Peace was not something we found quickly.It settled over us like snowfall — soft, delicate, almost hesitant at first.
The early years in Alaska were quiet in a way I had never experienced.Even the quiet towns we'd lived in before had carried traces of civilization, of humanity pulsing in the background.But here, the silence was different.It wasn't empty.It was alive.
Our days took on a rhythm, a subtle heartbeat.
Carlisle left early each morning, walking through the snow to the tiny clinic where he volunteered. The staff adored him in the way humans always adored Carlisle — without knowing why.He fit perfectly here, in a place where kindness mattered more than history.
Esme spent her days designing, rearranging, and perfecting the house the Denalis had given us. She wasn't creating a home just for us — she was creating a place for the future she believed we still deserved.
Edward played the piano every night, soft melodies drifting through the wooden walls like warm breath.Sometimes Bella sat beside him, her head resting against his shoulder, eyes closed as if listening not to the music but to the intimacy woven between the notes.
Jacob found a rhythm too, though his looked nothing like ours.He hunted in wolf form, ran for miles across untouched snowfields, and slept in front of the fire until his fur was steaming.In human form, he built things — shelves, chairs, little carved trinkets he pretended he wasn't making for me.
And Leo — the youngest of us — learned what it meant to have a family again.He spent hours talking to Carlisle, asking questions with the eager hunger of someone who'd been reborn into a world he didn't understand.He shadowed Emmett during hunts, shadowed Rosalie everywhere else, shadowed Alice when she let him.
And me?I grew into the version of myself I had been slowly becoming for decades.
I wandered the vastness of Alaska, letting its silence teach me things about myself I had never taken time to understand.I trained my abilities — not because I feared I would need them, but because I wanted to know who I truly was without danger defining me.
My parents watched with equal parts wonder and caution.Jacob watched with pride — and something else he didn't say aloud, something that felt like awe.
And slowly, the quiet years formed a tapestry:
✨ Seasons passing with gentle certainty✨ Nights filled with northern lights✨ Days shaped by routine instead of fear✨ Laughter around fireplaces✨ Long walks beneath ancient pines✨ The sense that eternity might not be a curse after all
For the first time in my life, I understood what my family had been searching for all this time:
Not safety.Not anonymity.But stillness.
A life where we could exist without being hunted by time or fate or shadows from Volterra.
We didn't speak of the past.We didn't speak of the Volturi.We didn't speak of danger.Not because we forgot — but because it felt too far away to matter anymore.
We believed — for a while — that peace could last.
And maybe that was our first mistake.
Because peace, like snow, can hide cracks beneath its perfect surface.
Cracks we didn't see until they began to spread.
✦ CHAPTER 5 — Whispers of Yesterday
The first sign was small.So small that if I hadn't been paying attention, I would've dismissed it as nothing at all.
I was hunting alone — something I often did now.Not out of necessity, but because the world felt different when I was running through it without anyone beside me.Clearer.Sharper.
The snow dampened every sound except my own movements, and for a moment, everything felt suspended, as if the world was holding its breath.
That's when it happened.
A flicker.
Not a vision.Not a voice.Not emotion.
Something else.
A sensation that brushed the edge of my mind like a shadow passing behind frosted glass.Too soft to identify, too strange to ignore.
I stopped mid-step, listening.But there was nothing.
The forest was silent — only the distant groan of ice shifting on a river.No scents.No thoughts.No heartbeat except my own.
I told myself it was nothing.I wanted it to be nothing.
But it wasn't.
The second sign came three days later.
Alice dropped a glass.
Alice never dropped anything.
She stared at the shards on the kitchen floor as if they were a message she couldn't read.Her thoughts flickered rapidly, too fast even for Edward to decipher.
"Alice?" Esme asked gently.
She blinked, shook her head once, and forced a smile.
"Just distracted," she said.
But her voice wasn't quite steady.And when she turned away, Edward's expression tightened, the faintest crease between his brows.
Something was interfering with her visions.Not blocking them.Just… muddying them.
He didn't say it aloud.But I felt the truth settle between us.
The third sign didn't belong to me or Alice.
It belonged to Jacob.
He woke from a nap by the fireplace — in human form — with a sharp inhale, sweat beading at his temples.
"Jake?" I moved closer immediately.
He sat up slowly, eyes unfocused.Not frightened — Jacob rarely felt fear — but unsettled.
"There's something…" He paused, searching for words he wasn't used to needing."Something wrong with the air. You ever feel a storm coming before it hits? Like it's sitting just behind your skin?"
I nodded."Like pressure."
"Yeah." He exhaled. "That. But bigger."
Jacob wasn't a psychic.He wasn't magical.He wasn't mystical.
But the earth spoke to wolves in ways it didn't speak to vampires.
And Jacob's instincts had never once been wrong.
The final sign came from Edward.
It was night.I was sitting on the porch steps, watching the aurora shimmer in streaks of pale green.The cold didn't bother me — it almost felt comforting.
Edward stepped outside quietly, joining me without a word.
He didn't need to speak.I felt it in the way he stood, the way his gaze lingered on the treeline too long, the way the night carried a weight it hadn't carried before.
"Dad?" I asked softly.
He didn't answer immediately.
Then:
"I heard a thought today that wasn't meant for me."
I froze.He never phrased things like that.Not unless it mattered.
"Someone far away," he said, voice low."A mind I didn't recognize."
"Human?" I asked.
He shook his head once.
"No."
The aurora pulsed overhead, casting him in shifting green light.Something in his eyes made my stomach tighten — not fear, but awareness.
"So what does it mean?" I whispered.
He didn't turn toward me.He kept his gaze on the dark line of the horizon.
"It means," he said slowly, "that something is moving. Something old. Something familiar."
My breath caught.
"You think it's them?"
He didn't say yes.He didn't need to.
The quiet years had been the calm before a crack in the ice.
And now —somewhere far away —the ice had begun to shift.
Not enough to break.
Not yet.
Just enough to whisper a warning.
A whisper we could no longer ignore.