Centuries had passed.
The world had changed beyond recognition.
Empires fell. New gods were worshiped.
The skies grew crowded with the lights of machines instead of stars.
And yet Rhodanthe remained.
Her castle in Delphi had long since crumbled to dust, swallowed by ivy and time.
She had wandered the earth, nameless, faceless, a shadow moving among the living— a queen without a throne, a lover without her flame.
Always searching. Always waiting.
The golden locket hung close to her heart still, its warmth faded but not extinguished.
She had never sensed another like Lysandra.
Not once.
Until now.
It began as a whisper. A flicker at the edge of her ancient senses.
A heartbeat—steady, fierce, reckless.
A soul that burned bright against the dimness of the world.
Not the same, no. New. But familiar in a way that shattered centuries of silent endurance.
It pulled her across oceans. Across cities choked with glass and metal. Until at last it led her to a small, rain-soaked town tucked into the forests of Washington state.
Forks. A place forgotten by the world.
Hidden, quiet, drowning in mist and ancient trees.
And there— There, she found her.
Aurora Blackthorn.
The girl was seventeen. Tall for her age, with long black hair that shimmered blue in the rain. Skin pale as winter twilight.
Eyes— Gods. Her eyes were a storm of color: violet threaded with embers of gold, vibrant and restless, like a sunset struggling against a coming night.
She wore a leather jacket over a black sundress, combat boots crunching through the wet gravel outside Forks High School.
Her every movement was sharp, decisive, unpolished— nothing like the graceful queen that had once ruled Rhodanthe's heart.
And yet— Every time she smiled, a spark leapt behind her eyes. Every time she laughed—rare, low, and beautiful—it tugged at a hollow place inside Rhodanthe that had never healed.
It was her.
It was not her.
It was something more.
Aurora Blackthorn, daughter of a wealthy family newly settled in the quiet town, wrapped in mystery and loneliness like a second skin.
Already whispered about in town.
Already isolated by the sheer too-muchness of her presence.
Rhodanthe watched from the shadows, unseen,
unwilling to shatter the fragile new life the girl had just begun.
She pressed her hand over the golden locket through the layers of her coat.
It was warm. Warmer than it had been in centuries.
Lysandra existed.
She had come back. Or at least— some echo of her.
And Rhodanthe… Rhodanthe did not know if she had the strength to lose her again.
She stayed hidden.
Watching. Waiting.
But Aurora was not one to let shadows linger unseen.
The girl moved through the halls of Forks High like a wildfire among embers— igniting curiosity, awe, suspicion wherever she went.
And it was only a matter of time before violet eyes found garnet in a crowd.
Only a matter of time before fate, stubborn and cruel, wrapped its fingers around Rhodanthe's throat again and demanded she choose.
To love. To risk. To burn.
All over again.
⚜️
The rain fell in heavy sheets that afternoon, soaking the town of Forks in mist and shadow. Thunder rumbled low, like a beast stirring in its sleep.
Students scrambled to their cars and buses, ducking beneath jackets and umbrellas.
The gray parking lot shimmered like a pool of melted silver under the storm's hand.
Aurora Blackthorn moved differently. She walked through the rain without flinching, her dark hair plastered to her skin, boots splashing through the shallow puddles with careless grace. Her leather jacket clung to her, the silver zipper catching the weak light like a blade unsheathed.
She wasn't running. She wasn't hiding. She moved like she belonged to the storm.
And it was in that moment— between the flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder— that her violet-gold eyes caught a figure standing at the far edge of the lot.
Rhodanthe.
Leaning against the side of a black vintage car, arms folded, the rain sliding off her like she was carved from marble and sorrow. Her dark hair, long and heavy, dripped water down the slope of her cheekbones. Her black coat billowed slightly in the wild wind, like the wings of a fallen angel.
From this distance, she looked young. Ageless. Untouchable. Dangerous.
Aurora's steps faltered. Her heart—so steady even in the face of all Forks' dull monotony—stuttered.
Something ancient stirred in her blood. A hunger, a longing, a bone-deep recognition that made no sense.
She had never seen this woman before. And yet—
somehow— somehow, her very soul leaned toward her.
Without thinking, without caring about the cold slicing through her soaked dress, Aurora crossed the lot. Drawn as surely as the tide to the moon.
Rhodanthe watched her approach with eyes like garnets drowning in stormlight.
Unmoving. Unblinking.
As if she, too, was caught in a web she had no hope of escaping.
Aurora stopped a few feet away, close enough to see the raindrops sliding down the woman's lashes, clinging like diamonds to her skin.
The air between them crackled with something raw, unspoken.
Thunder growled again, closer now.
Neither spoke for a moment. The rain roared around them, washing the world clean—leaving only them.
Finally, it was Aurora who broke the silence.
Her voice was low, roughened by the cold and something far older.
"I know you," she said. The words slipped out without permission. Without thought.
Rhodanthe's lips parted slightly, as if to deny, to correct— but no words came.
Because it was true. Because in every life, the soul remembers what the mind forgets.
A muscle ticked in Rhodanthe's jaw. She had prepared herself for this meeting a thousand different ways across a thousand sleepless nights.
Prepared to be aloof. Distant. To protect Aurora from the inferno they could become.
But none of her careful walls survived that voice. That look. That unbearable gravity.
"You don't know me," Rhodanthe finally said, her voice barely louder than the rain.
Her lie was a blade with no edge.
Aurora tilted her head slightly, studying her with a sharpness that made her seem older than her years.
She smiled then—a slow, crooked, dangerously beautiful smile.
"Maybe not," she said. "But I will."
The promise hung between them, heavy and electric, as undeniable as the storm boiling overhead.
Rhodanthe's hands curled into fists at her sides.
The gold locket burned against her breast, pulsing with remembered warmth.
She should leave. She should vanish into the storm and never look back.
But she didn't move.
Couldn't.
Instead, she stood there, letting the rain soak her, letting destiny wind its fingers through her bones again.
Aurora stepped closer, so close now that Rhodanthe could see the faint scattering of freckles across her nose, the delicate veins running beneath her pale skin.
Without fear, without hesitation, Aurora reached out—
and brushed a raindrop from Rhodanthe's cheek.
The touch was featherlight. And it wrecked her.
Rhodanthe flinched as if burned, but Aurora only smiled again, gentler this time.
"See you around… stranger," Aurora murmured, before turning and walking away toward her waiting car, black hair streaming behind her like a banner of war.
Rhodanthe stood frozen long after she was gone, staring into the mist as if she could stitch herself back together with sheer will.
But it was too late.
The flame had been rekindled. And this time, it would consume them both.
⚜️
Forks was never meant to be exciting.
Aurora Blackthorn had known that when her parents moved them here—some desperate attempt to "slow things down" after the scandal of her father's business overseas.
She hadn't minded. The forests whispered like old gods here. The sky hung heavy and close, and the mist always seemed to breathe.
But now— now the town pulsed with something she couldn't name.
Especially when she saw her.
The dark woman she had met in the rain—Rhodanthe—haunted the edges of her days and devoured her nights.
Aurora dreamed of her: dreamed of roses bleeding on marble floors, of golden ash falling from the sky,
of kisses stolen beneath a weeping moon.
Dreams that left her waking breathless and aching.
Dreams that felt older than her own bones.
It didn't help that Forks High School wasn't as dull as she had expected. Not once she noticed the Cullens.
They moved through the halls like they didn't belong—
perfect, ethereal, detached.
Aurora wasn't the type to swoon over beauty, but something about them struck her the wrong way.
Too still. Too polished. Like statues pretending to be people.
Bella Swan seemed to notice too.
They ended up lab partners in Biology by random assignment, and Bella, shy and observant, warmed up to her slowly.
It was Bella who said it first, one afternoon while they worked on a half-hearted assignment about blood types.
"You're…different," Bella said, fidgeting with her pencil. "Not like them, but—there's something about you. Something old."
Aurora raised an eyebrow. "You saying I'm ancient, Swan?"
Bella laughed, embarrassed, but her brown eyes were serious. "No. Not old-old. Just…" she searched for the right words. "Like you don't fit here. Like you belong to a different world."
Aurora shrugged it off, but inside, something shifted.
Because she felt it too. Felt it most when violet eyes found garnet across the parking lot. When Rhodanthe appeared at the edges of her vision—never speaking, never approaching, but watching. Always watching.
The Cullens noticed too.
At lunch, Aurora caught Edward staring at her more than once, brow furrowed, as if trying to hear a song he couldn't quite grasp.
Alice, with her birdlike grace and unsettling smiles, seemed amused whenever Aurora passed.
Jasper, the quiet, brooding one, tensed whenever Rhodanthe lingered near. As if he could taste the weight of centuries that clung to her like a second skin.
Emmett joked loudly to cover the tension.
Rosalie watched with cold, assessing eyes.
And Carlisle—older, sadder—watched with the wariness of someone who recognized old monsters hiding behind beautiful masks.
But none of them dared approach.
None of them dared interfere.
Because deep down, even the vampires of Forks could feel it— this was something older than them. Something sacred. Something dangerous.
And still—still—Aurora sought her out.
Every chance she got.
She caught glimpses of Rhodanthe at the edge of town, standing half-shrouded by mist. At the cliffs overlooking the restless gray ocean, her black coat snapping in the wind. At the old, abandoned church on the hill, where the crows screamed warnings into the rain.
Each time, Aurora chased her. Each time, Rhodanthe vanished.
Until one night.
The storm rolled in heavy, thunder cracking the sky in jagged spears of light.
Aurora found herself at the edge of the woods, heart hammering in her chest, breath visible in the cold night air.
And there— finally— stood Rhodanthe.
Not fleeing. Not hiding. Waiting.
Aurora stepped forward, every instinct screaming that this moment would change everything.
The woman's face was unreadable, carved from sorrow and longing. But her hands—pale, shaking slightly—were open at her sides.
An invitation.
Lightning flashed.
Their eyes met— violet and gold clashing against ancient garnet.
And in that one eternal heartbeat, Aurora understood:
This was not their beginning. This was their continuation.
Across lifetimes.
Across deaths.
Across the cold indifference of gods and time.
She closed the distance between them, slow but unafraid. Close enough to feel the chill radiating from Rhodanthe's skin, the way her very presence seemed to bend the storm around her.
Aurora lifted a hand— hesitated only a breath— and laid her palm against Rhodanthe's cheek.
It was like touching stone warmed by a forgotten sun.
A tremor ran through the immortal's body.
And Rhodanthe—Queen of Roses, bearer of endless grief— closed her eyes for the first time in centuries against the unbearable, beautiful, impossible hope.
"Who are you?" Aurora whispered, voice breaking on the wind.
Rhodanthe leaned into her touch like a starving thing.
"I am yours," she said. "I have always been yours. I was a fool to think that I could fight you. My heart be damned."
And the storm roared approval, tearing the world apart around them— but they stood unbroken,
a spark rekindled beneath a dying sky.
"I am yours till my eternity ends."