Full Synopsis: Valentine Mogenstern was never evil; he was only a victim to his bloodline's curse. On the dawn of a Morgenstern's eighteenth birthday, a little piece of their morality is taken by Lilith and replaced with her demonic possession. The curse, however, grows stronger with each passing descendant. What will happen when Valentine tries to rid himself of it? What will happen when he ultimately fails and his children are placed with the burden? Eighteen years later, Jonathan and Clary Morgenstern will become the last pieces to Lilith's regiment to take over the Clave. [young!circle + clace + sebastian]
Rating: M (for violence, language and possible lemons)
Author's Note: Thank you for choosing to read this! I've always sort of had this idea in mind but I never found the time or patience to type it out. Hopefully this doesn't disappoint. I'll try to update frequently (weekly, perhaps?) and I hope you enjoy the fic!
Disclaimer: All notable characters and terms belong to Cassandra Clare.
Prologue
An Unlikely Meeting
The snow to the north of Brocelind Plain―a dreadful becoming of whitewashed ambiance―had yet to abscond. The docile village that nested between the valley and the bustling market square of Idris had been strewn with garland and festival lights so dazzling that they may have been mistaken for pure Adamas. Hawks soared ahead, shrieking against the wind. Lumbermen lodged rickety shafts of oak throughout the narrow trails lining the mountains; angel blades strapped at the waist. The winter air carried with it the drunken ambrosia of burning firewood and permafrost, as well as the ever present smell of iron and salt.
It was a beautiful time to behold.
But like all beautiful things, it was also indecently tragic.
Trailing many paces in front of the Clave elder, a shadow fell against the ground, its keeper walking with sluggish haste towards a nondescript path. The Nephilim youth had his shoulders braced, hands in his pockets and was frowning deeply. Never had he felt as disturbed as he had back in the village not only an hour prior. That girl, the one whom had saved him from tripping (as unbelievable as that may seem) over a loose stone and embarrassing himself in front of other respectable Nephilim, had won over his conscious and was now permitting his every thought as he retreated back, like some vile hellion, to his manor home in the woods.
His father had not seen the exchange, which pleased the boy immensely. Not only would such a scene cause him humiliation, but his father would not be pleased to see Valentine fawning over the daughter of Granville Fairchild. Jocelyn, her name had been. And, seeing as she was quick to remember his face, when she spoke his name, a shy mumble, he shamefully felt color flood his cheeks.
That girl was an enigma; with her ruddy hair falling over her ivory shoulders and paint smudges coating her finger tips she seemed all the more interested in pursuing an art piece rather than speaking politics (a prominent topic amongst their parents). And he, attempting to sneak past the congregating men by the Angel Square, had not thought to look twice as he rushed by dark cloaks in his effort to escape. While his father boasted loudly to a fellow Shadowhunter, Jocelyn Fairchild stepped from the shadows of an alcove and right into Valentine's path. He was too startled by her appearance to watch where he was going and lost his footing just has she noticed him and reached out to steady the strange snowy-haired boy. Angel, he remembered thinking, what just happened?
Now he hurried back to the musky darkness of his room, his father a few short distances behind him.
Eckehard Morgenstern was a cynical man, bitter from a long life of wars. Towering against those who approached him, his black eyes, darker than even his son's, could make a person feel as though they had just plunged into Lake Lynn. Even his name, derived from the Morgenstern's native Germanic language, meant 'the strong point of a sword.'
He was as ruthless as he was relentless.
And Valentine hated him for it.
But even Valentine knew it was not his father's fault.
It wasn't spoken amongst the Morgenstern family, as was it impossible to speak of elsewhere, but a curse had been bestowed on the bloodline, dating back a thousand or so years. Although the curse was physically bound to the confines of Morgenstern blood, it was common knowledge within the family that any women who bore a child for the bloodline would then become included in its curse. A glaring dilemma with this notion is that the wife wouldn't have had knowledge of the curse until it was too late and a child had been brought into the cycle.
Valentine's mother had been one of the few women who, upon learning this knowledge, fled from her husband and newborn son for she could no longer bare to look upon the faces of those who had damned her. Yet Valentine never blamed her mother as he did his father. A month after his birth, Seraphina Morgenstern was pronounced dead. A lifeless weight skimming the bottom of Lake Lynn.
The remaining two Morgenstern men had varying views on their predicament but only one thing was true. Their only solace was their sanity, and even that was a dwindling flame.
While Eckehard dismissed the curse as a hoax, drinking away any trepidations he may have acquired with time, Valentine pledged an oath of isolation. He would never fall in love, romantic or otherwise, for to love was to destroy and to be loved was to be the one destroyed.
Quite literally where his mother was regarded.
Once in his room, Valentine shrugged out of his cloak and gear and went to start a hot shower. Banging could be heard from the downstairs kitchen, which meant his father was either cooking dinner or throwing around items in a rage. The later seemed more likely. Besides, it was
Valentine who did most of the cooking. His father only helped by occasionally bringing home a dead animal to skin. Not that hunting was necessary to their survival, but rather Eckehard enjoyed killing anything he could get away with.
Their neighboring Nephilim, all two families who lived acres away in their own manor homes, found it endearing on Eckehard's part; to hunt for game and to share the novelty of it all with his only son.
Valentine just found it terrifying.
As if he were to be the next one following dawn, Valentine rose before the sun and clothed himself in his finest gear, strapping knives into his belt and sheathing his Morgenstern blade, Heosphoros, against his back. Then he set out to train.
His father was his only tutor, and his only instructor for battle. Eckehard rationalized that by the time Valentine was old enough to attend the Shadowhunter Academy, which was only mere months into the future, he would be as trained as the Angel Raziel himself. But Valentin knew his father only kept him so "protected" in fear that the curse would awaken at an early deadline than the foremost eighteen years.
The curse was rather simple to comprehend, truthfully. However, it was like knowing of a natural disaster and not being able to stop the forces of nature.
It plagued the bloodline by slowly deteriorating all morals and ethics, making the host animalistic with a thirst for malice, and only grew stronger with each passing descendant. Which meant that Valentine was bound to be more horrific than his father, a concept that made him at once both traumatized and suicidal. But for reasons best unbeknownst, Valentine could never bring himself to end his life. Nor, would it seem, had any other Morgensterns.
As the snowy-haired Nephilim quietly trekked towards his usual training grounds, he paused at the sight of something flashing in his peripheral vision. A blade already in his hand, Valentine whirled around and pounced on his attacker before they even had time to get within sword-range.
Both figures slammed into the snowy banks and wrestled about the freezing dampness. There was a gasp admits the struggle, and then a breathless laugh floated up to greet him. Frowning, he glanced down….and stared.
Jocelyn Fairchild smiled shyly from beneath him.
"Forgive the intrusion, but I was curious to see where you've been hiding all this time."
Author's Note: Still here? Whew. This is only the prologue so there will be plenty more action and dialogue in the rest of the chapters. Review please and let me know what you think? What are your current thoughts on Val and Jocelyn? Thanks for reading! :)