Warning: Slight spoilers if you haven't read "City of Glass". Things won't really make sense if you haven't read it, since it's a canon rewrite of a scene that takes place at the end of the book.
A/N: This is basically the scene when Jace sets out to track down Sebastian, but I've made a few changes:
1) It's just before dawn, so it's still dark,
2) Jace is going on foot instead of horseback, and he's musing on everything as he thinks he's going to die when he faces Valentine.
As this is his POV at that point in the series, he still thinks he has demon blood, that Clary is his sister, and that he is Valentine's son, so this fic is basically what I think he'd be thinking and feeling during this part of the story.
Song: "Breath of Life" by Florence + The Machine. I'd recommend listening to it before reading to set the tone, or if you're good at listening to music in the background while reading, feel free to do that, too. I did that quite a bit while writing this.
Linky: /v/r0EVEXX9kpk
Breath of Life
"Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh…"
It's almost dawn now.
I'm chasing the shadows as they're slipping away.
All I can hear is the pounding of my heart in my ears. It's deafening, maddening; it's a roaring waterfall of blood, threatening to drown me.
"I was looking for a breath of a life…"
My feet are flying above the ground, surefooted despite the darkness. I'm panting harder than I ever have before.
I've never run this fast in my life. But there's no time to rest. And there's no rest for the wicked anyway.
"For a little touch of heavenly light…"
These are the last moments I'll have alone so I'm letting my mind wander to all of the things I've tried so desperately to lock away for so long. It's just me and the wind and the earth to share my secrets now.
"Do you ever feel like screaming?"
"But all the choirs in my head sang no, oh oh oh…"
My mind strays to Clary, of course. To last night. I didn't get to spend more than a few hours by her side, but every second was worth it.
I'll remember her sleeping face forever.
"I know it's wrong—God, it's all kinds of wrong—but I just want to lie down with you and wake up with you, just once, just once ever in my life."
"To get a dream of life again…"
I could see the golden blood of the Angel shining through her skin, and when we're together, she brings me to Heaven with her.
Those are the only glimpses of Heaven I'll ever get, and I thank her from the depths of my corroded soul for taking me there with her.
"This could be the last night of our lives," I said. "And all I could think of was that I wanted to spend it with you."
I'm so glad she let me.
"A little vision of the start and the end…"
I'm all alone now, and this is the end, so there's no point in not being honest with myself now. I love my family, all of the Shadowhunters of the world, and I believe in our creed as much as I believe in life itself. I am doing this for them, to save them, but I know that in the end, just like it's been from the start, it's always been for her.
"Think of Clary."
"But all the choirs in my head sang, no, oh oh oh…"
I want more than anything to be the one to watch the life drain from Valentine's empty black eyes. I have more right to that pleasure than anyone else, but more than to rid the world of his brutality, more than to save the world, I'm doing this for Clary. Everything I do, I do for her.
"You think I haven't thought of Clary? You think I haven't thought of my family? Why do you think I'm doing this?"
"But I needed one more touch…"
I know ultimately that's true, but a sharp pang stabs at my heart as I recall the events of the Seelie Court… and when I remember that night at Wayland Manor.
I think of all of the unforgivable things I've said and done to her just to satisfy my own perverse desires, to indulge my hunger to taste her flesh and watch her body flush beneath my merciless gaze just once more.
"You're my sister. My sister, my blood, my family. I should want to protect you — to protect you from the sort of boys who want to do with you exactly what I want to do."
"Another taste of heavenly rush…"
I never believed it could be true that we were siblings, but all of the evidence adds up. How could it be otherwise? I'm almost relieved that Ithuriel showed us the truth. Knowing that I have demonic blood coursing through my veins answers the question of how my depraved lust for my sister's body around mine could persist so vehemently.
"I know what's wrong with me. And maybe—maybe that's why I need you so much. Because if Valentine made me a monster, then I suppose he made you a sort of angel. And Lucifer loved God, didn't he?"
"And I believe, I believe it's so, oh oh oh"
But this feeling, there's some feeling inside of me, that can't help but believe that we belong together. Could it be so wrong to be with the one that you love more than anything else in the world? That you would kill and die for, that every moment you're not with her you're gradually dying anyway?
"You know, there are some kinds of wounds you can get when you're a Shadowhunter—internal injuries from demon poison. You don't even know what's wrong with you, but you're bleeding to death slowly inside. That's what it's like, just being your brother."
"And I needed one more touch…"
I guess it doesn't matter anymore now. I won't have to suffer for much longer, and I won't ever have to cause her pain again.
I'll finally succeed in doing the only thing I've ever truly wanted to do: protect her.
Protect her… and love her.
More than my hands on her skin, my lips on her lips, my bare chest above her tiny body on the ground as my childhood home crumbles to ruins next to us…
My sacrifice will show her I love her… genuinely love her with every fiber of my being.
"Another taste of divine rush…"
With Clary's inner light blazing more brightly than a thousand suns, with her stalwart affection for me, even knowing every part of me, her purity and innocence show me what divinity truly is, and just for a moment, I can forget what I am.
"And I believe, I believe it's so, oh oh oh…"
She makes me believe that for just a fraction of a second, despite what I am, I can still do something good, something right.
If only just once.
"Whose side am I on? Whose side am I?"
But what of all the sins I've already committed?
My mind strays to the night I let my father fight Luke in front of Clary. The night, I betrayed my sweet sister and the only Downworlder I've ever admired and respected. The night I grew so confused that I believed Valentine's lies and was prepared to resign myself to following his command unconditionally.
Just before I left this morning, Luke said to me, "If your father weren't who he is, he'd be proud of you."
I hope that I can at least make you proud today, Luke.
"Whose side am I on? Whose side am I?"
Knowing what he did to me, knowing I'm part demon has haunted me, and the memories of forcing myself on Clary in front of Isabelle and Simon in the Seelie Court, Simon who she loves so dearly and was promised to at the time, Simon who is in love with her with a fire almost as ardent as my own, made me question my allegiances.
Was I sworn to the light? Or to the darkness I vowed to eliminate?
"You know what I am. I'm part monster. Part everything I've tried so hard to burn out, to destroy."
"And the fever began to spread…"
But the Queen had spoken, and I took my chance.
Allowing myself look at Clary the way I had always tried not to, I felt myself crave her more fervently than I ever had before.
It was my chance, probably my last, so I had to take it, didn't I?
Didn't I?
"From my heart down to my legs…"
Although I didn't think much of it at the time, the Seelie Queen said that she'd be released by the kiss she desired most.
She'd wanted me like I had her. Or did she just want to be close again one last time to say goodbye?
But that kiss had a passion, a desperation that claimed otherwise, that matched my own.
"But the room is so quiet, oh oh oh oh…"
I didn't care about anything else, register anything that was happening around us as I pressed her into me.
I let the world spin and blur around me before it faded away, but the silence was deafening.
Isabelle had looked away; the pain in her face, though of a different nature than Simon's, was devastating.
Oh, Simon... I'm so sorry...
"Desire is not always lessened by disgust. Nor can it be bestowed, like a favor, to those most deserving of it."
"And although I wasn't losing my mind…"
How could I have done that?
She had forced my hand, the Queen, but I shouldn't have been so selfish.
The pain I caused, it was to everyone, especially my Clary… and her Simon…
"You shouldn't have kissed me like that." She had said.
"How should I have kissed you? Is there another way you like it?" I retorted, cruelly.
Forgive me, Clary…
"It was a chorus so sublime…"
Yet in that moment, for the first time since I'd found out the truth about us, the voices in my head that were always screaming at me to resist her were singing like a choir of angels. The beautiful sound of triumph and bliss was overwhelming me, practically cheering me on, it had seemed.
"But the room is so quiet, oh oh oh…"
But it was wrong, so wrong, and I know it.
Even if the transgression against nature hadn't been there, even if we didn't share the same blood, what I did to Simon was unforgivable.
Even demons in their degeneracy know what's right and what's wrong. They just choose to violate and defile virtue. It's what they exist to do.
Maybe what I exist to do, too.
"You will fall in love with the wrong person," Madame Dorothea told me.
She couldn't have been more right.
"I was looking for a breath of a life…"
When I saw my father killed before my eyes, I thought it was my fault. Until I met the Lightwoods, I'd never even had a friend before. My father had been my whole world, my only companion, my infallible shelter.
"A little touch of heavenly light…"
I'd let this guilt drive me nearly mad, and the only thing I could do, the only way I felt I could atone, punish myself even, was to rid the world of the evil that plagued it, the evil that had taken my world from me. I dedicated my every waking moment to this mission before Clary came along.
"But all the choirs in my head sang, no oh oh oh…"
But it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to expel the scream that echoed in my head as he fell to the ground. And there were times when I thought back to my juvenile weakness, my powerlessness over the fate of my father, and I wanted to die rather than to have to continue bearing the burden of my conscience.
"To get a dream of life again…"
What Alec and Izzy had whispered behind my back to Clary about my seeming to have a death-wish was, at times, true.
I just wanted to escape my all-consuming remorse…
"A little vision of the sun in the end…"
And then you came into my life. And for the first time since I was a child, I felt hope.
"I thought that part of my heart was broken forever but you-" I'd said to her, speaking of Valentine, and it was true. I never thought I'd be able to love again.
"To love is to destroy, I remember," she'd replied. I'd finished the sentence in my head, "And to be loved is to be destroyed.'
I could see that I was destroying her with my love.
Destroying the one thing I care more about than life itself.
"But all the choirs in my head sang, no oh oh oh…"
By protecting you, it was like I had a second chance to make things right. I had a vision of life being wonderful again. I felt like I finally belonged in this world for the first time since I was young. I felt complete with you in a way I never had before, and despite a new guilt emerging from the thought that things were better with you than they had ever been with my father, I let myself be happy.
"And then to find out that the reason I felt like that—like you were some part of me I'd lost and never even knew I was missing until I saw you again—that the reason was that you were my sister, it felt like some sort of cosmic joke. Like God was spitting on me. I don't even know for what—for thinking that I could actually get to have you, that I would deserve something like that, to be that happy."
"Oh, oh, oh…"
And now, thinking back on all of those thoughts and feelings, I hate Valentine all the more. He tortured me with his death, and now, resurrected, he's tortured me even more. If he hadn't told me the truth about Clary and me, we could still be together. We could still kiss and let ourselves melt into one another.
"Whatever your upbringing, Jace, you've fought it. He didn't corrupt you—" Luke had said.
"No," I responded, thinking of the poison in my veins. "He didn't have to."
"It's a harder way and it's come to claim her…"
But even in ignorance, it would be an offence against Heaven. It wouldn't change what we are.
And I know she feels the weight of the sinfulness of our love heavier than I do… because she's clean, virtuous… untainted and uncorrupted.
I tried so hard to do what was right, Heaven knows I tried. But in the end, I couldn't. I just couldn't…
"I'll just be your brother from now on. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"
"And I always say, we should be together…"
You're truly an angel, a being of righteousness and light. And I've tried to desecrate you. I tried to convince you to run away and be with me, though it's immoral and disgusting, though it's unnatural and abominable. I kept telling you how I felt about you, I kept reminding you of my hideousness, I kept trying to force you to go against your better judgment and give in to the temptation of evil.
"We could keep it a secret." I'd said.
"This, what we want, it would be sickening to everyone we care about—"
"What we feel—what I feel—it's sickening to you?" My heart hurt, but I knew she was right. That's how I'm supposed to feel, too.
"And I can see below, 'cause there's something in here…"
And you, you poor, poor thing, have become confused by me and my sacrilegious ways. I am just like our father, but you… you are nothing like him, thank the Angel. I have his power of deception, of messing with minds, and stopping at nothing to get what I want. And I've made you think that you want me, too. I know you love me with all of your heart, but you are pure so your love could never be like mine.
"Tell me now that you're not a monster. Tell me there's nothing wrong with you. And tell me you would want me even if you didn't have demon blood. Because I don't have demon blood. And I still want you."
"And if you are gone, I will not belong here… belong, belong, belong…"
And now the world is ending.
If Valentine succeeds, we'll all be turned into Forsaken, and it'll mean the death of the Shadowhunter way as we know it.
The thought of you dying or worse is all the more reason for me to take him down. If anything were to happen to you, my reason to live would vanish in an instant. You're the only thing that makes me feel like I belong here, that makes me feel alive.
No, Clary, no... I won't let you die. I'll give my life for yours and show you, show you the truth…
"Every time you almost die, I almost die myself."
"And I started to hear it again…"
My heart swells with the thought of Clary seeing the real me, the best part of me. The only part of humanity that I have left, the small part that the Angel's blood touches, the part trapped by the demon in me.
I love you… you'll see.
"But this time it wasn't the end…"
I can feel my body already aching from the strain I'm putting on it, already enfeebled by sleep-deprivation, but the adrenaline in me is overpowering any weakness. This determination, determination to kill… to love… to die… to protect… it's giving me wings.
And I'm soaring.
My life, my soul will be redeemed. And the world will be saved.
"And the room is so quiet, oh oh oh oh…"
I'm touching your face, looking down into your breathtaking green eyes, those eyes that give me courage and strength more than any rune.
I see us spinning in the Seelie Court, but this time we're alone. And when I kiss you, the silence of the room's emptiness erupts into explosions.
We're crashing to the floor. And I finally claim you as mine.
"I love you and I will love you until I die, and if there's a life after that, I'll love you then."
"And my heart is a hollow plain…"
I'm holding on to this image, this fantasy, this feeling with everything I have, letting it spur me onward, letting its power flood into my bones and solidify them.
My heart is caving in at the thought of never seeing your face again, of leaving everyone and everything behind, at the fact that I couldn't be better to you in life, but at least in death, you'll see….
"For the devil to dance again…"
I'm letting this daydream grow, expanding in me, pouring into every crevice of my body.
I let myself envision the things I've always wanted to do with you, and I let the heat it causes in me fuel me further. I wouldn't go there before, but this is the end, and I can finally let myself fully be who I am… what I am, for once.
'Darkness, enter me, and give me that cardinal sin of wrath for me to use in battle.'
The demon woman had said, "It will burn out his humanity, as poison burns the life from the blood."
I feel the poison in me now, eating away at the humanity in me.
'Let it,' I think.
"And the room is too quiet, oh oh oh oh…"
I'm close now. I know it. Sebastian must be here somewhere. He'll lead me to my goal. The irony of the situation tickles me. Despite the fact that Sebastian's sole aim is to serve and protect Valentine, he instead is the one bringing about his demise as he unwittingly shows me the way to his master. I relish the thought and imagine how I'll spill his blood before I confront my father.
"I was looking for the breath of a life…"
Thank you, Clary, for existing.
Even in death you are giving me strength, in more ways than you could ever imagine, and in ways it's best you never know about.
Nevertheless, it's because of you and you alone that I will be able to see this through, that I will be able to do what needs to be done and commit my final sin… The sin of killing my father.
"This is where I tell you that you have to be sure you're capable of it, You can't do all this, cut your ties here and hunt Valentine down on your own, just to fail at the final hurdle."
"Oh, I'm capable of it. My father made me what I am. And I hate him for it. I can kill him. He made sure of that."
"A little touch of a heavenly light…"
Oh father, you made me what I am – a monster. Just like you. But what you hadn't anticipated was for this monster to be capable of even worse things than you.
You miscalculated, misjudged, and made a fatal mistake. I've had demon blood in me since birth, but you, you are only a demon in spirit.
And now, I'll turn from Heaven, I will do what you always wanted me to do, realize my full, deplorable potential and "cleanse" the Shadowhunter race of its corruption.
I will kill you.
"But all the choirs in my head sang, no oh oh oh…"
I know that this is a suicide mission, that this will probably be the last thing I ever do, but I swear on the Angel that if I die… I'm dragging you down to Hell with me.
And at last, we can be together again… as we burn side by side eternally… for our sins…
A/N: Whew! That was so amazing to write. Seriously, what a ride.