City of Vengeance

Summary: Set after the end of City of Heavenly Fire. As the Dark War finally comes to an end, the citizens of Idris are left to try and piece together their broken lives. But even as they celebrate their victory, a dark force is lurking in the darkness, plotting her revenge against the woman who took everything she had; Jocelyn Graymark.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything apart from my story idea and any OC characters that may appear in it. All the rest belongs to Cassie Clare.

Chapter One

The sparks from the fireworks rained down against the blackness of the night sky, filling the darkness with bursts of light in every colour imaginable. On the ground, crowds of people dressed all in crimson and gold spun and danced in the moonlight, laughing and smiling, as if the events of the past year had been nothing but a bad dream, and now they had awoken.

However, one of the most prominent people in the celebration was thousands of miles away, having slipped away when no one was looking. She had not wanted to disrupt the party when everyone had been having such fun; after all, happiness had been scarce during the war, when the only emotions had been guilt, loss and sorrow.

Those were the emotions that passed over Jocelyn as she knelt in the charred remains of Fairchild Manor, the place she had once called her home. She was a very different woman now from the one she had been then, now a Graymark more than a Fairchild, far more than a Morgenstern, yet somehow, the darkened rubble still sent a shiver down her spine.

The wind was only a gentle breeze, but on it were carried ghosts. The ghosts of her mother and father, who had warned her against marrying so young, burnt to ashes in a fit of rage and madness. The ghost of Valentine Morgenstern, the first man Jocelyn had truly loved, who could not take that feeling away from her, even after all he had done. But most of all, she felt the ghost of Jonathan, her Jonathan, the boy she had cried over each year on his birthday, who had been stolen from her when he was born and then returned two decades later only to be taken again. All people that she had loved and lost. All gone now.

Gently, Jocelyn placed down her offering in the spot which had used to be the front doorstep; a bouquet of flowers, red and white and gold, the same flowers she had carried down the aisle to meet Luke. The ceremony had been beautiful, truly the happiest moment of her life, Clary's birth aside, and it had felt only right for the woman to share her joy with those she loved.

The remains of the manor were surrounded by forest, silent in the moonlight. No crickets chirped, no owls hooted and even the wind was silent for a while. The only sound was the steady breathing of the redhead, as she blinked tears back from her eyes.

The silence was broken eventually, and Jocelyn, immersed in the past, was drawn back to the future by the very voice that represented her new life.

"Room for one more?"

She turned her head over her shoulder to see Luke standing a few feet away, his tie and jacket abandoned, with his hands in the pockets of his smart dove grey trousers. He was doing his best to appear nonchalant, but Jocelyn could see the stiffness in his shoulders, the controlled angle of his hips as he leant to one side. Most of all, she could see his eyes, razor sharp through the darkness, filled with pity and loss.

"I just wanted some time alone, to think." she told him, realising that she had offered no explanation for her disappearance at her own wedding, to another continent, no less. Still, he had found her. Jocelyn thought back to their games of hide-and-seek in childhood, to New York, to the Institute and the dungeons in Edom. 'He always finds me.'

"I'll leave you for a while, then." Luke had already begun to turn, but Jocelyn, the faster of the two, had already risen and placed a hand on his arm, clinging desperately to the fabric of his shirt.

"No, please, you can stay." Her voice was filled with pleading, more than her pride thought appropriate. Eventually, she spoke the words that filled the silence. "I want you to stay."

I need you to stay. Those were the words that remained unspoken, but they were not needed. Luke knew her well, better than she knew herself. He knelt down on the doorstep at her side, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close to him. Jocelyn rested her head on his chest, relishing the feeling. There were times when she still could not believe he was hers, even after all this time.

Silence fell once again, but this time, the absence of sound was comforting. The newly-weds stayed in their embrace, lost in their memories of the past, the childhoods spent playing at the manor house, the Circle, the Uprising and the wars that came after it. They remembered all they had been through, the joy, the fear and the heartbreaking loss and the couple clasped their hands together, sharing their burden of agony.

They stayed that way for a long time, though how long neither could say; the seconds had blurred into minutes and the minutes into hours. But eventually they remembered their guests, who must have begun to wonder where they were, and their daughter, who would be frantic if she found out they had disappeared off the face of the Earth.

And so they returned to the celebration, plastering a smile onto their faces to try and hide the pain, dancing and laughing and watching the sparks of the fireworks burn and twist and die, their lights extinguished one by one, more victims to the night.

Jocelyn doubted that their efforts were convincing anyone; she caught Magnus staring at her, whispering into Tessa's ear, his cat-like eyes dulled with worry. More often than once, Clary and her friends came over to ask if she was having fun; even Simon, who had no concept of the losses she had suffered, that they had all suffered. She knew that she was fooling no one; Jocelyn did not even believe herself.

But she kept up appearances, until the last guest had left and Clary had made her way up to bed. It was only when she and Luke fell into bed themselves that she finally let her mask slip away and they lay until dawn in each other's arms, mourning for all they had lost and clinging desperately to what they had left.

They did not see the danger that rose with the horizon, as another mother mourned for her lost son and plotted her revenge against the one that killed him.

A/N: This is my first Mortal Instruments story, but I finished the final book a couple of days ago and I had so many ideas buzzing around in my head that I had to share one with you. This is slightly AU, only in that the wedding took place immediately after the victory celebrations ended, not ages after (it's important for a later plot line). Please review!