Twilight: Darling of Volturi (YURI/GL)

When Sophie wake up, the room was shrouded in darkness behind tightly drawn curtains. A narrow gap between the drapes allowed only a sliver of the dim, blue-gray dawn to seep inside. Her phone read a little past five o'clock, and she assumed she had only slept for two or three hours. Her body felt unbelievably heavy, no doubt from the exhaustion that had accumulated over the past several days.

After lying in bed for another ten minutes to clear her head, Sophie picked up her phone again. Only then did she notice the date displayed above the time.

May 2.

She rubbed her eyes in disbelief before finally accepting the truth.

She had slept for more than ten hours.

What she had thought was five in the afternoon on May 1 was actually a little after five in the morning on May 2.

Once she came to terms with it, Sophie grabbed her toiletries and, now thoroughly familiar with the place, headed to the communal shower. She vaguely remembered having an unusually vivid dream the night before, but the cool stream of water interrupted her thoughts. By the time she finished showering, she had forgotten almost everything about it. The only thing that remained in her memory was that beautiful face.

With a self-deprecating laugh, she muttered, "Am I really that hopelessly captivated? Well… that little beauty is worth it."

After packing her belongings, Sophie went to the front desk to ask where she could find breakfast nearby. Her broken Italian consisted of little more than isolated words, though fortunately "breakfast" wasn't difficult to communicate.

It was still too early in the morning, and the receptionist clearly had no interest in entertaining questions. With an absent-minded flick of the wrist, they vaguely pointed down a street before dismissing her. Sophie seriously doubted whether that careless gesture had actually answered her question or was simply meant to send her away. Either way, she had no better option. Slinging her backpack over her shoulder, she briskly headed toward the long street the receptionist had indicated.

The narrow alleyways branching off the main road were lined with handcarts, most of them secured with heavy iron chains. Once the sun rose higher, the vendors would return, unlock them, and wheel them out to begin the day's business.

Sophie had passed many such stalls the previous afternoon.

This time, however, she was looking for somewhere she could sit down and enjoy breakfast. She had already checked out of the capsule hotel. At most, she intended to stay in Volterra for one more day to uncover the truth behind Irene's actions. After that, she would leave the city by a more comfortable means of transportation.

She was afraid of delaying her plans any longer. If she failed to find Irene today, she would have no choice but to return to her rented apartment and think through her next move carefully.

A cappuccino, an egg sandwich, and another serving of tiramisu.

Once she left Italy, it might be a long time before she tasted something this authentic again. Sophie certainly didn't mind eating the same breakfast for the third meal in a row.

Her tablet still had more than half its battery remaining. After connecting to the local network, she casually began browsing the morning news.

[Breaking News! Tour bus bound for Florence plunges off a cliff in the early hours of this morning. Victims identified…]

Bound for Florence?

From where?

Sophie's eyelid twitched.

She immediately caught the missing piece of information hidden within the headline.

Since she was connected to a local network, the news site naturally prioritized nearby events. Volterra wasn't far from Florence. Including both cities in the same tour route made perfect sense.

Sophie swallowed hard.

The sweetness of eating dessert for breakfast suddenly became cloying, leaving her throat so tight she couldn't even make a sound. She opened the article and quickly skimmed past the accident's location, timeline, and preliminary details.

There was only one thing she cared about.

The list of victims.

The names had been uploaded as an image.

Its resolution was poor, and the tiny text forced Sophie to rub her eyes several times.

Finally, she resorted to the simplest method possible.

Holding one finger against the screen, she read each name aloud, one by one.

"Irene Ederson... deceased?"

Irene Ederson.

The Irene she knew.

Sophie's heart suddenly began racing. Darkness crept into the edges of her vision once again. It was impossible to describe what she was feeling.

Yesterday, Irene had still been a living, breathing person standing beside her. Today, she was reading about her death in an official news report.

Sophie enlarged the image. The quality deteriorated even further. Yet Irene's name remained perfectly legible. Not a single letter was wrong.

Sophie finished the rest of her coffee, forcing herself to calm her erratic heartbeat. The curiosity she had suppressed the day before returned with overwhelming force.

Why Irene had repaid the money no longer mattered.

Why Irene had died...

That was a question Sophie couldn't bring herself to leave Italy without answering.

To be honest, her grief was surprisingly limited. Reading a few lines of text wasn't enough to make Sophie burst into tears on the spot.

If she were going to mourn, she needed to see Irene's cold body with her own eyes.

Or at least stand before her grave.

She knew she would cry for Irene. They had spent three years together. Even if their relationship had ended in bitterness, the bond they had once shared was enough for Sophie to shed tears for her old friend.

Online news moved quickly. Sophie scrolled back to the top of the article and carefully reread the sections she had skimmed over moments earlier.

"Preliminary investigations suggest the accident was caused by driver fatigue. The crash occurred at approximately one o'clock in the morning. There were no survivors, and no witnesses were present along the mountain road..."

Sophie frowned.

The bus had clearly departed yesterday afternoon. How could it have left Volterra at one in the morning?

"The bus broke through the roadside guardrail before crashing into the mountainside. The impact caused severe structural damage and a fire, which ignited the fuel tank and triggered an explosion. Most passengers remained asleep and never awoke. The bodies were burned beyond recognition. In accordance with humanitarian policy, the authorities of Volterra will compensate the victims' families and arrange burial in the municipal cemetery for any unclaimed remains."

Unable to publish photographs of the victims out of respect, the news outlet instead released images of the shattered roadside guardrail and the charred remains of the bus. Between the poor image quality and the thick soot covering the wreckage, Sophie couldn't tell whether the bus still bore the large letter "V" painted on its side.

She refused to rely on speculation.

She had to verify everything herself.

She would see Irene's body with her own eyes.

She would cry for the friend she had once cherished.

Then she would personally investigate the scene of the accident and finally give this journey through Italy the ending it deserved.

…..

[Jane's POV]

Noisy.

Violent.

Painful.

An overwhelming desire to torment and tear apart everything her eyes could see.

Three thousand years ago, the Volturi defeated the savage and mindless Romanian Coven, establishing a new order for vampire society. Thus began the reign of the royal family, ruled by the Three Leaders at its core.

That rule has endured to this very day.

From the moment she joined, Jane had always been proud to belong to the Volturi.

She was loyal to Aro, the heart of the ruling power, and she despised every inferior vampire who dared oppose the Volturi.

In the early days of the coven, power had been tightly centralized to prevent division. Aside from the three leaders and their mates, every new member joined only as a guard. The leaders alone held the authority to make decisions, while the guards carried out their orders and protected the safety of the leaders and their wives.

As the Volturi's influence expanded, countless wandering vampires sought to join their ranks in hopes of earning status and purpose. Along with newborn vampires taken in after outlaw covens were eradicated, the number of Volturi guards continued to grow. Eventually, a strict hierarchy was established within the royal guard. At its summit stood four elite commanders, each overseeing the countless guards beneath them.

Jane Volturi and her twin brother, Alec, occupied two of those four highest positions.

Their terrifying gifts inspired fear and reverence throughout vampire society. It could even be said that, aside from the leaders themselves, the twins were the true pillars upholding the Volturi's rule.

Within the frozen passage of time, Jane spent most of her existence enduring the agony that had followed her from the very instant of her transformation.

It was not merely the bloodlust every vampire suffered.

It was the agony of being tied to a stake beside Alec and burned alive by cruel villagers.

The unbearable heat consumed Jane's body.

Her clothes...

Her hair...

Her eyebrows...

Her skin...

Every exposed inch of flesh ignited.

Her burning clothes fused to her blistered skin, and the pain burrowed deeper with every passing moment.

She and Alec desperately pressed themselves against one another because only the parts of their bodies touching remained untouched by the flames.

Black smoke flooded her nose and mouth.

Her tears and blood boiled away into steam.

In the end, the flames licked across every inch of her body.

The agony of burning alive carved itself into her soul and had never ceased from the very moment she became a vampire.

That fire changed Jane's life forever.

It was also the moment her master halted the footsteps of death for both her and Alec. Aro slaughtered every villager who had persecuted the twins and granted them eternal life.

Their charred flesh healed almost instantly, becoming smoother and more flawless than it had ever been in life.

Their ruined lungs breathed effortlessly once more.

Their sense of smell sharpened beyond imagination.

Most importantly of all...

Jane awakened with an extraordinary dark gift born from the flames themselves.

A single glance was enough to make her enemies experience the unbearable agony of being burned alive.

Fire.

The one thing every vampire feared.

Yet Jane wielded that very terror with ease.

The price was eternal.

She herself would forever remain trapped within the torment of burning.

While consumed by invisible flames, Jane hated everyone in the world except Alec.

She wanted to throw every last one of them into the fire and force them to endure exactly what she had suffered.

Aro had fulfilled every one of her wishes.

He granted her immortality.

Then he gave her the power to inflict the agony of devouring flames upon anyone she desired.

Fortunately...

Her brother Alec did not have to endure the same fate.

Gentle and kind-hearted, Alec had always been too soft.

All he had ever wanted was to live peacefully alongside his sister.

To exist in a world free from torment and suffering.

When the charcoal fire roared to life, the black smoke obscured his vision, sparing him from seeing the murderous villagers surrounding them.

If only the smoke could have taken away every sensation as well...

Desperately struggling to escape the agony of the flames, Alec awakened a power that granted exactly that wish.

What the black smoke of the fire could never accomplish...

Alec could.

His gift was sensory deprivation. It stripped away every sensation. It freed him from the agony of burning alive.

For that, Jane was endlessly grateful.

Alec was the other half of herself. If he could escape suffering, then it was as though a part of Jane had escaped with him.

Jane could imagine no life more wonderful than this. She would remain eternally loyal to Master Aro, eternally proud of the Volturi, and eternally hateful toward every human and every vampire who was not one of the Volturi.

Her life had frozen forever at the moment she died at sixteen years old.

For the thousand years since...

Nothing had ever changed.

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