A/N: I do not own Mortal Instruments, or the names of its characters. I do however own my characters as are written in this story, and this story itself. Thank you for reading! Please enjoy.
Chapter 2
"… it started to rain."
When they got back to their room, Maryse rounded on them.
"What happened?"
"Well . . ." Simon began, still searching his mind for a plausible alibi.
"My fault Aunt Maryse," Clary confessed. "Didn't like how Jace was treating Simon, and when I stood up for him he . . . he . . ."
"He said something inappropriate to her Aunt Maryse," Simon interjected.
Maryse's gaze shifted between the two; she crossed her arms.
"And what did he say?"
Clary's eyes hardened at the memory and she looked away.
"He called her . . . trash and . . ."
Maryse took in Simon's pained expression and Clary stony visage, and exhaled.
"And she hit him," she guessed. Simon nodded slowly, his eyes searching for a clue as to what Maryse was thinking.
"Children come with me." Maryse said, walking out the door. Glancing at each other the two followed her down the long passageway, turning up onto a different level of apartments, the third of which they stepped into.
"This is my own private apartment and no one is allowed here unless I wish them to be, not even the King. I brought you here to tell you both a great secret, one you must never tell another soul. You must never talk about it, not even amongst yourselves. Promise me this."
"I promise Aunt Maryse," Simon vowed.
"I promise," Clary gave her word.
Maryse nodded. "The secret is my story, about what happened to me, a royal child at sixteen years of age, betrothed and pregnant on my home sphere of Jinnland so many years ago.
Seven years earlier. 8731 FA
Sphere Jinnland. Palace Jarvis
"Maryse! Maryse! Awaken! We are under attack!"
The young girl of sixteen flew awake in a panic.
"What?!" she brushed her dark, sleep-tousled hair out of her horrified face as she scrambled out of bed.
Alyssa, the young servant girl who had just rushed into the room, ran over to the princess' wardrobes, pulling out a thick night robe which she flung frantically towards her. Maryse caught it with trembling hands and donned it hurriedly over her sheer night dress as she slipped into sandals. Alyssa grabbed her fear-frozen hands as they ran out of the room and down the corridor towards the main hall.
"The House of Valentine has just formally declared war on Jinnland. A fleet of over three million orbs has surrounded us and we are asked to surrender. No one can leave to get any help. Your father has just summoned all the Shadowhunters to erect a force field to keep them at bay and was currently trying to gain audience with King Valentine, but has been denied." Alyssa paused in her running to catch her breath. She met Maryse's gaze directly. "It doesn't look good."
Too many thoughts were racing through Maryse's mind. From where would they obtain help? Jinnland was such a small and reserved sphere in such a desolate part of the spiral. The Goddesses were involuted, and no one could leave without the guarantee of being blown away mid-flight. She could feel her despair rising, and she inhaled deeply to calm her riotous nerves. "My father will not win, will he?" she reflected aloud. "He has been negotiating with Valentine for months, but that bastard will not be satisfied until Jinnland comes under his name . . . and we do not have the resources to stop him. El, why can he not just leave us alone?"
Alyssa nodded her head is agreement. "We have to go." They picked up the pace again until Maryse stopped abruptly, "Where is Robert?"
Alyssa frowned in confusion. "He is with the rest of the Shadowhunters. Why?"
Maryse bit her lip in indecision. Alyssa was her closest companion despite their difference in station and it looked as though they might not even survive this together. What was one more secret between two friends?
"Robert and I have become . . . lovers." Maryse's cheeks coloured at Alyssa's gasp of shock and consternation.
"Maryse! You were supposed to wait until marriage!" came the reprimanding whisper.
Maryse looked chagrined as she scoped the area anxiously. "Shh! We are in a crisis; does everyone need to know about that now? Too besides, we are young and in love and are going to be married anyway."
Alyssa shook her head in disbelief. "I do not want to be there when your father finds out."
Maryse's face fell sombre as they continued to make their way to the hall, "Let us hope we survive this so that you may have that option."
"When we arrived at the hall we remained in the shadows listening, watching and waiting. The scene which unravelled before us was gory to say the very least. I shall not go into any details. It is enough to say that one severely injured, bleeding Shadowhunter was allowed bare survival in order to tell my father, Jarvis, the King of Jinnland, that nearly all of the population was completely wiped out. With no one left to defend the royal family, Valentine was on his way to claim my father's throne. . . It is amazing how a few words so softly whispered could fill a person with such insurmountable fear and dread. He fell dead the moment he uttered them and then … it started to rain."
Castle doors flung wide with the deafening slam of finality. Lasanian troops filed in and surrounded King Jarvis while others charged onward into the interior of the castle resolute upon capturing the remainder of the royal family. Someone had yet to notice two young girls pressed fearfully behind the gigantic pillar in the corner by the staircase.
"Where are the others?" Maryse whispered softly, afraid to even breathe.
"Your father sent them to a ship after he learnt about the deaths of the Shadowhunters," Alyssa whispered back, peering into the dark space between pillar and wall, fearful that any moment now it would be filled with a Lasanian soldier. "I am supposed to take you there as soon as the coast is clear."
"Have you been in contact with him all this time?" Maryse asked.
"Yes . . . and now that they are in here you have to be very mindful of when one is approaching. Search well for nearing thoughts."
Maryse nodded as they turned back to the scene in the hall.
Guards had chained Jarvis of Jinnland to his throne and had him within range of their weapons. Several minutes passed until eventually more troops filed in, this time surrounding their own King, Valentine.
"It did not have to come to this Jarvis," Valentine began slowly. "I had only wanted to combine the demonology of my people with the angelic might of your own. Now I have to ask you … Was this," he asked gesturing to the dead Shadowhunter on the floor, "really worth opposing my idea?"
"That's rot Valentine, and you know it. You had no interest in combining our power towards a mutually beneficial life for our people. You wanted to enslave my people and exploit their powers for your own financial gain." Jarvis bowed his head as he grounded out the words, "Even though I grieve my loss … I still take great pleasure in knowing that now you will never be able to succeed with your diabolical plans."
"What loss Jarvis? You have lost nothing. For daring to oppose me, for depriving me of what I wanted, I now bestow upon you the honour of joining your people in the dark realm. And just to sweeten the journey for you before you leave, I have the honour of bearing to you this news. Your near-deployed family members have been captured and, I'm afraid, are just as dead as the rest of your Shadowhunters."
No, Maryse put her hand over her mouth to prevent herself from yelling out. She felt Alyssa's comforting thought waves, and leaned back against her friend, even as she pushed them away.
Surprisingly, and much to the rage of Valentine, Jarvis showed very little reaction. He stared resolutely ahead of him, and would not grace the tyrant with a single word. Valentine, a bit baffled, would not let his revenge be dampened as he sneered maliciously at the man before him.
"Struck dumb I see. Kill him." He issued the soft command at the nearest guard.
Father, Maryse practically yelled the thought, you must save yourself. Use the Braegan Satyr.
Maryse, said the strong voice in her mind that she knew to be her father, I am trying to save you. The longer I remain alive, the longer the bastard lingers in this place and the lesser a chance you have to escape. I want you to live. Avenge me if you will, when you are grown and you are strong enough to do so, but for now remain hidden in the shadows my love. I cannot use the Braegan Satyr without risking being killed by one of their weapons …
Father, surely me and Alyssa could help you, we are not that weak. We could make them destroy their weapons …
Maryse, the thought came as a gentle reprimand, I know this isn't what you want to hear and I am not proud of it, but I am a King without a throne, or a people … without purpose. There is no longer any reason for me to remain in this realm.
Yes there is father. What about me? I do not want to be left alone.
Maryse, you are not alone … I am sorry about Robert. He told me about the two of you. At first I wanted to kill him, now I am very glad I didn't. Take good care Maryse. I love you.
Father please … The connection was abruptly severed. Maryse slowly lifted her head up to see a soldier withdraw a spear from her father's body.
No.
"No!"
Valentine started at the sound of the horrified scream, as a frantic young woman ran from among the shadows towards the fallen body of the slain king. Guards brandished their weapons menacingly in her direction, but she rushed passed them, ripping the delicate skin of her shoulder on the sharp point of one guard's spear, to kneel at her dying father's side.
Her father gazed upon her with a pained and terrified countenance.
"Maryse . . ." his tone dismayed, "you . . . you should have stayed . . . hidden."
"I'm so sorry," she whispered, cradling him to her torso. How could such a great man be made to feel so frail in the space of such little time? He said he lacked purpose now. Perhaps purpose had been the source of his strength. Feeling him fade away from her, Maryse whispered "I love you," before he departed forever, settling his vacant frame tenderly onto the floor.
Valentine signalled a guard to seize her, and bring her to face him.
"Who are you girl?" he said with unconcealed apathy.
"How dare you do this?" Maryse screamed hysterically into his face. Her eyes pierced him with accusation and condemnation, "How could you?"
Valentine fixed her with a contemptible glance, before turning away. "Politics, of course. What else?"
"Your Majesty," called a guard to Valentine, "I found her hiding behind the pillar by the staircase."
The guard threw Alyssa down before the feet of the King. Maryse moved to go to her, but was stopped by warning looks from all.
Maryse, Alyssa's voice sounded in her head urgently, Do not allow that man to know who you are unless your life depends on it. For all we know he may kill you for being your father's daughter. Say nothing unless you must.
I will not speak it until I have to, Maryse promised. I must save us, Lyssa, but how?
"You two wouldn't happen to be chatting on my time, would you?" Valentine asked disparagingly. "Kill them. After all, the majority of their people are dead. There is no reason to keep them alive."
"Before I could react, his men murdered Alyssa." Maryse shook the memories around in her head, trying desperately to escape their outstretched hands, clawing and clinging to what was left of her ravished mind. Shoving them down into the bowels of her psyche, she made herself focus on the children and the present before she continued.
"No," Maryse's horrified whisper echoed throughout the hall. She could not bear it. She felt as though she were going out of her mind. She snapped. Focussing all her angelic energy on Valentine, she felt her body resonate with a scorching sensation as she began to emanate the Braegan Satyr. The might with which the force of the angelic blast hit the King was so powerful it shook the walls until they crumbled and cracked, and shattered the glass of the windows, and smashed the wood of the doors. More than half of the guards in the room were wiped out, some of them rendered unconscious, while the ones closest to her were left in a catatonic state. Valentine however remained unaffected as more guards entered the room in response to the commotion Maryse's attack had created. Exhausting all her energies, the young princess fell to the floor in a dead faint.
"Your Majesty?" a guard questioned. The King did not seem fazed even though the room was coming down around them. He stirred from his contemplations, casting a slightly annoyed glance at the guard for the interruption. "What should we do with her?"
"I wonder who she is," Valentine said irritably, taking in the girl's beauty with an air of distaste, "I'm not quite sure what to do with her." Looking around him at the deteriorating condition of the building he added, "And I don't have all the time in the universe to figure it out either."
A guard knelt on the ground beside Maryse to examine the gash in her shoulder. The spear she had lanced herself on had torn right through a tattoo of the kingdom's insignia there.
"Your Highness, she is one of the royal children!" the guard exclaimed.
"Indeed," Valentine proffered, a hint of interest glinting in his eyes. "Then by all means bring her with us. We leave this sphere immediately. Several thousand of you will stay behind to secure my new lands. How fitting, that it was one of our spears that sliced through that irritating symbol. It could almost signify a new beginning for her, couldn't it? . . . That will be all, guard."
"And it was. They brought me here. This is why I got so upset with you when you spoke to Valentine, child," Maryse said softly to Clary. "He is an evil man. I need you to promise me that you will both be very careful around him, for he is not to be trusted, and would harm even the very young. He cares nothing about preservation of a child's innocence. He cares nothing for anything other than himself."
"We promise Aunt Maryse," the children vowed in unison.
"Good," Maryse said, beaming at them both, trying to hide her feelings, shaken from reliving the sordid experiences of her past. "Now do you remember how I told you I was pregnant? Suffice to say, Jace is the son of Robert. However he does not know this and it is by far the biggest secret of all. I trust in you children to keep this secret for me, and to understand that the way Jace is, and who he will become, is never his fault. You must try to understand and accept him, and forgive the things he says and does; for me, if no one else."
"Why doesn't he know, Aunt Maryse?" Simon questioned, perturbed.
"Because Valentine said he would kill him if I told him the truth. He doesn't want Jace to know of his heritage until he has firmly moulded him into his own image. When that time comes, I am to begin his Shadowhunter training, and with his help, Valentine will strengthen his armies' demonology, which was his plan all along. For right now Valentine trains him to fight and to hate. A part of me would rather him die than to be that man's son, but I am selfish. I love my son. He is my very last connection to all that I have lost, and I cannot lose him as well."
A sombre silence settled over the three in Maryse's apartment. The children were astounded by all they had heard, and instinctively moved toward Maryse when she offered them her embrace.
"Promise me you will be kind to Jace, please, for me?"
"I promise Aunt Maryse," Simon vowed.
"As do I," Clary said gravely.
"Oh my children, I love you. With any luck you can thwart the awful influence Valentine has had over him thus far. He knows I love him, but for a young boy of only six years he is so withdrawn, so serious and reserved. I know he could be a nicer child. Sometimes he can be rather sweet in his own way, but I miss his happiness. When he was born he was such a delight, and now he is so dour it's worrying me to distraction. We can't let that man ruin my boy. We cannot let Valentine win, not with Jace. Perhaps, with your help, I can make my son laugh again."
A/N: Thank you for reading and reviewing! Constructive criticism, honest ratings and well-deserved praise are all welcome here ^_^ Thanks again!