Mortal Instruments FanFiction: City of Broken Hearts
SPOILERS* If you haven't yet completed City of Bones, then don't read *SPOILERS
Dream
There was an odd feeling in Clary's right shoulder, like an enormous weight was pushing down on her, crushing her bones into packets of dust. And then there was that awful surge of aching in her chest, a scouring hurt, as if her heart had been ripped from her ribcage by claws. She coughed, expelling a stream of blood, and tried to sit up. The pain her shoulder and chest intensified until she finally had to collapse back to the concrete. The cement floor was so cold it made her skin tingle, numb.…
"Where is it?" A voice like venom, like a stream of poison acid, gurgled somewhere in the darkness.
Clary's eyes flew open. The room was a mask of shadows, every corner was enveloped in impenetrable blackness. She coughed again, dryly this time, so dry it scraped her throat.
"I said where is it?" The voice was a bellow echoing off the walls and escalating the pulsing in Clary's head.
"Where is what?" her voice was hoarse with disuse.
Where was she? She blinked and raised her left hand, careful not to put too much pressure on her right arm as she propped herself up. The skin of her hand was barely visible in the dark, but it was easy to see that it was coated in something dark and wet. Panicked, Clary touched her chest and looked at her palm again. Blood.
"Where am I?" she asked with a touch of urgency. She held her hand against her chest as if to keep the blood inside her.
The voice was a hail of intimidating needles in her mind. "I will ask the questions, daughter of Lord Valentine," It hissed. "Now, where is the key?"
Clary blinked again and sat up, wincing at the pain that curled harder against her lungs. She could barely breath; every intake of air was agonizing.
"Key?" she coughed again.
"The key to lock dimensions. The gate keeper's solace. The key from the dreams of the Angel."
Clary struggled to her knees, which she discovered via the sharp pain that exploded over her skin, were scraped. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
The stranger growled. It was a demon, she concluded. It had to be. Clary's knees shook violently as she rose to her feet. The ground was slick with blood.
"Do not rise, daughter of he who casts no shadow."
"Where am I? Tell me where I am and what you want with me." She ordered.
A sickening slithering sound reached her ears. "You are here. And what I want with you is the key."
Clary's right hand clenched into a shaking fist. "I don't have any key. Now let me go."
The thing laughed in a gurgled voice like boiling water. "The key was suppose to reside within you. Within your heart. But I have searched meticulously and it could not be produced. I am concluding that it was removed. Where have you placed it?"
Clary ran her tongue across the surface of her teeth and tasted the metallic iron of blood. "I wasn't aware of any key." She said mockingly. "Maybe you should tell Valentine too get his facts straight."
The thing roared. "You will not speak of Lord Valentine with anything less that reverie in my presence."
"Sorry," Clary's voice was still mocking. "But whose presence am I in exactly?"
"That," it answered firmly. "Is no concern of yours. Now tell me where the key is or I will be forced to use less savory ways of making you tell me."
Clary's heart stuttered painfully, but she didn't allow her apprehension to stagger her voice. "You can torture me if you want, but you won't get me to tell you something that I don't know."
"Very well." The thing slithered further into the darkness. She could hear the sweeping sound it's form retreating.
Clary fell back to the ground, unable to stand once her adrenaline supply and anger had been exhausted. Her heart beat was broken, a murmured tick that was out of time. She was dying, she realized with a shock of cold fear. But they wouldn't allow her to die just yet, not without trying to extract what they wanted from her. The location of the key. But Clary knew nothing of a key, a key that the thing had said would lock dimensions. Her eyes suddenly felt strained, overused, and her breath was slowing. She was very close to death. She would die here in mysterious, freezing darkness without ever seeing her mother awake. Or Jace. The thought was so unbearable.
"What are you doing here, warlock boy. Leave now or die." The thing was speaking again, somewhere further off, but not to her. Clary tried to listen, but her hearing was fading. The sounds of their voices seemed to be under water, submerged in her fading consciousness.
"I've come for Clary of course."
Who came for me? Who is this? The voice was unfamiliar.
There was a horrible hissing sound that rang loudly through Clary's foggy mind. Then a metallic grating—a sword freeing itself from a hard sheath—and a cry of pain so loud and unnatural that Clary cringed despite herself.
Footsteps resonated somewhere, growing louder as the distance between her and them became shorter. Then there was a voice, directly overhead. "Clary?"
Clary groaned very softly.
"Thank God you're alive." The boy said with a palpable relief. His hands were underneath her, lifting. Clary cried out in pain. Her shoulder started to throb.
"Sorry," he said gently. Then they were moving. Clary's eyes were still closed.
"Who are you?" she asked in a whisper, using up her last breath.
"Knight," the boy answered.
Knight, a warlock. The knight in the darkness?... her mind faded into blankness as she felt the beautiful warmth of light touch her cheeks.
Chapter 1
For the devil has no power except in the dark –Dorothea, Lady of the Haven.
Clary opened her eyes and screamed.
The strange face winced and recoiled, falling back as Clary sat up.
"I have sensitive ears you know," the man commented. He rubbed his left ear and stepped away from the bed.
Clary looked at him. A black-haired teenager with musical blue and green streaks that swirled melodically through his spiked hair. His eyes were a shocking lavender, a mirror of the blossom's color in early spring, and his mouth was set into a line of pain.
She glanced downward. She was sitting in a bed over stocked with pillows and blankets. The room surrounding her was painted with vertical gray and black stripes and a low chandelier with onyx crystals dangled from the center of the ceiling.
"Where am I? Who are you? What happened?"
"You're in the Bronx, at my flat. I'm Knight Walker, and you were taken by Fiends. In that order."
Clary blinked and stared at him. "Knight?"
The knight in the darkness. Her mind echoed its final thoughts before everything had gone black. "You saved me." She realized.
She looked down at her chest, covered in an oversized T-shirt that was not her own, and felt the stiff fabric of bandages binding her down to her waist. Knight appeared embarrassed.
"Maya did that." He mumbled with a fair blush coating his face.
Clary looked up at him again, noticing for the first time the enormous bat wings that framed his figure. The slick appearance of them, like car tarp, was eerie.
"I was bleeding, and I was about to die, but I'm not dead." Clary mused, mostly to herself.
Knight chewed his bottom lip and nodded. "It took a lot of magic to keep you alive until I got here. Maya nearly choked to death when she saw you."
"Who's Maya?"
"My cousin," he said faintly, looking off to the side as if her were contemplating something different entirely. "So, where did you hide the key?" he finally asked. His purple eyes were shining with eagerness.
"The key?" she asked slowly, feeling something in the back of her mind bubble forth. The key from the dreams of the Angel. Her heart dropped into her stomach as she realized, "You want this key thing too? I have no idea what key you people are talking about!"
Knight seemed surprised. "You don't? Really? I thought you were just saying that for the sake of that demon."
Clary glared at him. "No." her voice was tight.
Knight chewed his lip again. "Interesting. I wonder where it is…" he trailed off.
A girl came in then and Clary's attention shifted to her. She would have been beautiful, a pure gorgeousness that rivaled Isabel's, if she weren't so tragically maimed. Her face was clawed on both sides, red lines running from the corners of her eyes across her cheeks. Her neck was in a similar condition, crimson gashes crisscrossed her jugular. Clary wondered what had happened to her. But for all her deformities, she was still stunning. Deep blond curls bounced around her shoulders and wondering, green eyes assessed her with curiosity.
"Maya," Knight said in surprise, as if he hadn't been expecting her.
"I came to see if she was alright." The girl's voice was high and soothing, motherly.
Knight waved a ring-clad hand at her dismissively. "She's fine, but she doesn't appear to know anything about the key."
Clary was perfectly fed up with being ignorant. It made her feel small. "What is this key everyone is sputtering on about?"
Maya looked at her with grave eyes. "You don't know…"
Knight continued for her. "About the key? I suppose that's to be expected in a sense. Most Shadowhunters think it's a legend anyway."
Clary bristled at the mention of Shadowhunters. "What is this all about?"
Maya and Knight looked at each other. Knight sighed and pulled an ornately carved chair from a mahogany desk set against the far wall and sat in it backwards, facing her. His purple eyes glittered with the weary tale he had balanced on his tongue.
"Legend tells of a key that has the power to seal the door between worlds, stopping the demons who seep through. The key would allow for Shadowhunters to control the barriers of worlds, but it is a double edged sword. If the barriers were sealed and no more demons plagued the earths of which they did not belong, Shadowhunters themselves would become obsolete. It made the key greatly craved and greatly feared.
"But many believe it as a legend; the key from the dreams of the Angel. The key that could save one race but destroy another. It didn't appear as if any such key existed, so people ignored the tale which was nicknamed 'the only legend with no truth'. Valentine didn't disregard the legend, though. He searched tirelessly for the key, seeing it as a powerful weapon that he could use not just to seal barriers, but to forge a barrier in this world. A barrier between humans and Downworlders.
"After he finally got hold of it, stealing it from its sanctuary, a hold under Idris, he entrusted it to his wife, who at the time was still beside him. But when she fled Idris, she took the key with her and asked a warlock to place it within the heart of her child after it was born. Valentine guessed as much and sent demons after you when he had confirmed you had the key inside your heart."
Clary stared at him. Her mind was reeling. She had a legendary key inside her? She touched her chest subconsciously, feeling the rigid bandages encasing her torso.
"But it doesn't appear to be in you now. That demon opened your chest, it wasn't there."
Clary let her hand fall, feeling the ghost of air brushing her exposed insides. She shivered.
Maya, who was standing nearby, placed a hand on Clary's knee. Her fingers were gentle and Clary could feel the bandages affixed to her kneecaps under her jeans. "I'm sorry. You must have been in so much pain."
But Clary didn't recall the pain the most. What she recalled the most was the unwavering, bottomless fear that she would die alone in darkness. But then Knight came and she wasn't alone; he took her away from the darkness.
"Well, if the key isn't inside me then where is it?" Clary asked.
Knight shrugged. "Who knows?"
Clary didn't like this answer. "Maybe there never was a key."
Maya and Knight both shook their heads. "There's a key alright," Knight argued.
"How can you be so sure? It's a legend that nobody even believes except Valentine and he's crazy. Why do you think it's real when no one else does?"
Knight's eyes latched onto her own. The purple in them seemed to swirl and churn like liquid amethyst. "I know it's real because I'm the one who sealed it inside you."