Il Mio Amore

Chapter 13

"Alice." her name was whispered many times by the people behind me.

In shock, in happiness and in surprise, but mostly in faith. Even I could feel the faith they had that she would bring some sort of answer to all of this.

"Alice." My father breathed, the greed palpable even with this vast distance between us.

Suddenly we heard them, running, five people from what I could tell. Scents that were new to me but familiar to almost everyone around me. I took a few steps closer to Edward, out of Jasper's hold, in curiosity.

The small pixie-like vampire came into the field accompanied by another golden-eyed vampire with shoulder-length, straight, black hair, two olive-toned vampires and the last female who is obviously the missing Amazonian.

The closer they got the more excitement I could feel from everyone but I was just curious. What could . . . and then I heard it.

"Alice has been searching for her own witnesses these last weeks and she does not come back empty-handed. Alice, why don't you introduce the witnesses you've brought." Edward said.

"The time for witnesses is past! Cast your vote, Aro!" Caius growled.

"La pazienza è una virtù, padre. Abbiamo tutto il tempo del mondo." I said, making him snarl again.
(Patience is a virtue, father. We have all of the time in the world)

Aro raised his finger to silence his brother but did not dare to move his eyes from Alice's face. She stepped forward and introduced the two new vampires.

"This is Huilen and her nephew, Nahuel." Alice said.

"Speak, Huilen. Give us the witness you were brought to bear." Aro commanded.

"I am Huilen, a century and a half ago, I lived with my people, the Mapache. My sister was Pire, our parents named her after the snow on the mountains because of her fair skin. And she was very beautiful - too beautiful. She came to me one day in secret and told me of the angel that found her in the woods, that visited her by night. I warned her. As if the bruises on her skin were not warning enough. I knew it was the Libishomen of our legends, but she would not listen to me. She was bewitched.

She told me when she was sure her dark angel's child was growing inside her. I didn't try to discourage her from her plan to run away - I knew even our father and mother would agree that the child must be destroyed, Pire with it. So I went with her into the deepest parts of the forest. She searched for her demon angel but found nothing. I cared for her, hunted for her when her strength failed. She ate the animals raw, drinking their blood. I needed no more confirmation of what she carried in her womb. I hoped to save her life before I killed the monster.

But she loved the child inside her. She called him Nahuel, after the jungle cat - when he grew strong and broke her bones - and loved him still. I could not save her. The child ripped his way free of her and she died quickly, begging all the while that I would care for her Nahuel. Her dying wish - and I agreed.

He bit me though when I tried to lift him from her body. I crawled away into the jungle to die. I didn't get far - the pain was too much. But he found me; the newborn child struggled through the underbrush to my side and waited for me. When the pain ended, he was curled against my side, sleeping.

I cared for him until he was able to hunt for himself. We hunted the villages around our forest, staying to ourselves. We have never come so far from our home, but Nahuel wished to see the child here." Huilen said.

"Nahuel, you are one hundred and fifty years old?" Aro asked, the look on his face unreadable to me.

"Give or take a decade, we don't really keep track." the boy replied.