City of Thorns

Set two years after City of Angels, Clary and Jace prepare to take a major step in their relationship just as a new force for evil steps into the tensions that have arisen between the Shadowhunters and Downworlders. Simmering anger rises to assert itself and punish those who tried to vanquish an ancient species.

My Name is Clary Fray. Well, it used to be Clary Fray. For a while it was Clary Fairchild, and even Clary Morgenstern. (And my personal favorite, Daughter of Valentine – when I wasn't even good enough in the estimation of some folks to have a first name). I understand that it was easier to depersonalize me, it made it easier for them to hate me, and to consider sacrificing me. You may have sorted out that I have had a very interesting life up to this point, and you'd be right. The first fifteen years of it were pretty normal (if you leave out the brainwashing – more about that later), and then it got odd.

You see, I grew up with my Mom, Jocelyn Fray, but it turns out that name was made up (well, borrowed), when she ran away from her old life, to protect me from my father. Mom was, well is, a Shadowhunter. And what is a Shadowhunter you might ask? Well, they aren't superheroes, not really, they're mortal beings, but because they have angelic blood running through their veins they have special powers; and they fight demons. Yup, demons. There are demons all over the earth. Their numbers kind of fluctuate, depending on who might be out there summoning them; and how strong the wards are protecting the earth. Because my Mom is a Shadowhunter that makes me a Shadowhunter too, except that I wasn't aware of that, or any of her real life because she had a Warlock enchant away my memories and my powers when they started to surface. Yes, a Warlock. He's part of a population known as Downworlders: Warlocks, Fairies, Werewolves and Vampires. Everyone else is called a mundane. And that's what I thought I was for my entire life until a saw a Demon, and a pack of Shadowhunters kill him, and my Mom got kidnapped by my real Dad and the spells all started to fall apart. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

So to try to keep things in some sort of order, my Mom kept the truth of my real life from me, Fairchild was her last name. And it turns out that the only man I ever thought of as a Dad, Luke, was a Werewolf. (Though he started out as a Shadowhunter and got bit and then turned.) I think the only honest, normal person in my life was Simon, my best friend since forever. He got caught up in the chaos that became my life too.

It all came to a head when my real Dad decided that he was going to come back into everyone's life and raise Hell again (and sadly, that really isn't a euphemism). My Dad had experimented on himself, and on his children, injecting demon blood into himself to see if it gave him some control over them, and then feeding demonic blood and angelic blood to my mother while she was pregnant with my brother and with me. I got the better of that deal, getting the angelic blood; not that once I knew where it came from (a captive angel), that I felt really good about myself. That blood gave me special powers, beyond what the average Shadowhunter gets; I can create runes and that's a big deal. All Shadowhunters can use runes; they're angelic symbols that impart powers when drawn on your skin or on other things by way of a stele, like speed, or healing, or silence, all things that help when fighting demons. But there haven't been any new ones since the beginning of the Shadowhunters and the grey book. But me, I can create with new ones, thanks to that extra angelic blood. And they are pretty powerful. They've helped win wars, and they helped me kill my Dad, his name was Valentine Morgenstern. And that's all I'm going to say about that for now. The stories are written down if you care to read them.

Anyways, it doesn't matter about those names. I'm giving all of them up today. Yesterday, you see, was my eighteenth birthday. In the Shadowhunter world that makes you an adult, you can attend Council meetings, you can vote, and a bunch of other stuff having to do with fighting, and jobs you can do and choices you can make. So today I'm exerting some control over my life, and I'm taking a new name. Today I am getting married.

I love Jace, Jace Herondale. He, just like me, had a bunch of surnames as he was growing up; Wayland, Lightwood, Morgenstern (the story of that one is far too long to tell here, but rest assured, it is also part of that written history), and finally Herondale, the one he ultimately chose. He offered it to me, almost two years ago, though I think I had known from the first moment I saw him that we were going to be together forever. We kept the secret of it as long as we could, there are still people who don't know what we are about to do, that's mostly due to my fear; fear that the adults in our lives would try to talk us out of it and would be disappointed in our choice. Eighteen is young to get married in the mundane world, but Shadowhunters, we don't have a long life span, so we do things early and we throw our whole heart into those things. Jace has my whole heart, he always has. The fact of that is something we've never really been able to keep from anyone around us; even when we tried to convince ourselves of it. It should be quite the surprise when everyone shows up.

I remember the day, or perhaps more accurately, the night it happened, that Jace asked me, or told me, I suppose, that we were going to get married. My mother had just married Luke. After everything we'd all been through in the months leading up to the wedding we encouraged the two of them to take a real honeymoon; and neither of them seemed inclined to disagree with the idea. Maryse Lightwood was running the New York Institute, and with Alex and Magnus (close by), as well as Jace and Isabelle there it was agreed that I could go and stay in one of the empty guest rooms while they were gone. I spent most of my days there anyways, training and studying to be a real Shadowhunter. I really only spent enough time at home to sleep and change clothes. Any free time I had (as I had left school by that point) was spent grabbing quick coffees with Simon; trying to re-educate him to memories he had given up to save us all. Really, it was a convenience to me to have to stay there. At least that was the argument I used with my mom, and she agreed, though I suspect Luke might have had something to do with her acquiescence.

Jace and I had been training in one of the large rooms of the Institute, one we frequently used as he tried to catch me up to all the lessons I had missed when I had been living as a mundane. We leapt from rafter beams to ropes and platforms, honing agility that was as easy as breathing to Jace. He was serious when he taught me, and easy as it would have been to fall into embraces and kisses, something we both wanted, we concentrated and focused on the work during that time we had alone. Not that we hadn't had enough real world experience with fighting, but even after a few months of relative calm a Shadowhunter could never let their guard down. Doing that would put not only your life at risk but also those of your teammates. And I did not intend to make myself a liability to Jace or Isabelle or Alex; so I worked till every muscle screamed at me to stop, and then I worked past it. Jace's ease with the exercises was infuriating some days, how he never seemed to tire, how he barely ever even breathed heavily. But it motivated me. I was still willing to keep going when Jace put an end to the training for that day, calling me back down to him from my perch above, with a cry of 'I'm hungry, let's call it'.

That was Jace, living in the moment, ruled by the emotions that came to him nearly instantly; be they anger, hatred, passion or even hunger. I loved him for it. Dropping to the ground in a crouch as he had taught me I looked up into his sparkling golden eyes, smiling, taking strength from them, and then stood to face him.

"You did really well today Clary." He told me, returning my smile with a beaming one of his own. "We should go down and meet everyone for dinner."

"I need to wash up first." I looked at my hands, red and thin looking and ran them over my damp hair, tied back in a ponytail; as was the only practical thing for training in. I still hadn't gotten the hang of the tight knots Isabelle was able to twist her hair into when she trained and hunted. Ponys would have to do for me for now.

"You're always beautiful to me." He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled my body against his. That was also the way he was: tactile. He needed to touch to be in contact with other people; me especially. I liked to think that somehow it grounded him and gave him peace, seeing as the man who raised him showed him no affection in that way. Starved for it until he was ten years old, it had taken Jace a long time to open up to his adoptive family; the Lightwoods, and to accept affections from them and others, in any way but a selfish one. (I know that probably doesn't make a lot of sense, it's hard to explain really. Jace had been physical with other people; girls, before me, but that closeness hadn't been about love, it had been about ego and an act, and a momentary distraction from the demons that had settled into his mind, introduced there by Valentine.) He had told me once that he needed to see himself through my eyes, to have that vision to craft himself into, that was at a very low point in his life, when he hadn't seem to know who or what he was supposed to be. With me, with his parabati Alex, with Isabelle and even Maryse to some extend, that physical closeness was about love. And I didn't mind that need of his to be close; in fact it complimented my own needs just as well. I accepted every kiss he offered, even if I did feel a little grimy in my own skin then. It was easy to forget about it when he took my mouth with the hard passion he always had.

"Twenty minutes, I just need twenty minutes to clean up," I told him after he had walked me to my door. "And I'll meet you downstairs in the kitchen."

He nodded, taking another quick kiss from me in the hall. We tried to keep the PDA's to a minimum. I know that my Mom had likely asked Maryse to keep an eye on the two of us. Despite everything she still didn't trust Jace completely (at least around me) the stigma of his having been corrupted by my real brother Jonathan (more rightly known as Sebastian) still hung around her, and so many other Shadowhunters like a dense fog. It was one source of real contention between us; since she had no idea of all the things Jace had sacrificed, and offered to sacrifice to save not only me but our whole world from that evil Valentine had unleashed.

"I'll see you in twenty minutes then." He whispered to me as he nipped at my ear before running off to his own room, presumably, to get himself tidied up.

Somehow I managed to get my door opened, and then closed behind me again without losing all control and tearing after him. I shed the clothes I had been wearing for training, black yoga pants and a tank top, and tossed them in the laundry basket and started up the shower, looking forward to the hot water to soothe those muscles, whose briefly forgotten ache was starting to return. Standing under the spray I willed everything to relax, which took a great deal more effort than you might think, since Jace just seemed to raise a tension in me that wasn't easily dispelled. I let the water run over my head in a sheet, plastering my red hair (now unbound by the elastic) over my shoulders and down my back. I closed my eyes as steam filled the room and just listened to my heartbeat.

"Clary?" I hardly thought the sound of my name was real, just my imagination I assumed as I opened my eyes and turned towards it.

"Jace?" I answered, just a little confused.

A hand parted the shower curtain around the tub and the stainless steel rings pealed against the rod in an odd sort of musical tone as he stepped into the spray with me.

"I couldn't wait twenty minutes." He said.