XXX CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE WITH SOME EXCEPTIONS XXX
At one point, Amanda Bloodgood had been a happy, carefree, and openly loving child.
Her smile had been able to melt the coldest of hearts and her laughter, a joie de vie she'd been blessed with from the moment of her birth, had made her many a friend. There had been a light inside of her that eclipsed the sun and her eyes used to sparkle like stars against a pitchblack sky. Not a soul, Shadownhunter, Downworlder, Mundane, or whatnot, could ill wish such a child.
But she was a child no longer.
And many things had changed since Amanda Bloodgood had grown up to be someone else entirely.
No one could see that better than her husband, James Wolverston. At one point he'd been her best friend, her partner in crime, her confidant and person she loved most in the world other than her parents. That and so much more until she'd realized what a farce her life was and all of that was his doing.
They weren't remotely old enough to have so many regrets in their lives, and yet there wasn't a single moment of in the last nine years that he didn't regret what he'd done to her and their relationship.
"James? Are you listening?" His mother asked as she touched his arm hesitantly. It took him a second or two to focus back on her. IT was hard to be back here, in this manor where he'd grown up, surrounded by his old belongings and listening to his parents after years of being away from home.
"I'm sorry." He readjusted his large frame on the armchair and met her hazel gaze with his own. He was thankful to have lit a fire before sitting down; he could feel the chill creeping in as his mother settled into her own armchair.
"Amanda doesn't reside here anymore. She hasn't in nearly six years, ever since she became an adult," Robin Wolverston told him with a resigned sigh. "She and your father don't speak. Not a word since you left. "
James would likely see his appendages torn out of his body before God was kind enough to erase the memory of that afternoon from his mind. The afternoon everything had gone to hell.
"Do you talk to her?"
His mother, beautiful and young and a damn genius, didn't meet his eyes. "Every once in a while we'll cross paths. Her duty to the City and to the Council keeps her busy."
"She maintains the Barrier alone?"
His mother nodded. "Stronger than ever before. The mountain passes are better defended now then they've been in centuries. You can feel the wards in the air. She's even extended the Barrier beyond the mountains to lands further north and to the east. There's interest in expanding further into France. She's giving Idris a chance to grow. With the Council's blessing, of course."
"She's picked up where her parents left off." It didn't surprise him that she would. His wife, his best friend, had always been a maelstrom that could not be contained. She burned as scalding as a volcano and she was equally persistent. He'd known from the moment he'd met her that she'd do the duty of their families to the point of self-harm. Amanda had been a true believer and that was the only thing in her that he hadn't been able to break.
"She takes her job very seriously. It's the only thing she does now."
He stared blankly at his mother again.
Nine years.
The last time he'd seen her, she'd been fifteen and he had been months from turning eighteen. Their marriage had been arranged by their, a political move masterminded by his power hungry father, but there had been so much hope for their union. He was supposed to protect Amanda, provide for her. Give her something in the midst of the chaos. They were friends, she was so full of life and he'd been determined to be a better man than his father.
They were supposed to unite two of the oldest Shadowhunter families, the two Barriers, the protectors of the Ward, one the muscle and the other the brains, in a union that had not been seen in nearly three hundred years. They had been neighbors, best friends since she'd been in the cradled, he'd loved her as a sister and he'd been so ashamed of what he'd allowed his father to do their friendship that he hadn't been able to stay by her side when she needed him most.
Sweet, gentle, warm Amanda had been in love him. Looking back it was so blatantly obvious that he felt sick to his stomach at the mere memory of the look in her eyes when she'd caught with someone else. He'd been an ass, a disgusting excuse for a friend and a despicable husband, and it had taken him many a year to come to terms with it.
Sure, he hadn't even been an adult, a stupid kid, but God the shame he felt.
And then that afternoon had happened, when she'd walked in on him with the one woman Amanda had not been able to friend and had lost all her faith in the fairy tale she'd built in her head. If he closed his eyes, James could see her tears, the silent ones that rolled down her face.
Most of all he could hear the words his father had said to her. "What did you expect, Amanda? You are a child and he is a man. It's his basest instinct to find a woman who can see him as a man instead of play friend. Perhaps with time, if you grow to be as beautiful as your mother was, he will find his way to your bed instead of hers. Don't shed tears over him, sweetling. Your marriage was meant to tie our families together, you could not have expected him to love you. Even you, Amanda, could not be so naïve."
Her world had already been burned to ashes and he saw the rest of it topple, falling around her ears.
"She has become crucial to the Council. She has their ears and their loyalty. Jose Santorro has come to rely heavily on Amanda's abilities to strengthen the towers and the Barrier. For the last few years, she's done everything they've asked and they owe her a hearing. Amanda will ask for an annulment of your marriage. She will ask the Sisters to cut the Marks that bond the two of you together."
His mother was remarkably calm for a woman who was telling him that the only woman he'd ever loved was going to end the only bond he had left that kept them together.
Even across the world.
He'd come back because of that bond. Many months ago something had happened and he'd felt that bond slip, just for a second, but it had slipped. He'd felt vulnerable for the first time ever. He'd felt weak without her presence.
"So she has the support of the new Consul. Will they grant her such a thing?"
His mother shrugged. "Your father will not stand for it. He will rant, he will rave, he will raise the dead if necessary, but she is not the child he thought he would raise to control. She's a woman of incredible fortitude."
"Do you think I should grant her the annulment?"
Just like that his mother seemed to age before his eyes. She drew her knees up to her chest, making her green dress pool around her until only the tips of her toes showed. Green was her favorite color. When she rode the Barrier, she was nearly invisible amongst the foliage. She was barely fifty but she looked nearly one hundred, hunched over and defeated. He had no doubt that his mother loved his father, but the man took a toll on her. Even more so now that she had to chose which side she was on. "I made promise to Valeria before she-" Robin took a deep breath. "That girl lost her family, she lost her smile, her laughter, she lost the ability to believe in love and happy endings and that was what I loved most about her. Even as a Shadowhunter, even when she spoke the Law, she was still all good. I promised my friend to look after her daughter, to ensure that your father didn't ruin her even though I knew how delirious of an idea his was, and I failed her. I failed you and her both."
James' heart tightened in his chest to the point he wished he hadn't lived to see this day. That some demon had killed him long before he had to see that look in his mother's eyes.
"You think I should grant her wish. That I should end this madness Father started all those years ago."
"I think we should give her the fighting chance to be the person she should have been had things been different. We destroyed Amanda, James, but there might be a chance yet for her. Maybe. If we let her go."
The memories flooded in again; of a time he didn't hate his father, of a time when Amanda had looked him with her big brown eyes and smiled at him as if he were the center of her world. Of her father, who used to let James hide under his desk so that he wouldn't have to attend his lessons and who had taught him how to ride a horse and her mother who had been a historian worthy of note amongst their people.
Grief and guilt sat on the center of his chest where his heart should have been. Amanda's face had haunted his nightmares for years and even when he'd stopped dreaming of her, she was never truly gone from his thoughts. And then, after years of being away, of hiding from her and his shame, his mother had told him that once and for all Amanda would see herself rid of him.
If the slip in the bond hadn't prompted him to come home, the possibility that she would break it off completely had.
"When will she step before the Council?"
"She rides the Barrier every three days and on the fourth day she stands before them. Tomorrow is the fourth day."
"So soon?"
"It's been nine years, James."
He nodded because it was the only thing he could do.
X
X
She remembered the boy just as much as the boy remembered the girl. The second he'd stepped through the Portal she'd felt him like rock had been settled on her chest and her ribcage had collapsed, crushing her lungs and heart into oblivion.
It was a messy image that she could not erase from her mind's eye.
Never in nine years had she and James been this close to each other. Back in Idris so he could refuse her the one thing that would bring her peace after all these years.
"Have you spoken to Magnus about your concerns?"
Amanda glanced up from cobblestones underneath her feet and shook her head. She'd only been half listening until now, but she knew where the conversation was going. "I haven't had a moment to consult him. I'm afraid that these last few weeks have been rather trying."
Jia Penhallow stared at her. "I am worried, Amanda."
"I am, too, but there are other explanations. These Marks I have been using are not from the Gray. They are Clarissa Herondale's work. It might just be that they are stronger than any others that came before them. It might not be me at all."
"Do you honestly believe that?"
"No."
There had been a change inside of her. Something horrible that she could not pin point. It had happened years ago, when she'd come face to face with her father's murderer and she's taken his life.
She had killed him with her bare hands.
A seventeen-year-old Shadowhunter apprentice had killed a Greater Demon with her own bare hands. No weapons, just rage.
Since that day the strength of her runes had become something she'd grow to fear. The effects of the Marks were augmented six fold. She could do things Shadowhunters could only dream of. Frightening and terrible things. Jace Herondale and his angel blood wouldn't survive a minute against her.
When her life had imploded, when her father had died, and her mother had lost her mind, and when James had dealt her the last blow her mind and body could have withstood, even then she hadn't known just how deep and how dark her future truly was.
"Speak to him, Amanda. Do it soon," Jia said a hushed whisper as they crossed the Gard with their heads bowed.
There was no reason to hide in the early morning hours. Everyone they crossed knew exactly where the ex-Consul was going and why Amanda Bloodgood Wolverston was with her. It was a blessing that after all these years Amanda no longer felt the shame of being a woman abandoned by her husband.
She was much more than an abandoned wife now. She was monster no one could contain with.
"There are other things to worry about at this moment. I will speak to Magnus when the time is right but I need to get through the Council intact first." She stopped before the imposing doors of the Council Hall, wondering if her reassuring smile to Jia actually came out as she meant it. Sometimes she showed too much teeth and ended up looking predatory. It was a fine line she was walking.
"Your divorce is not as important as staying alive," Jia growled at her.
Amanda felt the laughter bubble in her chest. "You don't know my father-in-law very well. Be honest. Has Gregory threatened to burn Alicante to the ground yet?"
Her father-in-law would stop at nothing to keep her wedded to James. Gregory Wolverston's power was directly tied to hers. They were the Barriers, the two members of their respective families that carried the duty to protect their country safe from demons and Mundanes alike. They'd been charge with the duty of protecting the borders of Idris since the first Shadowhunters had settled in Alicante. The Angel himself had given them their instructions when he'd shown them their promised land. The old myth was that the Angel had watched as Wolverstons and the Bloodgoods had waged a war so bloody and senseless against each other that he could no longer stand it and had tied the two families together so that the Barrier could only stand if they worked together.
She had grown up believing that story, although nowadays she wasn't as stupid as to think that was all.
Aside from a few Silent Brothers and a handful of warlocks, they were the only ones who truly understood the ward that protected the city. The ability to keep the Barrier and the wards was in their blood.
Gregory was a bitter man. Disillusioned by his mediocrity and desperate for power. He would not let her break the bond that tied his family to hers.
"Jose has been receiving his memos on a regular basis. He's asked for my opinion on the subject but you know your uncle has to appear to remain impartial when the subject is two of the most powerful Shadowhunter families and the Barrier."
"I can carry the Barrier. I have no need for the Wolverstons."
If whatever was happening to her continued to grow in frequency and power, she'd probably keep the Barrier, and single-handedly man the Gard, too.
"Try to stay humble in front of the Council."
Amanda snorted. "I have accepted the insults, injuries and censures of nearly everyone Gregory has come into contact with for the past ten years. I am through with humility."
She caught the eyes of the two guards posted outside of Council Hall. They were both young, barely adults. She was familiar with their faces, but it had been a long time since she'd bothered to learn anyone's name. At the sight of her and Jia, the bowed their heads and cleared their paths.
She shoved the doors open, her strength nearly out of hand.
Sunlight was flooding through the high arched windows, bouncing off the gilded chandeliers that hung from the ceiling.
Altogether, Amanda found it to be a glorious sight before her as she paused at the entrance of the room and waited as the crimson-clad group of her peers turned to look at her. Her uncle and Consul, Jose Santorro, Emile Pontmercy, a Whitelaw, a Panghorn, a Trueblood, a Ravenscar, and the bane of her existence, two male Herondales.
She should have dropped to her knees right then and thanked her lucky stars that the awful Blackthorn woman hadn't sullied them with her presence.
They were all standing in a circle, idly chatting as though her future weren't on the line. It made her blood boil.
"I find that I'm already exhausted just from being in this room," she said rather loudly as she stopped short of their group and eyed the blonde man with the sharp gold eyes. "Don't you have children to raise? An Institute to run or something? Aren't there more important things a Herondale can do other than meddle in other people's business?"
"Your utter disregard for my feelings hurts," Jace Herondale said as he shook his head with mock disgust.
"Your feelings are base and self-involved and your presence here is of absolute no use to any of us," Amanda replied as watched them shuffle into position across from her and locked eyes with him.
There was a pregnant pause, in which the members of the Council looked between the two of them before Jace threw back his head and laughed. "I would have thought that all that time you spend on horseback, surrounded by nothing but sky and mountains would be enough to make you miss human interaction. I guess I was wrong."
"I find that human interaction with the likes of you does me no good," she replied even though she was relieved to see him. Relieved, but mostly annoyed. She had a better chance with Clary. She glanced at the other Herondale. "Hello, Kit. What an unpleasant surprise."
He narrowed his blue eyes at her. Standing next to Jace, they were shockingly similar. Blondes. One blue-eyed and the other golden. The Two Lost Herondales.
She didn't see any reason for all the fuss.
"Is there anyone you like?"
"No. They're all mad or dead."
The words hit her audience like a ton of bricks. They broke eye contact with her, most of them shuffling uneasily as the realness of her words sank in.
It was Jose who broke the silence, although he looked stricken as the rest. "Well," her uncle cleared his throat and beckoned her with a tan hand. "Now that the pleasantries are over. Shall we commence?"
She looked at him with an inquisitive lift of her brow. He was squinting at her clothes. When he couldn't face the trueness of her words he always turned to criticism her manners in times of formality. She knew that he didn't see any extraordinary. She wasn't tall and thin and as beautiful as many of her fellow Shadowhunters. She didn't look as striking as his sister had, or the other women in his family. In fact, she looked very Mundane in appearance, another fault in her being that she had long ago gotten over.
She stood out amongst them. They had come dressed in their ceremonial reds and here she was gowned in forest green and mud. Her hair hadn't been brushed in days and her last bath had been in a rushing river maybe three days ago. There was dirt caked under her nails, most of which were broken. Her lips were chapped from the wind now blowing down the mountains. She looked the part of a true Barrier, something they most likely hadn't seen in a decade.
"The Honorable Amanda Bloodgood Wolverston, the last of her line, has requested a hearing from the members of the Council here present," Jose said, his voice effortlessly filing the hall. "We are gathered and convened with the charge of a solemn task: to determine whether or no her marriage to James Wolverston, the Second Barrier of Idris, should be declared null and void."
Not one said a word as they looked at her with saddened eyes.
She hated their pity. Especially the Herondales.
"I am most deeply, and I may say with perfect truth, untroubled by my request to declare my marriage to James Wolverston null and void. It is not a mystery to the Council that my husband has not resided in Idris in nine years, in fact, the entire duration of our marriage. During that time, I have come into my adulthood and outgrown the guardianship that the Wolverston's had promised my parents. Given my husband's distance and disregard in our marriage, and the age in which I entered into matrimony with him, I believe it is my interest to break the bonds of our marriage and move on."
The Hall lapsed into silence although there was a great many nods from her audience.
Since there was nothing left to be said, the Consul stepped forward again, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. No one knew better than he just how long James had been gone and true reasons behind her marriage to him. It hadn't been a marriage at all, barely a guardianship either.
It had been exploitation of a naïve child.
Gregory had wanted her blood and her name. He'd wanted to tie the Two Barriers together and make them invincible. He was bidding his time, counting on her to continue to expand the wards and Idris, so he could claim her work as his own and petition votes to become the next Consul.
That had always been his goal.
Jose had always been above Gregory manipulative ways. He'd been a better man than she could have been and had always been able to resist the urge to squash the bug that Gregory was. Although soon there would be no reason to.
If Amanda was no longer married to James, Jose no longer had to worry about her safety and Gregory's treatment of her. He could finally put Gregory where he belonged, in some dungeon deep in Wolverston Castle where no one could find him.
And the others… all of them had known her since she was a child. They had watched her grown up. A good few had been close to Gregory at one point, but they owed her. She'd sacrificed more of her life to the defense of Idris than anyone else.
She saw him open his mouth to address her again, saw him prepare himself to say the words when his eyes snapped to the Hall doors and the commotion began.
The guards were attempting to block the entryway, but they weren't quite a match yet.
A pulse of volcanic anger shot through her.
The intruder was half way to them, and one large step he joined them on the dais.
He was large, so incredibly large, but she wasn't in a habit of backing down from anything.
"You! Sir! This is a private Council!" Jose said as he stepped forward, this time his hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword.
The man was so tall that he looked down on her cousin. With no other response other than a rather grim smile showing a flash of white teeth, the man turned to look at her. His hair was shaved short on the side of his head and floppy on top, a rich brown the same color of bark. His skin was brown as a nut, and below his jaw, along the right length of his neck, he had a bright red rose tattooed on his skin.
Amanda wondered if her natural response, the one to square her shoulders and prepare to fight was a good indicator of what would come next. "James. Long time no see."
"At least you recognized me." His voice was shock. Powerful, deep, a growl that quivered in the air like the howl of a wolf, yet it was unmistakably cultured and carried a heavy Idrian accent.
Behind him, the members of the Council were starting to look at each other with raised brows.
"I hope you've come to get a divorce," she told him as she stared him down. His size wasn't going to deter her, nor his voice.
"I have come to ask the Council to rethink whatever decision they've made. I would like to remain married to my wife," James responded.
There was a little gasp in the room, which Amanda identified as coming from Jace. She glared at him before turning back to James.
"I have no interest in remaining your wife."
"I have no plans of simply granting you a divorce without first discussing our marriage. And equally important, our roles as the Barriers of Idris."
She had to hold back a snort. "I'm a Barrier. You are just another man visiting the capital."
The gasp turned into a strained, half-chocked, bark of laughter. She wanted Jace to drop dead.
"Amanda," her uncle said as he turned to her. There was hesitance in his eyes and censure in his voice. "We will hear all side, including James Wolverston."
Her estranged husband turned to the Council and she wondered just how fast she could sink a knife into his back.
"I know my wife's reasons for requesting our divorce are legitimate but at this time I have hope that we can fix our marriage and continue our duty to Idris and the Council. I ask you to delay your judgment for a month while Amanda and I discuss our future."
She had a collection of words to use that would property describe her opinion of him and his idea. The only thing that kept her from voicing them was the death grip Jia suddenly took of her arm.
It was reassuring though that Jace and Kit both looked like they shared her views. Jace looked murderously at James.
"Council, I highly doubt my decision will change after nine years of James Wolverston's absence."
How many times would she have to repeat the nine years part?
But he had the Council now. She could see it in the eyes of the other members as they started to think of the implications of separating the Barriers. They would grant him his extension now, no matter what she said. Jose would be a fool to simply dismiss James. It would open him and his Consulship for attacks from Gregory.
Her jaw ached from how hard she clenched her teeth.
Jose looked to the members of the Council and she knew her fate was sealed for at least a month. She faced them, her eyes burning a whole through the drapery of the Angel hanging behind them.
"It is the decision of the Council to grant James Wolverston his request. In the mean time, we will conduct our own inquiries on whether the divorce between the Barriers and the separation of their duties will affect the safety of Idris and our people. In a month's time, we will reconvene this Council."
Jose's words settled like a lead weight in her stomach.
Amanda caught the snarl on Jace's face and the impassive mask Kit was wearing. Jia's grip was tighter than ever. They were looking at her, undoubtedly waiting for her to lose her composure.
"I defer to your wisdow." It pained her to say the others, but she did.
Slipping from Jia's grasp, she bowed to the Council and spun on her heels.
There was shuffling behind her, and a strong hand caught her elbow and Jace dragged her out of the Council Hall. Kit was close behind them.
The doors banged and Jace kept pulling her down the further and further away before he turned her to look at him. He only stopped once they were out of the Gard and near a pond where it would be easy for her to drown him if necessary.
His golden halo was blinding. His outrage was boring.
"What?" She growled, yanking her arm from his grip.
"I promise you this won't change anything. We will speak to them. We won't stop until we get the answer you want."
She stared at him and Kit. Some where in their long acquaintanceship they had decided that she was a part of their little group of overly-talented, self-sacrificing, do-gooders. They thought she was like them, another orphan needing some place to belong, people to belong to.
They thought she needed their help and support.
They didn't know her well at all.
"I have every expectation of success," she told him with a growing smile. Jace and Kit both frowned, sensing a change in the air. They knew a fighter when they saw one.
She was still married, but it wouldn't be for long.
"Don't do anything stupid," Kit growled at her.
"Go home," she said softly.
"I can kill him for you," Jace whispered.
"Go home," she repeated.
"I'm very good at killing things. Ask anyone," Jace assured her.
So was she. Better than him, even. She didn't know any polite way to tell him to get the hell out of Idris and the bejesus out of her life, so she settled for the one things that would get a Herondale out of her hair.
"Are those ducks?"
X
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To all readers, and dear friends, I'm back! And happy to be here! Leave a comment! I can't wait to get in touch again after all these years!
Yours truly, the Chair.