Breaking Dawn

      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?”
      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.
      “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.
      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.
      “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 isdanger, 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 certaintythat 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 cannotknow 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.”
      “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 notcome 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 familyand 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 tantrum-throwing 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 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 youmust 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 thistale, 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 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.
      “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.
      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.”
      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.”

38 POWER

      “Chelsea is trying to break our bindings,” Edward whispered. “But she can’t find them. She can’t feel us here. . . .” His eyes cut to me. “Are you doing that?”
      I smiled grimly at him. “I am allover this.”
      Edward lurched away from me suddenly, his hand reaching out toward Carlisle. At the same time, I felt a much sharper jab against the shield where it wrapped protectively around Carlisle’s light. It wasn’t painful, but it wasn’t pleasant, either.
      “Carlisle? Are you all right?” Edward gasped frantically.
      “Yes. Why?”
      “Jane,” Edward answered.
      The moment that he said her name, a dozen pointed attacks hit in a second, stabbing all over the elastic shield, aimed at twelve different bright spots. I flexed, making sure the shield was undamaged. It didn’t seem like Jane had been able to pierce it. I glanced around quickly; everyone was fine.
      “Incredible,” Edward said.
      “Why aren’t they waiting for the decision?” Tanya hissed.
      “Normal procedure,” Edward answered brusquely. “They usually incapacitate those on trial so they can’t escape.”
      I looked across at Jane, who was staring at our group with furious disbelief. I was pretty sure that, besides me, she’d never seen anyone remain standing through her fiery assault.
      It probably wasn’t very mature. But I figured it would take Aro about half a second to guess—if he hadn’t already—that my shield was more powerful than Edward had known; I already had a big target on my forehead and there was really no point in trying to keep the extent of what I could do a secret. So I grinned a huge, smug smile right at Jane.
      Her eyes narrowed, and I felt another stab of pressure, this time directed at me.
      I pulled my lips wider, showing my teeth.
      Jane let out a high-pitched scream of a snarl. Everyone jumped, even the disciplined guard. Everyone but the ancients, who didn’t so much as look up from their conference. Her twin caught her arm as she crouched to spring.
      The Romanians started chuckling with dark anticipation.
      “I told you this was our time,” Vladimir said to Stefan.
      “Just look at the witch’s face,” Stefan chortled.
      Alec patted his sister’s shoulder soothingly, then tucked her under his arm. He turned his face to us, perfectly smooth, completely angelic.
      I waited for some pressure, some sign of his attack, but I felt nothing. He continued to stare in our direction, his pretty face composed. Was he attacking? Was he getting through my shield? Was I the only one who could still see him? I clutched at Edward’s hand.
      “Are you okay?” I choked out.
      “Yes,” he whispered.
      “Is Alec trying?”
      Edward nodded. “His gift is slower than Jane’s. It creeps. It will touch us in a few seconds.”
      I saw it then, when I had a clue of what to look for.
      A strange clear haze was oozing across the snow, nearly invisible against the white. It reminded me of a mirage—a slight warping of the view, a hint of a shimmer. I pushed my shield out from Carlisle and the rest of the front line, afraid to have the slinking mist too close when it hit. What if it stole right through my intangible protection? Should we run?
      A low rumbling murmured through the ground under our feet, and a gust of wind blew the snow into sudden flurries between our position and the Volturi’s. Benjamin had seen the creeping threat, too, and now he tried to blow the mist away from us. The snow made it easy to see where he threw the wind, but the mist didn’t react in any way. It was like air blowing harmlessly through a shadow; the shadow was immune.
      The triangular formation of the ancients finally broke apart when, with a racking groan, a deep, narrow fissure opened in a long zigzag across the middle of the clearing. The earth rocked under my feet for a moment. The drifts of snow plummeted into the hole, but the mist skipped right across it, as untouched by gravity as it had been by wind.
      Aro and Caius watched the opening earth with wide eyes. Marcus looked in the same direction without emotion.
      They didn’t speak; they waited, too, as the mist approached us. The wind shrieked louder but didn’t change the course of the mist. Jane was smiling now.
      And then the mist hit a wall.
      I could taste it as soon as it touched my shield—it had a dense, sweet, cloying flavor. It made me remember dimly the numbness of Novocain on my tongue.
      The mist curled upward, seeking a breach, a weakness. It found none. The fingers of searching haze twisted upward and around, trying to find a way in, and in the process illustrating the astonishing size of the protective screen.
      There were gasps on both sides of Benjamin’s gorge.
      “Well done, Bella!” Benjamin cheered in a low voice.
      My smile returned.
      I could see Alec’s narrowed eyes, doubt on his face for the first time as his mist swirled harmlessly around the edges of my shield.
      And then I knew that I could do this. Obviously, I would be the number-one priority, the first one to die, but as long as I held, we were on more than equal footing with the Volturi. We still had Benjamin and Zafrina; they had no supernatural help at all. As long as I held.
      “I’m going to have to concentrate,” I whispered to Edward. “When it comes to hand to hand, it’s going to be harder to keep the shield around the right people.”
      “I’ll keep them off you.”
      “No. You haveto get to Demetri. Zafrina will keep them away from me.”
      Zafrina nodded solemnly. “No one will touch this young one,” she promised Edward.
      “I’d go after Jane and Alec myself, but I can do more good here.”
      “Jane’s mine,” Kate hissed. “She needs a taste of her own medicine.”
      “And Alec owes me many lives, but I will settle for his,” Vladimir growled from the other side. “He’s mine.”
      “I just want Caius,” Tanya said evenly.
      The others started divvying up opponents, too, but they were quickly interrupted.
      Aro, staring calmly at Alec’s ineffective mist, finally spoke.
      “Before we vote,” he began.
      I shook my head angrily. I was tired of this charade. The bloodlust was igniting in me again, and I was sorry that I would help the others more by standing still. I wanted to fight.
      “Let me remind you,” Aro continued, “whatever the council’s decision, there need be no violence here.”
      Edward snarled out a dark laugh.
      Aro stared at him sadly. “It will be a regrettable waste to our kind to lose any of you. But you especially, young Edward, and your newborn mate. The Volturi would be glad to welcome many of you into our ranks. Bella, Benjamin, Zafrina, Kate. There are many choices before you. Consider them.”
      Chelsea’s attempt to sway us fluttered impotently against my shield. Aro’s gaze swept across our hard eyes, looking for any indication of hesitation. From his expression, he found none.
      I knew he was desperate to keep Edward and me, to imprison us the way he had hoped to enslave Alice. But this fight was too big. He would not win if I lived. I was fiercely glad to be so powerful that I left him no way notto kill me.
      “Let us vote, then,” he said with apparent reluctance.
      Caius spoke with eager haste. “The child is an unknown quantity. There is no reason to allow such a risk to exist. It must be destroyed, along with all who protect it.” He smiled in expectation.
      I fought back a shriek of defiance to answer his cruel smirk.
      Marcus lifted his uncaring eyes, seeming to look through us as he voted.
      “I see no immediate danger. The child is safe enough for now. We can always reevaluate later. Let us leave in peace.” His voice was even fainter than his brothers’ feathery sighs.
      None of the guard relaxed their ready positions at his disagreeing words. Caius’s anticipatory grin did not falter. It was as if Marcus hadn’t spoken at all.
      “I must make the deciding vote, it seems,” Aro mused.
      Suddenly, Edward stiffened at my side. “Yes!” he hissed.
      I risked a glance at him. His face glowed with an expression of triumph that I didn’t understand—it was the expression an angel of destruction might wear while the world burned. Beautiful and terrifying.
      There was a low reaction from the guard, an uneasy murmur.
      “Aro?” Edward called, nearly shouted, undisguised victory in his voice.
      Aro hesitated for a second, assessing this new mood warily before he answered. “Yes, Edward? You have something further… ?”