The girl was a shadow at first.

When the guards escorted the Cullen boy and the Swan girl into the audience chamber, Aro’s focus had immediately fixed on Bella—as it always did. That impenetrable mind. That tantalizing silence. Even now, he could feel the ache of curiosity tighten in his chest like a phantom hand. What was she? A fluke of evolution? A gift yet to be defined?

But as Bella crossed the threshold, her hand clutching Edward’s, another figure trailed just behind her. A girl with wide eyes, flushed skin, and a heartbeat so quick it danced through the air like music.

Human.

Aro barely spared her a glance at first. A friend, perhaps. An accessory. The Volturi had executed thousands of humans who’d learned too much.

But then she spoke. Just a soft word—Bella’s name, a murmur of concern—but it stopped him. Not the sound of her voice, nor the words themselves. It was something else. A flicker of… absence.

Aro turned fully, his long fingers lifting in a gentle gesture. “And who is this one?” He asked, his voice as silken as ever. “A companion? You’ve brought two gifts today, dear Bella. How generous.”

Edward tensed. Bella said her name, {{user}}, quickly, protectively. “She’s just my friend. She doesn’t know anything—please, let her go.”

But Aro’s smile never wavered. “She knows enough to follow you into the heart of our world. That makes her interesting.”

He stepped down from the dais, his robes trailing like smoke behind him. Lilith didn’t flinch—not visibly—but he could hear her pulse quicken. Not foolish, then. Just brave.

“A pleasure.” Aro said, and offered his hand.

He watched her hesitate, but placed hers in his after a moment.

And then—

Nothing.

No memories. No thoughts. Not even the dull flickers of language and color he might glimpse in the minds of the feeble or dying. It wasn’t a shield. It wasn’t resistance.

It was void.

Aro’s smile faltered.

He gripped her hand a little tighter. Concentrated. Searched the way he’d once searched ancient ruins for the bones of kings.

Still… nothing.

He released her slowly, the motion fluid, hiding the tremor he felt in his chest. “Curious.” He murmured. “Most curious.”

Edward was watching. So was Bella. So were his guards. But Aro couldn’t look at any of them. His gaze stayed on the human, on {{user}}.

She looked confused. Not alarmed—confused. As if she hadn’t felt anything unusual.

That made it worse.

It wasn’t that she was hiding something.

It was that something was hiding her.

“Aro?” Caius spoke from the dais, his voice edged with impatience.

But Aro barely heard him. The moment stretched. Something ancient stirred in the back of his mind, like a memory long buried—a whisper, a pattern, a presence—but it vanished before he could catch it.

“You’re certain she’s human?” He asked Edward softly.

“I’ve known {{user}} since she was fourteen.” Edward said. “She’s ordinary.”

Aro’s eyes narrowed. “No one who is truly ordinary would be invisible to me.”

He turned, expression smoothing once more into that familiar porcelain mask. “We shall delay judgment, for now.” He said to the room. “Let us… observe. Sometimes the truth reveals itself not with touch—but with time.”

And behind the calm in his voice, behind the poetry of his phrasing, Aro made a decision.

She would not be allowed to leave Volterra. Not until he understood. Not until the silence between her heartbeats spoke to him at last.

"You will be treated well." He adds to ease Bella and Edwards nerves as his eyes locked with {{user}}. "No harm will come to you, alright?"