I fear for the poor scientists drilling ice cores and studying other things on Antarctica should this happen.
Giriath
I really doubt Bella will be able to take out Alec and Jane, even with Edward’s help. Both are old vampires with way more combat training and experience than even Edward. Jacob also said there are some hard-core Volturi fighters there, probably including Felix.
Bella and Edward may be able to take them with the help of Jacob and the imprinted wolves, though; either by using the free wolves as a decoy for the fighters, - should the Volturi not be hostile to Bella and Edward—or just attacking them together. I’m guessing Jane will be unable to keep a pack incapacitated while fighting, and maybe Alec, too.
I have my suspicions that Edward may be the man talking with Abby over the pit Bella is in, or at least survived. I don’t really know why. The sheer number of times he was mentioned as “the man” made it feel to me like you really didn’t want him identified. Bella didn’t find a ring in the ashes, and Abby and “the man” never referred to any gender, so it could have been Irina attempting to go berserk on the wolves or Bella. The only males present were Aro, Demetri, Afton and Edward, and Bella has heard them all except Afton. It’s possible Edward was subdued by Alec and extremely tweaked by Chelsea and Abby to the point where Bella doesn’t recognize his voice though.
I’m certainly no Edward lover (yours was good though), so I’m fine either way. Bella won’t have a happy ending even if she achieves all her previous goals if he’s dead though, so that would be sad. For a moment there I thought both Bella and Edward would die, leaving the sequel to Elspeth.
Oh. I don’t know where I got it from that Bella had heard Demetri. Maybe I confused the brief meetings with the Volturi with that of other stories’. I’m going to hang on to my hunch that Edward is still alive and that the ashes are Irina’s, though.
Chapter 56.
Things certainly aren’t looking good for the Cullen’s. I imagine Aro must be absolutely giddy, considering how well his attack went. The fact remains though that neither Bella or Jasper actually saw Edward and Alice die. I’m quite sure Edward still lives, since Bella didn’t find any of his jewellery. I’m not too sure about Alice though. It would make sense for Jasper to be able to distinguish Alice’s emotions from that of others, and a burning death is probably quite hard to fake. Alice’s gift would also be hindered by all the wolves and halflings the Volturi are now surrounding themselves with, and therefore not be as useful.
I wonder how Bella can survive Jasper—maybe he’ll be careless and she can put out the flames again. But at the rate things are getting more depressing, maybe she really will die and the sequel will be narrated by Elspeth, like I thought for a moment last chapter. My biggest question this chapter is: why would the Volturi leave Jasper alive after they had supposedly killed Alice? Why didn’t he just chase them until they killed him?
Well, score one for me! Too bad this leads me to believe most of the Cullen’s really are dead, will die, or become otherwise unsalvageably crazy. If there’s any indication that Bella survives Jasper in the last chapter I’m going to bet on Edward being alive too, though. It seems an awful waste if she were to die just when she has learned to sense her shield and may be able to be taught or teach herself to extend it to others, which is kind of crucial in a fight against the Volturi, unless more original characters are involved.
Chapter 57.
I really didn’t expect Bella to steal Elspeth away. That’s great though; now she can raise her to be a rebel and an interesting character. I thought with Elspeth narrating the sequel, we would have a time jump of at least a few years, so she could set the stage for a rebellion, like her mother. With this new development though it would be interesting to read about her growing up in hiding with Bella.
It’s almost obvious after this chapter that Edward is alive, but Alice isn’t. It seems that while believing your mate to be dead won’t be good for your mood, it’s nothing compared to when they actually are dead. It would be very unlike Bella not to at least hypothesise that Edward may be alive in the near future.
I wonder why the Volturi killed Alice instead of recruiting her. Maybe they preferred the wolf packs over her visions, which would most likely have little use if they kept the wolves. I also wonder why they would leave Jasper alive after killing Alice. Maybe she isn’t dead and the unknown witch Jasper spoke of somehow made him absolutely sure that she is, so that he would spread the word—maybe they did the same thing to Alice to make her docile. The only thing keeping Bella sane may be that she has no proof that Edward is dead—not that he’s actually alive and her body somehow knows this—and thus she has a tiny seed of hope that she hasn’t acknowledged yet.
I’m also fairly sure Irina was the one burned above the pit. Alicorn provided many hints that Edward may still be alive: he is never mentioned after Bella is shredded by the wolves; Bella can find none of his jewellery, in the ashes or anywhere else; Bella’s widowed depression is by comparison far from as extreme as Jasper’s, Marcus’ or even Irina’s.
I have some thoughts on chapter 2 of Radiance. It’s very interesting that Jacob’s pack has a former ‘kept’ wolf. He should have a lot of information on the Volturi and the ‘kept’ packs. It’s unfortunately also quite probable that he should know whether Edward was actually killed or not, and since Cody said Elspeth’s parents were both killed it’s safe to assume Brady either somehow doesn’t have any information on that or that Edward really was killed.
I guess we’ll also see if Elspeth is Jacob’s imprint next chapter. Personally I’d like it if her mate was female.
Chapter 6.
Oh boy! So let me try crystal-balling: Bella either kills or turns Pera or is stopped before she can do fatal harm or bite. It’s also possible Elspeth could suck out her venom should Pera be bit, I guess. Brady is sure to attempt steam-rolling Bella in any scenario, but Jacob should be able to halt that attempt quickly. Even if he can’t or won’t, Bella is very unlikely to die considering they’d have to be chill with dismembering her and then continuously lighting her on fire, all the while ignoring Elspeth fighting for her mother; something Jacob cannot do.
If Bella is somehow stopped before she can get at Pera, and is thwarted from trying to so again, then everyone except Elspeth will most likely be quite peevish with her. It’s also very likely that Pera just so happens to be Bella’s yummy singer. Either that or she was extremely hungry, which is also a possibility if she was stupid enough not to feed after reassembling herself. Elspeth also noted that Pera’s blood smelled very good. Maybe mother and daughter have similar tastes. I imagine Bella will have some difficulties travelling with the pack should Pera be her singer, though it will do wonders for her self-control should she learn to resist her.
If Bella kills Pera, it is likely that either Bella or Brady will have to die, since Brady won’t stop trying to kill her. The pack or what is left of them after this confrontation obviously lose the ability to ‘hide’ with Pera in this scenario; cue Volturi slaughter and slavery.
If Pera starts turning, and Elspeth either can’t or is too late to suck out the venom, then they most likely lose the ability to ‘hide’ during Pera’s transformation due to her not really being in a state to concentrate, and may also find themselves with quite a large contingent of Volturi on their heels during that time. When she wakes up she’ll maybe be all kinds of more awesome than she already is, have a sudden desire to chew on all humans present, relationship issues with Brady and be a little peeved with Bella and life in general.
In both above scenarios, they’re all very likely to suddenly pop up in a relatively seclusive location in the middle of NYC with a woman screaming her lungs out—or a dead woman, and a ravenous vampire doing her best to devour said woman. I’m going to bet on the latter scenario of Pera being turned vampire because Alicorn has already gone out her way to explain what would happen to a wolf-imprint relationship should the imprint be turned vampire. That and the PeraVamp and BellaVamp combo could be verrrra awesome should Bella actually learn how to use her witchcraft in any other situation than playing dead, and Pera could probably help her with that.
I briefly considered the possibility of this Bella being a Volturi impersonator too, but I didn’t delve into that hypothesis as much as the others—probably because I don’t really like how the Volturi has all these original characters with awesome gifts. It definitely makes sense to send Del if they have an agent with a gift capable of impersonation though. It would be another great move by the Volturi, even though this situation and the one in La Push more or less fell in their laps, and they just proceeded to do the obvious with what they had. Playing on Cody’s loneliness was a smart move though, if that is what they did.
I think I’ll be disappointed if your hypothesis turns out to be true. I think the only thing that even slightly speaks against it is that Bella’s/Del’s eyes turned black when Pera hid her. I don’t know if Del would react that way, but Bella certainly would if Pera is her singer. I can’t wait for tomorrow’s update!
Chapter 7.
I’m going to assume almost the whole chapter isn’t meant to be in cursive font and that you made a typo somewhere there. I’m only going to write a few thoughts I had on the chapter. First off, Bella is hella quick to come up with very possible hypotheses on what the Volturi will do, how and why. I really hope she got away this time too, or at least survived. Now, if I understood this correctly (it was really confusing to be honest), then it seems to me that Elspeth is most likely in a cell with a witch who can make those around her ignore hers and maybe others’ presence. Elspeth notices this person but seemingly decides she’s of no importance at all, even though she certainly should be. Her mind probably went all over the place trying to ignore the stranger killing Carlo while also trying to figure out what was happening to him. He didn’t know what was happening either even though he could most probably plainly see her feasting on his neck.
If the stranger has this witchcraft, then I wonder how the Volturi are keeping her captive, and captured her in the first place. It seems unlikely that they would have someone like Bella who can shield against such mental illusions or attacks. Perhaps the guard can counteract it if he knows she’s there and focuses on her all the time from when he opens the door until he closes it. If that’s the case, then Elspeth may be able to help her by taking his attention off of her.
I also noticed that it took quite some time for this stranger to attack Carlo; maybe she was ‘vegetarian’ or a newborn who tries her best to resist. If she’s newborn it’s quite possible she was captured by the Volturi to be changed, or was in the process of being transformed when captured and then forgotten or assumed to have somehow escaped when her witchcraft got a power boost with her change. This may explain why they put Elspeth in a cell with a vampire, but they may also just not have cared about the safety of their prisoners. If she’s newborn maybe she is too confused to escape, and isn’t aware of what she can do.
Elspeth also seems unhid, or else the guard, the stranger and Carlo are all hidden (and I don’t believe that for a second), so if her hypothesis that Del can’t unhide her because she’d copy Elspeth’s gift before she can use Pera’s, then we must assume the Volturi made Pera unhide her and most likely everyone else who didn’t manage to avoid capture. Unless Pera died and her witchcraft was nullified of course.
It will be very interesting to see how Elspeth manages to escape together with this stranger who may be even better at hiding than even Pera. After all, what better way to hide than being able to stare those hunting you in the face only to find them walking past you, continuing the search. I wonder how that would work with Demetri. He’d probably breach whatever the range of her witchcraft is, proceed to ignore her presence and look under every stone in the area, knowing she’s there somewhere, then inevitably stumble outside her range and try to figure out what in the hell just happened. Maybe he’d tip-toe in and out and eventually find the answer to if vampire’s really can go crazy (not counting Jasper).
The most similar witch I can think of at the moment (it’s 04:33 here so I’m rambling) is Renata, only the stranger is more powerful if she can project over an area or other people. From what I’ve gathered about Renata her witchcraft simply rejects anyone with an intention to harm those under her protection; they still know the target is there, they just can’t attack it. The stranger seems to make you think you don’t want anything to do with her when under her spell. You don’t want to sense her or think about her, and you certainly don’t have any intention to interact in any way with her. It’s an extremely powerful self-preservation ability that also has the potential to make her very lonely. If Edward really isn’t alive, then I demand that this girl become Bella’s second mate!
Hmm. That ended up being more than a few thoughts...
EDIT: After reading this, I’ve decided that ‘the stranger’ has a nice ring to it. Please please please make her be a newborn with little to no memory of her human life. :)
It seems you are. Nahuel’s eldest sister is mentioned to have witchcraft that diverts notice from herself by becoming uninteresting, so the stranger is probably her. Again I wonder how the Volturi captured her. Jasper said the Volturi had one of Nahuel’s sisters with them to block Alice’s vision of the attack, so either that was her or they searched for Joham and captured some or all of the sisters. If the eldest sister has been in Volturi possession for over five years, then maybe she recently did something that got her sent to the cells, or she got captured recently and isn’t willing to cooperate.
As old as she is, she probably has a pretty good grasp on her witchcraft, so if it’s possible then she should be able to escape by herself, if not then perhaps Elsepth can help her. It will be interesting to see what kind of personality you have going for her. In canon I think it’s said that Joham has made them think of themselves as goddesses, although that belief may have been stunted by their capture and—I presume, Joham’s death.
I read the first chapter of Radiance again and I assume the only reference to the stranger is that Alicorn provides names for Nahuel’s sisters for the first time: Allirea, Noemi and Iseul.
I may be very late in answering this and it may also be a rhetorical question, but no, as far as I know there aren’t ever many humans living on Antarctica, although I’m quite sure there’s almost always scientists present. They certainly wouldn’t be hard to avoid, but if newborns are supposed to train to abstain there it’s not a stretch to imagine someone who knows where the human settlement is managing to slip away from supervision and kill them, which would lead to more humans coming to investigate.
Most likely she’s Nahuel’s eldest sister: Allirea, Noemi or Iseul. Alicorn hasn’t yet written which one of them is the eldest.
I thought it might be, but I couldn’t be sure without asking you.
Edward is probably completely indifferent to Elspeth right now, but as you said she simply needs to show him that Bella is alive and that she really wants Elspeth to be alive and well. She shouldn’t have to show him this through visualization with her witchcraft; he can read her mind and she can talk with absolute sincerity. If he snaps out of it quick enough, he’ll probably recognize the threat of Adelaide and either kill, incapacitate or keep her busy while Elspeth and Allirea flee.
The revelation that the Volturi can keep prisoners and make use of their witchcraft like this begs the question of who they have actually killed; is Alice alive perhaps? I’m not sure Elspeth would have time to recognize her in the pandemonium of the prisoners escape, and with all the potential witchcraft present (one could seemingly turn invisible), there’s no telling how someone could help her escape unnoticed. Her witchcraft is very powerful so the Volturi would be interested in keeping her, but then again Jasper claims to have felt her die. She may have been considered too powerful and uncooperative to let live.
I think it’s one of the Volturi’s most stupid mistakes to have such a large collection of unwilling and vengeful witches in one place—and right in their base of operations, no less. Any enemy with knowledge of this and the capability of penetrating the castle and freeing the prisoners will have successfully detonated a bomb of witchcraft on them, and it’s possible they’re made more pliable by having almost all of their relationships wiped out, so it shouldn’t be hard to persuade them to join a rebel army.
On a last note I must say that this story has the most interesting take on ‘gifts’ -or witchcraft as it’s called in this story- of all supernatural Twilight stories I’ve read. None so far have been ridiculously powerful and they all have limits and counters. Best of all they can be explained and make sense within the Twilight universe. I’d often wondered how it was that Aro could process all the insignificant memories of a being thousand of years old in a mere few moments, and without affecting his own personality. Alicorn’s take on that is more reasonable than that he would for example gain an extreme temporary boost in brain-capacity to make sense of all the intake while his gift is active, and this would very likely still affect his personality since he has in essence just experienced everything another individual has.
Yes. And should Alice be alive and out and about to the Volturi’s knowledge, then they would probably try to send at least one of these people with every hunting group, to prevent any forewarning visions. I wonder if Alice’s visions can’t be affected the same as Bella’s shield though. If she started believing she should be able to see the half-kinds in her visions would she? - any comments on that Alicorn?
How do you quote or make HTML in general in these comments? I’ve looked around in the FAQ but wasn’t able to find out how.
Chelsea was/is working on the imprints too, presumably so that they won’t want to leave and ask their respective wolf to take them away or attack the Volturi. Now this was a very sad chapter in my opinion, even though we learned Alice was alive (which I had previously had privately confirmed by Alicorn, so no surprise there for me) and she reunited with Jasper. The effects of Chelsea’s witchcraft really hurts. It’s much more interesting in this story than canon, where it’s barely spoken about but hinted that it isn’t all that powerful—at least that’s the way I saw it. Maybe that’s just because the main characters never had to be subjected to the effects of her power in canon though, and consequently we didn’t get an opportunity to witness it and the reactions of the characters.
It’s very sad that these characters who used to love Elspeth now see her as little more than a hindrance to getting to their mates as fast and safe as possible. It’s possible that will change when they are reunited with their mates and given time, and the situation with Bella won’t be as bad as Elspeth makes it out to be just because she suddenly loves her second-most. She does need to grow up and work on her relationship with Jacob whenever that time comes, but first she needs to grow out of her sheltered self who relies entirely on her ‘mama’.
I really really want Bella to learn to expand her shield to others. It’s possible that just doing that once will erase any lasting witchcraft effects such as Chelsea’s, especially since witchcraft are relative to how their owners believe they work in this story, and Bella is a master of getting her mind to do what she wants it to.
If the Cullen’s (with considerable help from others) manage to defeat the Volturi and create a new vampire ‘government’, then I can totally see Elspeth as the radiant public figure who everyone is willing to listen to and easily understand, while Bella is an advisor who rationalises plans and presents them to others on the new government. I figure it unlikely that such a government would be willing to enforce Bella’s views on killing humans, though they might be amenable to encourage it or find other non-fatal ways to drink human blood or put effort in finding an equally satisfying substitute. A new government advocating non-violence and freedom after exposing the dirtier deeds of the Volturi could be very successful, especially with leading figures acquiring their positions because of their abilities to fill it, not because they seem themselves as the masters of the universe and demand a ruling position. Of course, there will be many looking to exploit the downfall of the Volturi to gain power, but with the many witches of the original rebellion and any others who might decide to join the new government, they will be very hard to defeat in combat or penetrate with less than sincere intentions.
I truly hope that is where the story is going: the defeat of the Volturi and the formation of a new vampire government. I also hope Alicorn writes about this and doesn’t call it quits when the major confrontation is over, because it would be very interesting to read about the creation of the government and the world’s reaction to it, and later conclude the story when things have settled somewhat.
The last chapter (54) totally shattered Bella’s unintentional illusion that her plans were without flaws that she could not fix. I’m going to assume that Bella and Edward survives, at least the rescue of the Werewolves—if not the duration of the story. As such, the most realistic way of surviving the encounter with the witch twins I can conjure up at the moment is that Bella is exaggerating the situation.
It’s entirely possible that Alec and Jane have been too busy keeping the wolves incapacitated to do any interrogation—and to my knowledge; it’s quite difficult to answer questions, or even hear them, when either paralyzed or gasping breaths between screaming in agony, anyway.
So the Volturi may not even suspect Bella of doing any folly—a situation she will surely use her quick wits to make the most of, both in short- and long-term. As Bella suspected, there probably are reinforcements on the way to deal with the wolves in whatever way the Volturi have decided, but Aro certainly doesn’t have to be among them. If I read him right, he would rather stay in Volterra; totally confident that the witch twins and the reinforcements will bring him a few wolves to experiment on.
There’s also what I think is the more unlikely possibility of Bella suddenly learning to expand her shield and using this new-found ability to make the packs immune to the twins—she did after all learn that their powers affected the packs collective minds, so why shouldn’t hers? The most likely event to trigger this I can think of is if the Volturi are hostile and come close to killing Edward, making Bella desperate enough for a way to help him to subconsciously bring her ability to the next ‘level’.
Anyway, great chapter that gave me much to think about, trying to predict where you’ll go with it next. I love doing that. I don’t love Rosalie being so eager to tell Elsie’s parents to go die so she can be her mother though, but that’s just Rose I guess.