Author's Note:
I want to thank you all profusely for sticking with this story over the years. Your PMs and comments have meant so much. As you can probably imagine, a lot has happened in my life between becoming a mother, a wife, a teacher, and continuing my degree, thus making time very precious. With COVID and facing multiple deaths in the family, I took this summer off and finally had the chance to focus on myself. During this reflection, I realized how much the ability to express myself, whether in writing or art, had become lost over the years.
While I always intended to finish this story, doing things for myself always ended up falling on the back burner. So for the last week, I have devoted hours (and I mean hours) going back to this story because although I loved the premise of it, the character development felt so rushed. I wasn't happy with it when I wrote it and I wasn't happy now. I knew that Clary needed strong relationships in order to survive the darkness she will encounter in this story.
So off I set to rewriting, editing, and improving these early chapters, and while I hope to have fixed everything I have a nasty habit of missing my own mistakes (especially grammar).
This is going to be a long story and a labor of love. One that has always weighed heavy on my heart to tell. After hours of editing, I can say that I am genuinely happy with it. While I can not promise this story will be finished this summer, I can commit to allowing myself time to frequently update
So here are the new chapters. Please expect more come the weekend.
*Synopsis*
Clary Fray is an orphan and a member of the resistance, an organization aiming to undermine the ruthless King Valentine. Together with her friends Simon and Isabelle, they sabotage King Valentine's fire demon workforce, ending his attempt to rage war on the neighboring Lovelace kingdom. However, in the commotion that follows their attempt to flee, Clary falls behind and is awaiting trial in the royal court before the King himself. The man who has terrorized the nation and whose evil son has been hunting her from the moment he spotted her in a crowd. Before the guards can successfully deliver her to the king, Clary makes an unlikely escape through a secret passage in the mysterious wall. Behind which lies a forest protected by a magic barrier that has withstood the Morgenstern tyrannical sovereign's onslaught for years. Once inside, Clary finds herself a prisoner again and at the mercy of the forest's Guardian. Faced with the choice of death and being hunted by the mad king she is forced to place her trust in a handsome stranger who might be the key to unlocking her lost past.
Prologue
A part of me always wondered what it would feel like to die. It wasn't a thought that I dwelled on but having felt death's cold breath once before, it had crossed my mind more times than I would like to admit. Would there be darkness? Perhaps a light? Would I feel peace? Everyone had their own ideas of what death held. I just hoped when my time came that it would be quick and that I would be leaving the world in a better place than I had come into it. Yet in these calculations, I always factored that I would be the one dying. It was that miscalculation that left me unprepared for the scene that lay before me.
He was dying. I don't know who but whoever he was, he clearly was important. I watched in horror as his body fell into the water, which quickly turned crimson. A scream left my lips as I pushed my legs to run towards the lake. I didn't recognize my surroundings though it was difficult to see much through the smoke and flames. A soft light blurred my vision and the next thing I felt was cold water. How I made it such a long distance in such a short amount of time confused me yet I didn't think more of it. My attention was on the man I held in my arms. His face had been a blur from a distance but now that he was in front of me I could see his features more clearly. Soft blonde hair, stained red from the blood that gushed from his many wounds. His eyes were closed, his skin cold, and he was growing paler by the moment. Looking down I could see dark Igor covering an open wound in his chest, a fatal wound and even more fatal given the presence of demonic venom.
Pain ripped through my chest as my lips opened, letting out another agonizing scream.
"Please! Angel….Raziel….I beg of you! Spare him!" I sobbed.
It was pointless though. The angel wouldn't waste his time saving a mortal life. My mother had always told me that the angel was busy in his holy fight against evil and had little time for meddling in mundane matters. Yet, the me at this moment didn't care. She was desperate.
A large shiver ran down my spine, the cold lake water numbing my legs as I struggled to hold up the man's body. His head dipped lower into the current, sending streams of red blood along the water's surface. Tears littered my cheeks as I watched his once-blonde hair turn crimson.
"Please," I cried gazing up at the moon. "Please, save him. I… I love him. If you save him, you can have me instead. I will trade my life for his."
Then a blinding light consumed me.
