the time.” He smiled a tiny cruel smile, waiting for Irina to give him his
next excuse.
Maybe Caius didn’t understand real families—relationships based on love rather
than just the love of power. Maybe he overestimated the potency of vengeance.
Irina’s jaw jerked up, her shoulders squared.
“No, I have no complaint against the wolves, or the Cullens. You came here today
to destroy an immortal child. No immortal child exists. This was my mistake, and
I take full responsibility for it. But the Cullens are innocent, and you have no
reason to still be here. I’m so sorry,” she said to us, and then she turned her face
toward the Volturi witnesses. “There was no crime. There’s no valid reason for
you to continue here.”
Caius raised his hand as she spoke, and in it was a strange metal object, carved
and ornate.
This was a signal. The response was so fast that we all stared in stunned disbelief
while it happened. Before there was time to react, it was over.
Three of the Volturi soldiers leaped forward, and Irina was completely obscured
by their gray cloaks. In the same instant, a horrible metallic screeching ripped
through the clearing. Caius slithered into the center of the gray melee, and the
shocking squealing sound exploded into a startling upward shower of sparks and
tongues of flame. The soldiers leaped back from the sudden inferno, immediately
retaking their places in the guard’s perfectly straight line.
Caius stood alone beside the blazing remains of Irina, the metal object in his
hand still throwing a thick jet of flame into the pyre.
With a small clicking sound, the fire shooting from Caius’s hand disappeared. A
gasp rippled through the mass of witnesses behind the Volturi.
We were too aghast to make any noise at all. It was one thing to know that death
was coming with fierce, unstoppable speed; it was another thing to watch it
happen.
Caius smiled coldly. “Now she has taken full responsibility for her actions.”
His eyes flashed to our front line, touching swiftly on Tanya’s and Kate’s frozen
forms.
In that second I understood that Caius had never underestimated the ties of a
true family. This was the ploy. He had not wanted Irina’s complaint; he had
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wanted her defiance. His excuse to destroy her, to ignite the violence that filled
the air like a thick, combustible mist. He had thrown a match.
The strained peace of this summit already teetered more precariously than an
elephant on a tightrope. Once the fight began, there would be no way to stop it. It
would only escalate until one side was entirely extinct. Our side. Caius knew this.
So did Edward.
“Stop them!” Edward cried out, jumping to grab Tanya’s arm as she lurched
forward toward the smiling Caius with a maddened cry of pure rage. She couldn’t
shake Edward off before Carlisle had his arms locked around her waist.
“It’s too late to help her,” he reasoned urgently as she struggled. “Don’t give him
what he wants!”
Kate was harder to contain. Shrieking wordlessly like Tanya, she broke into the
first stride of the attack that would end with everyone’s death. Rosalie was closest
to her, but before Rose could clinch her in a headlock, Kate shocked her so
violently that Rose crumpled to the ground. Emmett caught Kate’s arm and threw
her down, then staggered back, his knees giving out. Kate rolled to her feet, and it
looked like no one could stop her.
Garrett flung himself at her, knocking her to the ground again. He bound his
arms around hers, locking his hands around his own wrists. I saw his body spasm
as she shocked him. His eyes rolled back in his head, but his hold did not break.
“Zafrina,” Edward shouted.
Kate’s eyes went blank and her screams turned to moans. Tanya stopped
struggling.
“Give me my sight back,” Tanya hissed.
Desperately, but with all the delicacy I could manage, I pulled my shield even
tighter against the sparks of my friends, peeling it back carefully from Kate while
trying to keep it around Garrett, making it a thin skin between them.
And then Garrett was in command of himself again, holding Kate to the snow.
“If I let you up, will you knock me down again, Katie?” he whispered.
She snarled in response, still thrashing blindly.
“Listen to me, Tanya, Kate,” Carlisle said in a low but intense whisper.
“Vengeance doesn’t help her now. Irina wouldn’t want you to waste your lives this
way. Think about what you’re doing. If you attack them, we all die.”
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Tanya’s shoulders hunched with grief, and she leaned into Carlisle for support.
Kate was finally still. Carlisle and Garrett continued to console the sisters with
words too urgent to sound like comfort.
And my attention returned to the weight of the stares that pressed down on our
moment of chaos. From the corners of my eyes, I could see that Edward and
everyone else besides Carlisle and Garrett were on their guard again as well.
The heaviest glare came from Caius, staring with enraged disbelief at Kate and
Garrett in the snow. Aro was watching the same two, incredulity the strongest
emotion on his face. He knew what Kate could do. He had felt her potency
through Edward’s memories.
Did he understand what was happening now—did he see that my shield had
grown in strength and subtlety far beyond what Edward knew me to be capable
of? Or did he think Garrett had learned his own form of immunity?
The Volturi guard no longer stood at disciplined attention—they were crouched
forward, waiting to spring the counterstrike the moment we attacked.
Behind them, forty-three witnesses watched with very different expressions than
the ones they’d worn entering the clearing. Confusion had turned to suspicion.
The lightning-fast destruction of Irina had shaken them all. What had been her
crime?
Without the immediate attack that Caius had counted on to distract from his rash
act, the Volturi witnesses were left questioning exactly what was going on here.
Aro glanced back swiftly while I watched, his face betraying him with one flash of
vexation. His need for an audience had backfired badly.
I heard Stefan and Vladimir murmur to each other in quiet glee at Aro’s
discomfort.
Aro was obviously concerned with keeping his white hat, as the Romanians had
put it. But I didn’t believe that the Volturi would leave us in peace just to save
their reputation. After they finished with us, surely they would slaughter their
witnesses for that purpose. I felt a strange, sudden pity for the mass of the
strangers the Volturi had brought to watch us die. Demetri would hunt them until
they were extinct, too.
For Jacob and Renesmee, for Alice and Jasper, for Alistair, and for these
strangers who had not known what today would cost them, Demetri had to die.
Aro touched Caius’s shoulder lightly. “Irina has been punished for bearing false
witness against this child.” So that was to be their excuse. He went on. “Perhaps
we should return to the matter at hand?”
516
Caius straightened, and his expression hardened into unreadability. He stared
forward, seeing nothing. His face reminded me, oddly, of a person who’d just
learned he’d been demoted.
Aro drifted forward, Renata, Felix, and Demetri automatically moving with him.
“Just to be thorough,” he said, “I’d like to speak with a few of your witnesses.
Procedure, you know.” He waved a hand dismissively.
Two things happened at once. Caius’s eyes focused on Aro, and the tiny cruel
smile came back. And Edward hissed, his hands balling up in fists so tight it
looked like the bones in his knuckles would split through his diamond-hard skin.
I was desperate to ask him what was going on, but Aro was close enough to hear
even the quietest breath. I saw Carlisle glance anxiously at Edward’s face, and
then his own face hardened.
While Caius had blundered through useless accusations and injudicious attempts
to trigger the fight, Aro must have been coming up with a more effective strategy.
Aro ghosted across the snow to the far western end of our line, stopping about ten
yards from Amun and Kebi. The nearby wolves bristled angrily but held their
positions.
“Ah, Amun, my southern neighbor!” Aro said warmly. “It has been so long since
you’ve visited me.”
Amun was motionless with anxiety, Kebi a statue at his side. “Time means little; I
never notice its passing,” Amun said through unmoving lips.
“So true,” Aro agreed. “But maybe you had another reason to stay away?”
Amun said nothing.
“It can be terribly time-consuming to organize newcomers into a coven. I know
that well! I’m grateful I have others to deal with the tedium. I’m glad your new
additions have fit in so well. I would have loved to have been introduced. I’m sure
you were meaning to come to see me soon.”
“Of course,” Amun said, his tone so emotionless that it was impossible to tell if
there was any fear or sarcasm in his assent.
“Oh well, we’re all together now! Isn’t it lovely?”
Amun nodded, his face blank.
517
“But the reason for your presence here is not as pleasant, unfortunately. Carlisle
called on you to witness?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you witness for him?”
Amun spoke with the same cold lack of emotion. “I’ve observed the child in
question. It was evident almost immediately that she was not an immortal child—
”
“Perhaps we should define our terminology,” Aro interrupted, “now that there
seem to be new classifications. By immortal child, you mean of course a human
child who had been bitten and thus transformed into a vampire.”
“Yes, that’s what I meant.”
“What else did you observe about the child?”
“The same things that you surely saw in Edward’s mind. That the child is his
biologically. That she grows. That she learns.”
“Yes, yes,” Aro said, a hint of impatience in his otherwise amiable tone. “But
specifically in your few weeks here, what did you see?”
Amun’s brow furrowed. “That she grows… quickly.”
Aro smiled. “And do you believe that she should be allowed to live?”
A hiss escaped my lips, and I was not alone. Half the vampires in our line echoed
my protest. The sound was a low sizzle of fury hanging in the air. Across the
meadow, a few of the Volturi witnesses made the same noise. Edward stepped
back and wrapped a restraining hand around my wrist.
Aro did not turn to the noise, but Amun glanced around uneasily.
“I did not come to make judgments,” he equivocated.
Aro laughed lightly. “Just your opinion.”
Amun’s chin lifted. “I see no danger in the child. She learns even more swiftly
than she grows.”
Aro nodded, considering. After a moment, he turned away.
“Aro?” Amun called.
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Aro whirled back. “Yes, friend?”
“I gave my witness. I have no more business here. My mate and I would like to
take our leave now.”
Aro smiled warmly. “Of course. I’m so glad we were able to chat for a bit. And I’m
sure we’ll see each other again soon.”
Amun’s lips were a tight line as he inclined his head once, acknowledging the
barely concealed threat. He touched Kebi’s arm, and then the two of them ran
quickly to the southern edge of the meadow and disappeared into the trees. I
knew they wouldn’t stop running for a very long time.
Aro was gliding back along the length of our line to the east, his guards hovering
tensely. He stopped when he was in front of Siobhan’s massive form.
“Hello, dear Siobhan. You are as lovely as ever.”
Siobhan inclined her head, waiting.
“And you?” he asked. “Would you answer my questions the same way Amun
has?”
“I would,” Siobhan said. “But I would perhaps add a little more. Renesmee
understands the limitations. She’s no danger to humans—she blends in better
than we do. She poses no threat of exposure.”
“Can you think of none?” Aro asked soberly.
Edward growled, a low ripping sound deep in his throat.
Caius’s cloudy crimson eyes brightened.
Renata reached out protectively toward her master.
And Garrett freed Kate to take a step forward, ignoring Kate’s hand as she tried to
caution him this time.
Siobhan answered slowly, “I don’t think I follow you.”
Aro drifted lightly back, casually, but toward the rest of his guard. Renata, Felix,
and Demetri were closer than his shadow.
“There is no broken law,” Aro said in a placating voice, but every one of us could
hear that a qualification was coming. I fought back the rage that tried to claw its
way up my throat and snarl out my defiance. I hurled the fury into my shield,
thickening it, making sure everyone was protected.
519
“No broken law,” Aro repeated. “However, does it follow then that there is no
danger? No.” He shook his head gently. “That is a separate issue.”
The only response was the tightening of already stretched nerves, and Maggie, at
the fringes of our band of fighters, shaking her head with slow anger.
Aro paced thoughtfully, looking as if he floated rather than touched the ground
with his feet. I noticed every pass took him closer to the protection of his guard.
“She is unique… utterly, impossibly unique. Such a waste it would be, to destroy
something so lovely. Especially when we could learn so much . . .” He sighed, as if
unwilling to go on. “But there is danger, danger that cannot simply be ignored.”
No one answered his assertion. It was dead silent as he continued in a monologue
that sounded as if he spoke it for himself only.
“How ironic it is that as the humans advance, as their faith in science grows and
controls their world, the more free we are from discovery. Yet, as we become ever
more uninhibited by their disbelief in the supernatural, they become strong
enough in their technologies that, if they wished, they could actually pose a threat
to us, even destroy some of us.
“For thousands and thousands of years, our secrecy has been more a matter of
convenience, of ease, than of actual safety. This last raw, angry century has given
birth to weapons of such power that they endanger even immortals. Now our
status as mere myth in truth protects us from these weak creatures we hunt.
“This amazing child”—he lifted his hand palm down as if to rest it on Renesmee,
though he was forty yards from her now, almost within the Volturi formation
again—“if we could but know her potential—know with absolute certainty that
she could always remain shrouded within the obscurity that protects us. But we
know nothing of what she will become! Her own parents are plagued by fears of
her future. We cannot know what she will grow to be.” He paused, looking first at
our witnesses, and then, meaningfully, at his own. His voice gave a good
imitation of sounding torn by his words.
Still looking at his own witnesses, he spoke again. “Only the known is safe. Only
the known is tolerable. The unknown is… a vulnerability.”
Caius’s smile widened viciously.
“You’re reaching, Aro,” Carlisle said in a bleak voice.
“Peace, friend.” Aro smiled, his face as kind, his voice as gentle, as ever. “Let us
not be hasty. Let us look at this from every side.”
520
“May I offer a side to be considered?” Garrett petitioned in a level tone, taking
another step forward.
“Nomad,” Aro said, nodding in permission.
Garrett’s chin lifted. His eyes focused on the huddled mass at the end of the
meadow, and he spoke directly to the Volturi witnesses.
“I came here at Carlisle’s request, as the others, to witness,” he said. “That is
certainly no longer necessary, with regard to the child. We all see what she is.
“I stayed to witness something else. You.” He jabbed his finger toward the wary
vampires. “Two of you I know—Makenna, Charles—and I can see that many of
you others are also wanderers, roamers like myself. Answering to none. Think
carefully on what I tell you now.
“These ancient ones did not come here for justice as they told you. We suspected
as much, and now it has been proved. They came, misled, but with a valid excuse
for their action. Witness now as they seek flimsy excuses to continue their true
mission. Witness them struggle to find a justification for their true purpose—to
destroy this family here.” He gestured toward Carlisle and Tanya.
“The Volturi come to erase what they perceive as the competition. Perhaps, like
me, you look at this clan’s golden eyes and marvel. They are difficult to
understand, it’s true. But the ancient ones look and see something besides their
strange choice. They see power.
“I have witnessed the bonds within this family—I say family and not coven. These
strange golden-eyed ones deny their very natures. But in return have they found
something worth even more, perhaps, than mere gratification of desire? I’ve
made a little study of them in my time here, and it seems to me that intrinsic to
this intense family binding—that which makes them possible at all—is the
peaceful character of this life of sacrifice. There is no aggression here like we all
saw in the large southern clans that grew and diminished so quickly in their wild
feuds. There is no thought for domination. And Aro knows this better than I do.”
I watched Aro’s face as Garrett’s words condemned him, waiting tensely for some
response. But Aro’s face was only politely amused, as if waiting for a tantrumthrowing
child to realize that no one was paying attention to his histrionics.
“Carlisle assured us all, when he told us what was coming, that he did not call us
here to fight. These witnesses”—Garrett pointed to Siobhan and Liam—“agreed to
give evidence, to slow the Volturi advance with their presence so that Carlisle
would get the chance to present his case.
“But some of us wondered”—his eyes flashed to Eleazar’s face—“if Carlisle having
truth on his side would be enough to stop the so-called justice. Are the Volturi
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here to protect the safety of our secrecy, or to protect their own power? Did they
come to destroy an illegal creation, or a way of life? Could they be satisfied when
the danger turned out to be no more than a misunderstanding? Or would they
push the issue without the excuse of justice?
“We have the answer to all these questions. We heard it in Aro’s lying words—we
have one with a gift of knowing such things for certain—and we see it now in
Caius’s eager smile. Their guard is just a mindless weapon, a tool in their masters’
quest for domination.
“So now there are more questions, questions that you must answer. Who rules
you, nomads? Do you answer to someone’s will besides your own? Are you free to
choose your path, or will the Volturi decide how you will live?
“I came to witness. I stay to fight. The Volturi care nothing for the death of the
child. They seek the death of our free will.”
He turned, then, to face the ancients. “So come, I say! Let’s hear no more lying
rationalizations. Be honest in your intents as we will be honest in ours. We will
defend our freedom. You will or will not attack it. Choose now, and let these
witnesses see the true issue debated here.”
Once more he looked to the Volturi witnesses, his eyes probing each face. The
power of his words was evident in their expressions. “You might consider joining
us. If you think the Volturi will let you live to tell this tale, you are mistaken. We
may all be destroyed”—he shrugged—“but then again, maybe not. Perhaps we are
on more equal footing than they know. Perhaps the Volturi have finally met their
match. I promise you this, though—if we fall, so do you.”
He ended his heated speech by stepping back to Kate’s side and then sliding
forward in a half-crouch, prepared for the onslaught.
Aro smiled. “A very pretty speech, my revolutionary friend.”
Garrett remained poised for attack. “Revolutionary?” he growled. “Who am I
revolting against, might I ask? Are you my king? Do you wish me to call you
master, too, like your sycophantic guard?”
“Peace, Garrett,” Aro said tolerantly. “I meant only to refer to your time of birth.
Still a patriot, I see.”
Garrett glared back furiously.
“Let us ask our witnesses,” Aro suggested. “Let us hear their thoughts before we
make our decision. Tell us, friends”—and he turned his back casually on us,
moving a few yards toward his mass of nervous observers hovering even closer
now to the edge of the forest—“what do you think of all this? I can assure you the
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child is not what we feared. Do we take the risk and let the child live? Do we put
our world in jeopardy to preserve their family intact? Or does earnest Garrett
have the right of it? Will you join them in a fight against our sudden quest for
dominion?”
The witnesses met his gaze with careful faces. One, a small black-haired woman,
looked briefly at the dark blond male at her side.
“Are those our only choices?” she asked suddenly, gaze flashing back to Aro.
“Agree with you, or fight against you?”
“Of course not, most charming Makenna,” Aro said, appearing horrified that
anyone could come to that conclusion. “You may go in peace, of course, as Amun
did, even if you disagree with the council’s decision.”
Makenna looked at her mate’s face again, and he nodded minutely.
“We did not come here for a fight.” She paused, exhaled, then said, “We came
here to witness. And our witness is that this condemned family is innocent.
Everything that Garrett claimed is the truth.”
“Ah,” Aro said sadly. “I’m sorry you see us in that way. But such is the nature of
our work.”
“It is not what I see, but what I feel,” Makenna’s maize-haired mate spoke in a
high, nervous voice. He glanced at Garrett. “Garrett said they have ways of
knowing lies. I, too, know when I am hearing the truth, and when I am not.” With
frightened eyes he moved closer to his mate, waiting for Aro’s reaction.
“Do not fear us, friend Charles. No doubt the patriot truly believes what he says,”
Aro chuckled lightly, and Charles’s eyes narrowed.
“That is our witness,” Makenna said. “We’re leaving now.”
She and Charles backed away slowly, not turning before they were lost from view
in the trees. One other stranger began to retreat the same way, then three more
darted after him.
I evaluated the thirty-seven vampires that stayed. A few of them appeared just
too confused to make the decision. But the majority of them seemed only too
aware of the direction this confrontation had taken. I guessed that they were
giving up a head start in favor of knowing exactly who would be chasing after
them.
I was sure Aro saw the same thing I did. He turned away, walking back to his
guard with a measured pace. He stopped in front of them and addressed them in
a clear voice.
523
“We are outnumbered, dearest ones,” he said. “We can expect no outside help.
Should we leave this question undecided to save ourselves?”
“No, master,” they whispered in unison.
“Is the protection of our world worth perhaps the loss of some of our number?”
“Yes,” they breathed. “We are not afraid.”
Aro smiled and turned to his black-clad companions.
“Brothers,” Aro said somberly, “there is much to consider here.”
“Let us counsel,” Caius said eagerly.
“Let us counsel,” Marcus repeated in an uninterested tone.
Aro turned his back to us again, facing the other ancients. They joined hands to
form a black-shrouded triangle.
As soon as Aro’s attention was engaged in the silent counsel, two more of their
witnesses disappeared silently into the forest. I hoped, for their sakes, that they
were fast.
This was it. Carefully, I loosened Renesmee’s arms from my neck.
“You remember what I told you?”
Tears welled in her eyes, but she nodded. “I love you,” she whispered.
Edward was watching us now, his topaz eyes wide. Jacob stared at us from the
corner of his big dark eye.
“I love you, too,” I said, and then I touched her locket. “More than my own life.” I
kissed her forehead.
Jacob whined uneasily.
I stretched up on my toes and whispered into his ear. “Wait until they’re totally
distracted, then run with her. Get as far from this place as you possibly can.
When you’ve gone as far as you can on foot, she has what you need to get you in
the air.”
Edward’s and Jacob’s faces were almost identical masks of horror, despite the
fact that one of them was an animal.
524
Renesmee reached for Edward, and he took her in his arms. They hugged each
other tightly.
“This is what you kept from me?” he whispered over her head.
“From Aro,” I breathed.
“Alice?”
I nodded.
His face twisted with understanding and pain. Had that been the expression on
my face when I’d finally put together Alice’s clues?
Jacob was growling quietly, a low rasp that was as even and unbroken as a purr.
His hackles were stiff and his teeth exposed.
Edward kissed Renesmee’s forehead and both her cheeks, then he lifted her to
Jacob’s shoulder. She scrambled agilely onto his back, pulling herself into place
with handfuls of his fur, and fit herself easily into the dip between his massive
shoulder blades.
Jacob turned to me, his expressive eyes full of agony, the rumbling growl still
grating through his chest.
“You’re the only one we could ever trust her with,” I murmured to him. “If you
didn’t love her so much, I could never bear this. I know you can protect her,
Jacob.”
He whined again, and dipped his head to butt it against my shoulder.
“I know,” I whispered. “I love you, too, Jake. You’ll always be my best man.”
A tear the size of a baseball rolled into the russet fur beneath his eye.
Edward leaned his head against the same shoulder where he’d placed Renesmee.
“Goodbye, Jacob, my brother… my son.”
The others were not oblivious to the farewell scene. Their eyes were locked on the
silent black triangle, but I could tell they were listening.
“Is there no hope, then?” Carlisle whispered. There was no fear in his voice. Just
determination and acceptance.
“There is absolutely hope,” I murmured back. It could be true, I told myself. “I
only know my own fate.”
525
Edward took my hand. He knew that he was included. When I said my fate, there
was no question that I meant the two of us. We were just halves of the whole.
Esme’s breath was ragged behind me. She moved past us, touching our faces as
she passed, to stand beside Carlisle and hold his hand.
Suddenly, we were surrounded by murmured goodbyes and I love you’s.
“If we live through this,” Garrett whispered to Kate, “I’ll follow you anywhere,
woman.”
“Now he tells me,” she muttered.
Rosalie and Emmett kissed quickly but passionately.
Tia caressed Benjamin’s face. He smiled back cheerfully, catching her hand and
holding it against his cheek.
I didn’t see all the expressions of love and pain. I was distracted by a sudden
fluttering pressure against the outside of my shield. I couldn’t tell where it came
from, but it felt like it was directed at the edges of our group, Siobhan and Liam
particularly. The pressure did no damage, and then it was gone.
There was no change in the silent, still forms of the counseling ancients. But
perhaps there was some signal I’d missed.
“Get ready,” I whispered to the others. “It’s starting.”
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