Disclaimer: I own nothing, no copyright infringement intended, etc. Cassandra Clare and her publisher and whoever else owns it. We all know the drill.
The Cup dug harshly into her lower lip, drawing blood as easily as if she had been cut with a razor. Clary thrashed wildly, flailing her arms in an attempt to make Jace release her, but he didn't waver. His face remained stoic, impassive. Unwavering. His hands circled her arms like steel bands, forcing her onto her knees.
Her neck snapped back when another hand reached to yank at her hair, and all of a sudden her brother's face came into view. Sebastian. His mouth was set into a hard grimace, but his onyx eyes sparkled with unconcealed mirth.
That bastard was smug.
"Give in, Clary." His lips brushed the shell of her ear, and Clary flinched violently, wrenching her head as far away as Jace would allow.
In a final desperate attempt, she jerked her head, smashing into Sebastian's face. He yelled out, and in the brief moment that Jace's grip loosened, she lurched to her feet and twisted her arms so that her palms slammed into him straight on the chest. It was minute, but Jace stumbled back, and in that split second, Clary ran.
Simon whipped his head back and forth frantically, searching for the faintest glimmer of flaming hair. As he did, the scene before him came into focus.
The desolate landscape of craggy rocks seemed fitting for the battle; bodies of dark and light Nephilim alike, littered the void. Downworlders of all kinds fought in the throng, both fighting for one side or the other. Demons dotted the sky sparsely overhead, their screeches echoing over the mass of violence as if in a horrid cry of approval. High up as he was, Simon was able to see the entire battle.
It was horrible. He had thought he had seen bad when Valentine had declared war in Idris, but that paled in comparison to what stood before him. Off to the right, a solid black werewolf raced towards one of the dark shadowhunters. It sank its teeth into the man's leg just as the shadowhunter slashed deftly with his knife. Both fell to the ground, the man screaming in agony, the werewolf silent. Blood and entrails seeped out of it, the gash having been inflicted slicing its abdomen wide open.
The sight made Simon nauseous, making him look elsewhere. Not twenty feet away was another vampire, lunging with deadly precision as its fangs ripped into a woman's throat. Immediately her eyes opened wider. They did not shut.
Out of nowhere a figure hurtled into Simon. Glorious, which had been grasped firmly in his fist, clattered to the ground. He fell flat onto his back. All of his breath escaped him in one whoosh. Instinctively his fangs snapped out and he let out a snarling hiss. Using the strength that vampirism has gifted him with, Simon lurched to his feet, every intention of slaughtering whatever had knocked him down, when he heard a shriek.
"Simon!" The voice, so profoundly relieved, was as familiar to him as his own.
She came into his vision. "Clary," he breathed, his eyes taking in her figure. A short red dress he had never seen before clung to her body, scraps of fabric hanging, deep slashes leaving parts of her skin exposed. Her hair, naturally unruly, was matted and wind blown.
"Give me the sword," his best friend commanded, and instantaneously he snatched it up from where it has fallen and handed it to her, hilt first. A fire, burning so hot it glowed pure white, raced up from her hand, spreading to the tip. Clary let out a shocked gasp but didn't drop the sword. Light burst forth, illuminating the words "Quis ut Deus?", etched deep into the blade.
The sudden crack of a whip caught both of their attentions, to where Isabelle stood, defending Alec, who knelt next to a fallen Magnus.
"Go," Clary urged him, and he didn't need any more convincing. Simon leapt into the fray, allowing the girl he had known for his entire life to go alone, searching for her love.
"I can turn you back." The words escaped Clary's lips without her permission, tumbling out so fast they seemed it seemed like a foreign language.
Jace's eyebrows pulled up in confusion. "Turn me back to what?" Before she could elaborate though, Jace craned his neck to the side. "Come on. We should go. Sebastian's waiting." He placed a hand gently on her shoulder, but she jerked away.
"No! Don't you get it? I can kill him! I can separate you without hurting you!" Clary was frantic now.
"You want to kill him? You're out of your mind. Clary, give me the sword." His voice was condescending now, as is he was talking to a small child.
This isn't him. The ugly truth pounded through her head, and she stumbled back a step.
"I'm sorry." She whispered the apology so quietly that Jace hadn't heard, but she heard. She felt the agony in her own statement. But it was too late now. Clary took a step forward again, so that they were toe to toe. Her face tilted up, making it so their lips were inches apart. Hesitating for only a second, she leaned up and pressed her lips against his.
Jace stiffened for a minute before hesitantly responding. He murmured lowly into her mouth and his eyes fluttered shut, ignoring all fighting that was going on around them.
Clary, however, kept her eyes wide open. Her emerald eyes train on Jace's golden locks, she arced her body upwards. Slamming her foot down upon Jace's, she used both hands to get as much leverage as she could, swinging Glorious up to meet the side of his head.
Jace's eyes flew open in shock and disbelief, and automatically Clary felt guilty. Before the emotion could grow, though, Jace crumpled to the ground. Looking up, the worst possible thing happened. A pair of black eyes met hers.
"You shouldn't have done that, little sister."
She didn't respond. Every nerve in her body was telling her to run, escape, but she held her ground.
Clary's gaze fell to her brother's hand, which clutched a short sword, worn down from use but still deadly sharp. Light glinted off the blade, creating a glimmering effect. Sebastian swung the weapon easily, as if it took no effort at all, and he smiled.
She moved. Lunging to her right, Clary twisted the arm that held the sword as far as she could, sending screaming pain up to her shoulder blade, but she ignored it. As a reward, Sebastian missed by millimeters, the blade shearing off a few strands of crimson hair. Before she could react, he had grabbed her by her throat, pressing harshly into her arm, until Clary had no choice but to drop the weapon. The heavenly fire immediately extinguished.
Clary fought for breath. Her legs kicked out, but she didn't make contact. Sebastian maneuvered himself so that he was positioned right behind her. In her peripheral vision, Clary saw a small hand pass her brother the Cup. She bit back a sob. His hand gripped her chin and forced her head back.
Sebastian forced the Infernal Cup to her lips, but this time, Clary couldn't escape. The feeling of liquid burned at her lips, and she screamed inside her mouth. Her teeth clamped together as hard as they could, but a pair of fingers clenched her nose shut. After a lifetime of slow moving agony, which probably was only a minute, Clary couldn't take it. She gasped. Just the slightest inhalation of air, but it was enough. The liquid slid down her throat.
The hold Sebastian had on her released immediately, but Clary couldn't have gotten away if she had tried. Everything was on fire. Her knees hit the rocky ground and she had just enough sense to put her arms out to brace her fall. Bits and pieces of gravel embedded their way into her forearms, but she didn't even register the pain. There was nothing else but the burning.
Only a few drops had made it past her lips, but it didn't matter. Clary started coughing madly, gagging in a futile attempt to spit the poison back up. Her chest heaved. The world began to blur as tears filled her eyes. She wanted nothing more than to scream out, but all she could do was choke. The pain, so incredibly intense, snaked its way to her chest. It writhed and throbbed like a living thing, jerking Clary's body around as if it were the master and she the puppet.
Thoughts flitted throughout her mind, danced across her vision, but they slipped just out of her grasp. The lake house where she had spent years of her youth, Simon, his glasses and quirky smile, even Jace, sarcastic comments and raw confessions, slid away from her. There was nothing.
As the pain began to fade, panic began to take hold. The blackness that had coursed into her vision seeped away, and a fiery tingling welled up from her side, and pain bloomed on her left hip. No longer bound by the invisible restrictions that had clutched her, Clary cried out.
And then it stopped. Everything went still. Her heart still raced and her breaths were ragged, but all pain had ceased to exist, apart from a dull throbbing in her hip that seemed to flow bone deep.
It had worked.
Blood poured in rivulets from her side, dripping down her leg like tears. Clary fisted her hand and bit it, barely able to suppress her groan of agony. She didn't stop. The pugio dug deeper into her skin, and the released a small whimper, trembling violently. Finished, Clary brought a small hand towel to her side, dabbing her hip lightly and wincing when she felt it touch flesh. When the area was no longer a pool of blood, she arched her back and stood on her toes, looking into the mirror that adorned the bathroom wall.
A jumbled maze of lines intricately wove themselves through each other, creating a pattern so complex that it was difficult to tell what it was. A rune. The image had flashed through Clary's mind incessantly, demanding to be drawn, but having no idea of what power it held. Sebastian had to be around somewhere, for they were leaving for the Seventh Sacred Site. Unable to get her hands on a stele, Clary had snuck up to the training room with one thing in mind. A pugio. Her mind flitted back to when Jace had been himself, and how he told her of how he had killed Magdalena. "A dagger seethed in angel blood." It would work. It had to.
And so Clary searched through her brother's near arsenal of weapons, until a small miracle was granted upon her. He had one. "They're incredibly rare; I've never even seen one in real life before." Jace's words echoed through her mind. So why wasn't she surprised when Sebastian had one?
Paranoid that either Jace or Sebastian would find her, Clary locked herself in the bathroom of the apartment, praying that the angel blood would make the rune work, at least temporarily. It could save her life. That is, if she knew what it did.
She knew now. If she concentrated, the faint hum of energy that came with runes resounded through her, keeping the effects of the Cup at bay, at least for a moment.
But he didn't know that. Sebastian. She had to fool him.
Just as Amatis had, Clary rose, trying desperately to hide the quaking of her body. Taking cue, she strode to where Sebastian stood, his arms crossed and grin wide. Clary tried to move with as much grace as possible; she had seen the effects that the Cup had on others. It almost made her gag, but she sank to one knee in front of Sebastian.
"Rise." He sounded almost gleeful.
As she stood, Clary kept her eyes trained on the ground, fearing if she looked up he would notice.
"Look at me," he commanded, and then she had no choice.
Clary loosened her jaw, which had unconsciously tightened to a dangerous measure, and forced her expression into one of indifference. She practically felt her eyes harden, forcing any emotion to drain away. Black eyes met green, and both mouths turned up in a smile. One, so obviously pleased, warred with the other, painstakingly placed and struggling to remain cruel.
"I've been waiting a long time for this." Sebastian mused easily with a deep inhale, as if reveling in the scent of victory. "We should go take care of those pesky little friends you've got there, shouldn't we?" He nodded to where her friends fought, forming a tight protective circle around Magnus. The battle was drawing to a close. Bodies lay heaped on top of one another. Both sides were decimated, but it was Sebastian's forces that were the weaker of the two. He saw that.
"What'd you do to Jace anyway? At least he seems to be waking up." He spoke so casually, slinging an arm over both of Clary's shoulders, and she pummeled the urge to violently smack it off. Indeed, Jace began to stir from where he had fallen; his hand twitched and he groaned.
"Help him up; we really should be going." Sebastian looked bored.
Clary fought the urge to scream.
Instead, she forced the words "As you wish" through her teeth, proud that her tone didn't sound homicidal.
Her back turned to Sebastian, she walked the short distance front the two of them to where Jace lay. The slight sound of footsteps pattered behind her, valuing her in as to where Sebastian was.
One shot.
Clary's eyes flickered. The heavenly sword glimmered dully in her peripheral vision. She lunged. Her hand slipped around the handle, and she whirled to find Sebastian pointing his own blade at her chest.
"I wasn't sure, but I had my suspicions. So tell me, Clarissa, how'd you pull it off? Resisting the cup? Not easy to do. It's going to effect you eventually." He sounded so cocky, but he was right.
The effects of the rune were wearing down fast, the slow burning in her hip heating up. A quick tingle began to jolt at her body, creating a pattern that felt off. Her body seemed no longer her own. It was now or never.
The two started to fight, Clary doing an intricate dance of dodging and rolling, Sebastian landing strike after merciless. After circling each other intensely, the tip of Sebastian's blade swept across Clary's jawbone and up her cheek. Instantly she could feel the blood start to flow. Her eyes did not waver. They did widen, however, when, a figure flew out of nowhere, slamming into her opponent.
A mop of red hair identical to her own scratched furiously at Sebastian. Her mom.
Stunned only for a moment, Sebastian jumped back up just as Clary reared back and struck.
They hit simultaneously. Glorious pierced Sebastian's chest, driving directly into his heart, and with that, he began to burn. A tortured wail clawed its way out of him, but Clary didn't hear.
She was too busy dying.
Jocelyn shrieked mindlessly as she witnessed her daughter fall to the ground and begin to convulse. She watched, horrified, as her son stood above her daughter, gloating. When Clary knelt in front of him, that was it. All rational though flew out of her mind as Jocelyn raced to save her daughter. Her heart thudded back to life when she saw the two of them fighting. Blood ran down Clary's face. It was at that exact moment that Jocelyn reached the scene, ramming as hard as she could into Jonathan. Her son. Time seemed to slow down as she watched her children.
There was a time when everything should have been different. She had been madly in love, expecting a child, and a fierce shadowhunter. What had the world come to when all she could hope was that one of her children slaughter the other?
Relief was the only word though, that could be used to describe the feeling that coursed through her as she saw her firstborn fall to the ground. The next second though, was the worst of her life. Clary's face, paler than Jocelyn had ever seen it, was expressionless. And then she fell.
Scrabbling over to where Clary's slender figure lay, Jocelyn knelt, frantically searching for any wounds. She turned Clary so that she was on her back, and immediately blood coated her hand.
A gaping wound pierced her abdomen. Jocelyn gasped, momentarily paralyzed, as her daughter began to convulse. She snapped out of her stupor and wrestled for the stele in her belt.
The sounds of rapid footsteps neared her, and startled scream. Looking up, she noticed Alec helping Jace up, and Isabelle, looking so much like Maryse, as she surveyed Jonathan's body. Her gaze, acutely relieved, turned to one of concern when she saw the two, mother and daughter, on the ground. Instantly she was by their side, handing Jocelyn a small dagger, which she used to slice open the bloodied part of Clary's dress.
Right above the wound, shaking hands hastily applied and iratze, and fortunately, or rather, unfortunately, Clary responded immediately.
The world was dying. Land crumbled, life disappeared, and everything stopped. Blackness inked in, switching her vision from pulsating colors to nothingness. All at once, the objects around her solidified, and she could make out the voices that boomed above her.
"Why isn't it working?" A feminine voice, frantic.
"It did! She stopped bleeding! The wound closed! What is that?"
Hands pulled at her body, but Clary didn't have the strength to respond. Her eyes remained shut. The flimsy fabric of her dress gave way to the insistent tugging and with it, her skin was exposed. She could feel it now, the fiery essence of the rune dwindling down until it was nearly nonexistent.
Pain began to pump through her again, the same torture that had slithered it's way into her soul when she had drunken from the Cup. The rune was fading.
Shock tore through her body, forcing a gasp through her lips and her eyes to shoot open. Spots danced across her eyes, eventually giving way to the terror-stricken faces above her.
Clary, clary, clary. Her name reverberated around her until she realized that it was actually being called out loud.
"Mom?" The word cracked as it came out, her throat dry as if she hadn't had anything to drink in months.
"Ohthankgoodness. Clary? I was so worried, and then when you-"
Her mom's worrying cut off as a firm hand propped Clary's head up, causing her to wince.
The one tiny movement set her nerves into a frenzy, and while her entire body tingled, it turned leaden, immobilizing her.
"Clary. Clary, what is this?"
The sound of this new person's voice, so firm, so commanding, so familiar, caused Clary's eyes to pry themselves open, unaware that that had even shut in the first place. Her gaze met the darkened gold ones above her, and her labored breathing caught.
Jace. Looking fine besides a bruise forming on the side of his head, Jace repeated his question.
"What is this, Clary?"
She lifted her head. Right there, on her left hip, the rune she had drawn just before coming to the Seventh Sacred Site, was fading. The iratze had caused it to scab over, and it grew more and more faint by the second.
Her gaze clouded over.
"Rune," she choked out, then slumped back to the ground, leaving Jace to hold her up.
All there was in Jace's world was the pounding. Blood beat in his ears to the rhythm of heart, and he couldn't even hear himself speak. His lips moved though, forming his girl's name over and over.
A rune, she had saw it now, the swirling lines that were normally etched with a stele, now healed and faded into a pale white on Clary's hip, new skin replacing the ruined.
What was even more terrifying though, were her arms. An inky blackness was starting to appear, forming in the major arteries of her wrists and inching up her veins.
The pieces fell together. Clary had knocked him out...the rune, the blackness in her blood...blood...blood!
"She drank from the Cup." His words were nothing more than a breath, but this time they echoed through the battlefield like a gunshot.
Exclamations of horror spread throughout their tightly knit group of friends and family, each person shouting out questions and commands, suggestions and cries.
"Where's Magnus?" The first thought that popped into his head flew from his mouth. Magnus could fix this. He could save her.
His hopes withered though, as his parabatai responded. "He was hurt." The strain in Alec's voice was evident. "He should be fine, but the others took him back for now." Immediately Jace knew he was talking about the surviving shadowhunters.
Looking down, Jace saw that the poison had crawled its way past Clary's forearms and was heading towards her shoulders...nearing her heart.
Clary's eyelids fluttered spastically and a nearly inaudible moan escaped her lips.
"Listen to me. Clary, I need you to look at me. It's going to be ok, alright? Everything's going to be fine."
He knew it wasn't. All his life Jace had dealt with the possibility of death, had seen it firsthand, and he was going to witness it again. He had never been one to give false reassurances, but it felt as if he was trying to convince himself.
Placing his fingertips to her neck, Jace felt for her pulse. Barely there and slowing down, he knew she barely had two minutes left in this world, maybe less.
Never before would he have given up, but there was nothing that could be done. As he looked at Clary's face, his throat closed. Her face was peaceful, as if she couldn't feel the poison take hold, warring with her angelic blood.
The boy never cried again. And he didn't now. He simply clutched his only love to his chest, his breathing heaving and hitching like hers, only his didn't stop.
.
The ground was shaking. Almost like an earthquake, but nothing was disturbed. No rocks moved, nothing fell. And then the world was seethed in light.
No one had a choice; their eyes slammed shut to avoid being blinded. Only when the white glow subsided to bearable proportions, did they open their eyes.
For the first time that anyone had ever known, Raziel had appeared without being summoned. Standing nearly sixty feet tall, he looked down at the pitiful group, Jace still clinging onto Clary's body and Jocelyn huddling nearby.
She has served well. There was no preamble; the angel cut straight to the point.
Her time on this earth is over. Clarissa was never meant for this world.
Unheard of before, Raziel shrank, nearing the height of an average person, yet still managing to seem intimidating.
Jace was the first to speak. "Then what world was she meant for?" His voice, normally filled with arrogance, broke.
Ours. This time, and as unbelievable as it seemed, his voice softened. Angels were usually stoic; they were warriors. One showing an emotion other than anger or negativity was in itself rare. Before anyone could say more, Raziel took a step to the side. Clary walked out from behind him.
Alive. She was alive. Or so Jace thought. Tucked behind her back, visible only when she turned to the side, were her wings. Clary had wings. The purest white mixed with the slightest hint of ivory feathers, decorating the small but sturdy pair of wings she now had.
Nearly blindingly white, her slender figure whooshed with the white fabric of her short sleeveless dress.
Jace's fist clenched beneath him, unaware from which emotion it had come. It couldn't be possible. It couldn't. When his knuckles brushed flesh, he flinched violently, suddenly coming to his senses.
She wasn't alive. She was dead. She was dead. He was still holding her body. And when he looked down, Clary's figure still laid, chest unmoving and heart still.
There weren't many moments when Jace had been stricken speechless, but this was one of them.
"It's ok, Jace." At the sound of the statement, Jace's head whipped up to meet Clary's emerald eyes. Her voice had changed. The few times he had heard angels speak, they were never human; there was always an untouchable quality that made them greater. Clary was similar, yet more grounded. Solid. Different tones layered her voice, as if three versions of her spoke at once, each at different pitches. At odds with logic, the tones harmonized, creating a single sound.
"It's ok," she said again, the barely detectable smile on her face warring with the heartbroken look in her eyes.
Her gaze roamed from her mother to Luke, Isabelle to Alec, wincing when she got to Simon, and finally locked onto Jace.
Clary walked forward, past Raziel, who stood impassively, watching as her friends and family encircled her. And gently as he could, Jace laid Clary's body onto the ground, fighting the urge to run straight to the new angelic version of her.
"I can't stay." Clary blurted out bluntly, dashing all hopes that any of them could have had about her returning.
"They need me." At that her head tilted to the side where Raziel stood. She meant the angels, Jace realized. The other angels. She was one too. "He let me come though. To say goodbye."
And that night, amongst the desolation of the struggle between light and dark, they said goodbye.
.
"Go get the girl, Lewis." He didn't respond, simply looked back at her with dark mournful eyes.
.
"Later Fray," he finally whispered, clutching her to his chest, before finally, finally, letting go.
.
"I was always team Malec." Alec stared at her, completely confused, but nodded, serious as ever.
.
"It'll be ok. You have each other. Love you." She spoke to her mother and Luke, who while Jocelyn was silently crying, clung to each other. Clary kept her sentences short, seeming to struggle at keeping her emotions in check, even for an angel.
.
"Get him, Izzy. You can't let him get away." Ever the warrior, Isabelle only reacted by nodding like Luke, letting the smallest sniffle escape her.
.
And they all watched, unable to look away, as Jace and Clary hugged each other, his hands tangling in her hair and chest heaving, breathing in her scent. One last time. Her lips were at his ear, murmuring words meant for only him to hear. They froze for a moment, him holding her up, uncaring that he held her wings, so that they were nose to nose. None of the others heard, but they saw. The silent words between them were deafening.
I love you.
No sound was made. Not one person shed a tear. Simon had left with Maia and Jordan, heading back to the apartment, a tortured look in his gaze. Several pairs of eyes matched his expression.
Maryse greeted them at the entrance to the Institute, a solemn and knowing look in her eyes. Wordlessly the group trudged inside, and as if communicating silently, walked to the library.
The sun had just begun to rise, and as soon as the wide double doors opened, a red light cast over all their forms. Momentarily blinded, each shadowhunter blinked before their vision adjusted.
Silent gasps emanated from everyone. The giant stained glass window, the one that each had seen hundreds of times in their lives, had changed. Still about thirty feet tall and arch-shaped, the window, normally hues of golden and depicting the angel Raziel, had been replaced. Instead, the delicately formed glass showed Clary.
Eyes closed and eyelashes brushing lightly against her cheekbones, the image of Clary stood nearly the entire height of the window, from the bottom of the window to the top. Her head was turned slightly to the right, and the same white dress clung to her body, making her normally snowy skin glow. The red light that covered them all was the sun, shining through the window, hitting the glass at a precise angle. Hair splayed like a gentle breeze had hit her head on, glass Clary's hair was a million shades of red and orange, pink and golden, weaving together in harmony. Her wings spread behind her, completely unfurled, reached to each and of the window.
Every Nephilim stood still, not one without tears in their eyes, but no one noticed the figure in the corner, hidden by the shadows.
Clary, signature tattered jeans and paint splattered t-shirt covered her figure. A small smile tugged at her lips as she watched her family. Like the image before her, she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the world had turned ethereal. Angelic.
"Bye."
The whispered word went unheard by everyone else, but blew through the room like the gentlest breeze. And then Clary stepped into the light.
Thanks for reading! This took dozens of tries reworking and editing, so I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to leave a review; that's actually the best part of writing for me. The longer the review, the better. This is the first time I've ever attempted to write, much less complete a oneshot, and the second time I've ever written any sort of fanfiction. Sorry for the awkward periods! I couldn't space it without a line so I just put them there to show the spacing. Just...ignore them I guess.
If you're one of the readers for my all-human fic If I Could, I want to apologize. I know it's been forever since I've updated, and I promise I haven't given up. I just needed some time to organize my thoughts and plan out what I want to happen, but I'm back in action now. Clace moments, I promise!
A huge shout-out to my unofficial beta, a good, non-cyber friend of mine, who is also a user on this site. She is currently working on a Percy Jackson story, so check it out if you're interested! (I cannot write Percy Jackson. Nothing beats Rick Riordan, so I don't even try.) Thanks zoetat! (That's her user. Obviously.)
ImpossibleSociety
Also, if anyone notices any grammar errors, let me know? It will probably drive me crazy if there are errors I can't see...
Note: Will put up a picture for this soon, working on it! It's kind of the middle of the night, so I'll do it tomorrow. Probably.
Any questions or comments? PM me and I'll probably respond ridiculously fast.