Nothing had changed, and yet everything had.
The changes were immense and minute, a study in contrasts. He sat on a hill, facing the cloud of smoke and the distinct difference of the stark white of the pyre from which it came; watching the colours dance against the sky above the orange flames that were slowly devouring his father's body.
Not my father, he reminded himself. And yet, Valentine had been his father in all the ways that mattered – the man was more a parent to him than he had been to Clary. He had had ten years with Valentine – Clary had met him for the first time barely a few weeks ago. That was his father burning to ashes in the mausoleum of the Glass City.
Memories flashed before his eyes, one after another – his father picking him up and swinging him around, his father smiling proudly at him when he had managed to hold his own in a conversation of fluent Latin, his father stopping by his door and wishing him a barely audible goodnight when he thought he was asleep… He supposed his father had loved him in his own twisted way, though it was only visible if one ignored all of the horrific tales of his childhood.
"Ave atque vale, Valentine Morgenstern," he whispered, laying in the grass on his back, his eyes on the smoke in the sky, high above him. The Clave had unconsciously given Valentine his last wish, even in death – a true funeral, worthy of the grandest Nephilim. Jace closed his eyes and all became dark for a moment. The solitude was relieving, and then he opened his eyes once more and became a part of the world once more, truly alive for the first time since his death.
He allowed himself a smile at the inherent contradiction in his feelings – life and death, within sixteen years, and he was still here to tell the tale. Who else had the privilege of saying that they had been brought back by the Angel Raziel himself?
No, it hadn't been the Angel at all. The Angel had only been the execution of the resurrection. Clary had brought him back.
Clary.
He felt the rush of adrenaline course through his veins at the thought of her, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, he let himself completely feel the emotions taking over him. For the first time since the two days he had been awake again, he registered the biggest change in his life – Clary wasn't his sister. They weren't related. A wave of exhilaration swept over him, and he felt freer than he ever had before.
It had only been a little over a month since he had met her for the first time in Pandemonium, and he hadn't been able to forget her since. There were some who didn't believe in the love at first sight nonsense – Jace was one of them. But what he and Clary had was deeper than love – it wasn't only physical, though the heat between them was scorching and palpable every time they were near each other – unable to be quashed, no matter how hard they had tried. Siblings – he wanted to laugh. It was deception, a trick. Valentine's final and most deadly ruse – underestimating his children to the point of his death. Clary had taken him down with one simple rune. Clary had commanded the Angel, the first person to do so since the legendary Jonathan Shadowhunter. Clary had used the one gift from the Angel to save him. He, Jace – who was he now, Jace Herondale? – when she could have had anything else in the world.
Her words resonated in his mind with innocence beyond comparison.
But I don't want anything else in the world.
She wanted him. Clary wanted him. Asking the Angel to bring him back had been tantamount to a declaration of love for him; there was nothing else she could have done that would have cemented his unshakable belief that she loved him any more than this had. He missed her now, like a physical part of him had disappeared – like his kidneys, or his lungs, or his heart. Yes, that sounded right – not having Clary with him was like missing his heart. Only the thought of her spurred him onward.
Ordinarily, he would have considered himself weak for relying upon another person this way – to love is to destroy – but, as he reflected on Clary and the way she looked at her mother, Luke, Simon…the way she gazed at him; it dawned on him again that to love was to be strong, more powerful than callous and grueling training would ever make him. Clary would do anything for her family, and so he would do anything for her – no matter the cost. He would throw himself in the deepest circle of hell to save her; though, really, he would much rather the need never arose and they could spend life together. After all, the world doesn't need to lose its best Shadowhunter, does it?
He laughed briefly, and it was an empty sound, void of any real emotion – the casualties that the life of the man burning beneath him and the battle that Nephilim and Downworlders alike had fought on the Brocelind Plains had brought onto the Glass City were only now fully beginning to break the walls that he had built around his mind and heart. The harsh reality of the final battle and the others before it struck him once, deeply – then, harder still as he realized that many of the departed had given their lives, consciously or unconsciously, because of him. The Inquisitor – his grandmother. His real (or biological, anyway) father, and his mother, driven mad by grief. Max – his brother in every way but blood, a boy who should have been spared the horrors of war and instead became the most inexcusable tragedy this war had produced. If he had been there – if he had seen through Seb-Jonathan earlier and taken him down before the darker boy had a chance to hurt his family, Max would still be here, laughing and rejoicing and reading the manga he loved so much.
Jace had never experienced fear of death like he had when he had seen Max's limp body in Robert's arms and Isabelle and Maryse sobbing beside them.
He knew now, though, as he stared up at the patches of blue sky untainted by the grey smoke polluting the air, that he wasn't meant to live like this – wasn't meant to dwell on impossibilities and 'what if's and maybes that would torture him. Max would have wanted him to live his life without worrying – it was what was best, and children were more insightful than adults, more often than not.
The Lightwoods were his family as much as Valentine had once been – perhaps even more so. He knew that he would always have a home in Clary, but the Lightwoods – all of them – ran a close second.
How strange, that in merely a month a boy could go from considering himself an orphan to having a true, loving family. He didn't mind, though – not at all.
**
"Don't be stupid," she chastised him, and half a smile appeared on her face as she looked steadily back at him. "You're Jace Lightwood."
And in that, the answer had never been so obvious than it was now. The Lightwoods – Maryse, Robert, Alec, and Isabelle alike – were the only true family he had ever had. They had taken him in as their own, though they were not of his flesh and blood, and loved him all the same, despite his brokenness and the cracks in his perfect façade.
He was Jace Lightwood, and with Clary by his side, he was ready to face life's challenges head-on.