Disclaimer: No, i am not nearly so good at plotting as to claim ownership of The Dark Artifices.
Shadowhunters often died young.
Faeries, however, lived long. It was entirely possible they could live forever providing they weren't killed.
Kieran wanted to cast himself down upon Mark Blackthorn's grave and weep. To stretch out on his final bed of earth, getting grave dirt under his nails and in his mouth and eyes, would be almost like being able to hold Mark again.
Even that was denied him. When Mark chose to return to the Nephilim, he cut himself off completely from Kieran. There was nothing the faery could take comfort in.
When Nephilim died, their bodies were taken to their Silent City and used there for other purposes. Even after death, no Shadowhunter stopped serving his cause. There was nothing left for a former lover of an ostracized race.
Almost nothing. Kieran had been able to steal a few moments with Mark's body. He had pressed his mouth to his love's cold lips, but true love was not like the ballads, and so Mark did not stir. Kieran's tears fell on his face and shone like the ghosts of long-dead stars.
Footsteps came, and Kieran could not be there, so he used the elf-shot he had once given Mark and that Mark had returned to him to cut off a lock of soft golden hair. It was too short to braid into a ring, which was what Kieran wanted. Before the footsteps – slow but light; probably the Shadowhunter girl Mark had chosen – rounded the corner, he was gone.
The Wild Hunt and the Unseelie Court were both institutions of the night. As one who belonged to both, Kieran had no love for the sun. To him, Mark's hair was as mead. His love for Mark was intoxicating, and addictive. He longed to lose himself in Mark and never surface.
Mark had told him that would never happen again, and now it was so.
Kieran took the golden strands of Mark's hair to a cliff over the sea. Sometimes the ballads were in the right. He stood barefoot at the very edge, his toes hanging over. He had no fear of falling. He knew it would not happen. The sun was setting, dying the ocean red.
Mark was beyond his reach forever now. He had been beyond Kieran's reach for some time, but humans lied, humans changed, and Kieran had hoped.
He held Mark's hair in his right hand and wrapped the fingers of his left around the elf-shot. He wore it on a silver chain round his neck, as Mark once had, and it hung next to his heart. In his two hands were all he had left of his love.
What was he to do? He could not avenge him; Mark was killed as a Shadowhunter, by a demon. Kieran could blame Mark's family if he wished – he had, when the first months stretched into years without Mark, but now that Mark was dead he knew there was no point. Mark had always been a Shadowhunter, even when he was with Kieran in the Hunt. Of course he would remain one to his dying day.
Something dropped on Kieran's foot. He looked down to see a spot of blood there. He'd clenched his hands without realizing it, clenched them so tight that his nails dug into one palm and the elf-shot cut into the other.
He released the elf-shot, letting it fall back bloody against his chest, and clasped his palms together. Mark's hair pressed raw silk against his cut.
Kieran cupped his hands open to see the picture he'd made, his red blood staining Mark's golden hair. His tears fell into the mess, and he clutched it tight again. This was a cruel illusion. These strands weren't Mark, or even a piece of him. Mark was gone, and Kieran had nothing of him at all.
He opened his hands one more time, all the way this time, and watched Mark's hair, dyed in Kieran's blood and tears, blow away in the soft sea breeze. He would not be able to see it, but they would fall into the ocean, and drift or sink to another place far away. A place he could never reach.
Kieran did not move, watching until the last of the sun disappeared, its crimson tint faded from the waves and was replaced with the altogether gentler light of the moon and stars. He would return to the Hunt. There was nothing there he could love anymore, but he had no more need for love. He would fight until it killed him, and only then would he allow himself peace.