Hello to everyone who starts to read this fanfic. I really hope you will enjoy it. Please excuse any kind of language mistakes, I am not a native speaker and translate my stories myself. In the following there's the whole summary of the story because only allows about 384 letters and there wasn't enough space for the entire summary so here you go:

Summary: Jocelyn didn't leave Valentine after the Uprising. Together they withdrew from the Shadowhunter society to escape the Clave's deadly trial. Eighteen years later Jonathan and Clarissa developed to young and killing Shadwohunters, trained by their father to be better, faster and stronger than any ordinary Shadowhunter could ever be. After one of Valentine's experiments wipes out the humanity in Jonathan who almost kills Clary, Jocelyn and Clary escape from the hidden Morgenstern mansion and find half-hearted shelter in the New York Institute. Leaving her father's tenets behind Clary is introduced into the free and equal Shadow World. But the Morgenstern weighs heavily on Clary's shoulders. The Clave as well as almost every Shadowhunter mistrusts her. All her efforts to start a new life attached to the Shadowhunter's values seem to fail when she gets to know Jace Herondale, the son whose family was murdered by her father years ago.

I hope you enjoy the prologue. I would love to read some of your comments on my first chapter! I hope I will be able to update soon!

Prologue

My feet met the ground with a graceful pirouette and the blade struck his hip. The hit couldn't have been more precise. Jonathan started to stumble and took an uncertain step back. I couldn't help grinning. However, the next thing I knew, he was already up and about to start his attack.

I heard a fierce hiss escaping his mouth and looked up at him perplexed. His dark eyes flashed out of anger. Did I hurt him? The moment he noticed my stare he drew his sword and wielded it down on me at full power. At the last moment I ducked leftwards and parried him off. It took all my strength to withstand the weight of his blade. What was he thinking? He knew that he wasn't allowed to attack with full strength! He'd never broken the rules our father gave us, and we've been training together for more than ten years after all.

"Jonathan, what's going on?" I looked at him, confused by this behavior. To make him stop I rose my hand at the height of my chest while I quit my defense.

Fresh air blew through my hair. The forest around us had turned unusually quiet. The only sound was the air rustling through the trees. Even without the snow covering every inch of the meadow one could have guessed the season. All animals were gone, not even the birds had remained. This year winter would become very cold.

A second later I lied on the icecold ground. There was a piercing pain in my shoulder. In a painful movement I lifted my head up. My eyes met Jonathan's who stood above me and seemed to study my every move. His eyes were so dark, much darker than usually. It must be due to the cold, I thought while shivering.

Suddenly I realized he was the reason I was laying on the ground. "Jonathan, damn it, stop it!" I furiously tried to sit up, but Jonathan interrupted me by digging his heavy shoe in my ribs. A pained gasp escaped my mouth as I heard a bone crack inside my chest. I felt the adrenaline rushing through my blood and a second later I rose up and flung him on the ground with me.

"Stop it right now." My voice was loud and grave, I felt as if there was no other way to make him understand the meaning behind the words. Jonathan laid beneath me, and I pushed his arms in the snow. I could see my raging reflection in his eyes.

He was stuck for an answer. He didn't seem to care. Instead, he squeezed his fingernails into my forearm and started the attempt to wrestle me down. He turned his body, and I went down with him. The only thing I saw was his bright hair, it seemed brighter than the snow around us. Again, I felt the ground in my back and let out an irritated sigh. Jonathan's unchecked anger seemed to persuade his behavior more and more. He showed his teeth and pushed his left arm on my chest while his other hand went back to his belt.

Stunned, I tried to loosen the pressure of his arm but the more I moved the more my ribs hurt. "Let me go", I exclaimed and spit in his face. By the angel, what was wrong with him?

Out of the corner of my eye I saw his hand break away from his belt. A second later he hit me in the face, his fingernails scratching my skin. Then he drew a golden dagger and my body stiffened under his weight. Wide-eyed I tried to explain myself how the situation had run out of control that bad. There was no time to react when he let the Kindjal down, faster than I've ever seen him move before.

It all happened in slow motion. I saw the dagger's tip, shining in a bright gold, as it approached me. I would have been able to get out of his way if I wasn't so surprised by his actions. He left me no choice but watch him stabbing the Kindjal into my throat. I gasped for air and tried to prepare for the pain. It felt like hot lava spreading through my veins and burning me from inside. In a scream racked with pain I slumped down beneath him. My eyes were closed when I finally heard the voice of my father.

"Jonathan", he said calmly while he stood up from the stub he'd been silently sitting on all along. He'd been watching us the entire time. As always. "You need to sort your emotions. Look what you did to your sister." His voice was totally calm and not upset at all which would have made me furious if I had heard his words. The only thing I listened to was the blood rushing through my ears.

Someone pulled up my sleeve and I felt a light burn on my skin as someone, probably my father, applied an Iratze on my skin. Then a strong pair of arms picked me up and my consciousness vanished into thin air.

oOo

"By the angel, how did this happen?"

"Jocelyn, please calm down! Clarissa is doing well, she only needs to rest." My father didn't even bother to whisper. His voice always seemed omnipresent.

"Jonathan stabbed her with a dagger, and she only needs to rest?!" My mother screamed at him in disbelief, and I couldn't blame her for it.

"Jonathan didn't do it on purpose", Valentine tried to convince my mother. "It was a moment of weakness. He lost control of his emotions, that's all."

There was a moment of icecold silence in the sideroom. I used the time to sit myself up. The movement made me shiver. I instinctively raised my hand to the wound. The blood inside my throat pulsed like a beating heart. I sat in my bed, wrapped up in several blankets. There was a little commode beside the bed with a dinner tray on it. Someone had brought a hot cup and some fruits up to my room. But I didn't get the chance to bend over the commode because my parents continued their argument.

"Valentine … I can't believe it … what have you done?" As the sound of her voice reached my ears I stiffened and started to shiver. I've never heard my mother sound this way. She sounded incredibly distant and deeply shocked. I listened carefully as my father defended himself.

"It was necessary, don't you understand? From this point on, nobody will have the ability to hurt Jonathan or Clarissa ever again. It has been a generous offer." The way he spoke made me shudder in fear. What was going on here? What was wrong with Jonathan?

"A generous offer?!" Jocelyn's scream frightened me to death. "How did you dare, how could you even imagine, selling your own son to Lilith?! Don't you understand what consequences your actions bring for Jonathan and Clary? You made them both suffer and because of you his soul will probably suffer the rest of his life!" Suddenly there wasn't any air to breath. I choked and fell on the floor. Jonathan sold to Lilith? By the angel, what was going on here? Of course, I knew who Lilith was but it still didn't make any sense to me.

"Shut your mouth, Jocelyn", Valentine snapped at my mother. "How do you dare saying such things about our son? I dealt with the situation in a realistic way. I did the best thing to protect our children. I cannot believe that you talk about Jonathan in such a disdainful manner. Withal you exactly know that there's powerful blood in Clarissa's veins too." Silence. The thoughts in my head spun around. Powerful blood? In my veins? What did this portend? I felt exhausted. Nerveless, I slumped down on the wooden floor and let the darkness get control over me.

oOo

When I woke up again, I lay in my bed again. The sun shone through the window into the room and the heat under my blankets seemed unbearable. I wanted to sit up and get out of bed, but a familiar hand pushed me back into the cushions.

With a puzzled expression I looked up and recognized my mother sitting on the edge of the bed. She smiled but there was something deeply sad in her green eyes. I didn't understand why she was smiling at all. "Clary, you're finally awake, I worried that it would take more time for you to recover." She examined me with a caring look on her face.

I withstood the attempt to hide my feelings from her. "Mom, what's going on?" My voice sounded vulnerable and insecure.

"We have to leave, Clary. It'll be safer for us. I know that you probably don't understand what's going on and later when we're beyond your father's reach I will explain every single detail to you. And if you decide to return you will be free to go. Your most important clothes and belongings are packed, you just need to get dressed." So she'll be stuck for an answer. Just now I realized how serious the situation really was. She wanted to leave Valentine and Jonathan. She wanted to start a new life somewhere out of their reach. But how? They were Shadowhunters, they'd find us anywhere. My throat felt constricted, so I only nodded and stood up.

"Magnus Bane the High Warlock of Brooklyn will help us. I've already sent him a fire-message", my mother said from a great distance. I was too absentminded to pay her full attention. Frequently, I had to think about my father ... and Jonathan and his furious face that felt like a mask which didn't match his usual behavior at all.

oOo

With a sigh I turned to face my mother. We were riding on our horses, heading westwards, away from the hidden manor and away from Alicante. "Mom", I began in an uncertain tone, convinced that I wouldn't bear the answers to my questions. "What happened with Jonathan?" I gave her a quick glance and saw her features tense in pain. "Please", begging her to say something "I need to know the whole truth. You have to tell me. Stop protecting me, no matter what it is I can stand it."

"No you can't." It took all of Jocelyn's strength to make her voice sound halfway neutral as she nodded and started to tell me the story of her life. "Your father has never been like other men … like ordinary Shadowhunters. He'd always sought for something greater for what I truly admired him at the beginning. In young years he already had a different sight on our Shadowhunters' nature, and he publicly demanded …"

"What is it?" Why did she stop? I studied her carefully. Her eyes darted to a distant point. It was snowing and tiny white snowflakes got caught in her bright red hair. The wind was icecold but she didn't seem to notice or she just didn't care.

"I guess I have to start at the actual beginning", she explained and continued. "The first time I've met your father was in school in Alicante. He wasn't in our year but in the year above us and-"

"Wait", I abruptly interrupted her. "Who do you refer to when you say us?"

"With us I mean me and my best friend Lucian. Lucian Graymark. We'd known each other since forever and as a result we also went to school together. While I'd always been good at school, Lucian had his problems. Then he met Valentine who helped him. He privately taught him, spend a lot of time with him and gave Lucian the feeling to be important to someone except me. Everyone was literally thrilled about Valentine whereas I effaced myself regarding him. Soon people realized that Valentine had a very special opinion towards Downworlders. At some point he founded the Circle. The Circle, back then it felt more like a teenage riot, represented the thought of Idris with clear and strict borders for Downworlders because they carried demonic blood in their veins. Lucian was totally devoted to Valentine just as many other young Shadowhunters too. I sometimes called them Valentine's fan club."

"But one day Valentine's parents were killed in a demon attack. It changed him. He fell into fits of rage, and I feared Lucian would lose his friend. Valentine seemed to lose more and more control of his life."

"I felt sorry for him, and it was strange to see such a strong man like him suffer from an attack that could've been prevented if the Clave had paid him more attention. He suffered and so … I helped him cope with his loss. We spend a lot of time together and somehow, we fell in love. Eventually married and I hoped it would help him to forget. As you can see it didn't. Valentine started to cut himself off, his persuasions became extremer than ever. Suddenly talking wasn't enough anymore, he had to take action. Since his parents death he'd bottled up with hatred for Downworlders and any kind of demonic creature. The development of his plan, the obliteration of all demonic creatures, was his top priority ever since."

"After Jonathan was born, he and Lucian went on a mission to end a near-by wolfpack. When Valentine and Lucian returned, he explained to me that Lucian had been bitten by an unexpected attack of the werewolves. We waited a month for the next full moon and were devastated when Lucian turned."

"For Valentine this was a heavy setback, he loved Lucian like his own brother. But he still believed that the demonic blood would turn every Downworlder into a monster. Valentine grieved about Lucian as if he was already dead, I think in his eyes he actually was dead. Shortly afterwards Lucian disappeared, months passed but we never heard anything from him, so Valentine believed that he died or ended his own life. But I was sure that Lucian was still alive, I still am but the fact that he never tried to come back to see me after all of our years of friendship … I don't know … So much time has passed since then."

"Valentine's paranoia grew day by day and when I got pregnant again his fear to lose the child increased so much that … he did something unforgivable. Especially because I went through a difficult phase during that time. The past events had exhausted me. Lucian had left and we didn't know if he was still alive, it was too much for me. I didn't eat, didn't go out and slept most of the time. Valentine called it a depression, but this is rather a human term. During that time, he took care of me and even fed me. The problem was, and still is, that the food he fed me wasn't ordinary food. Clary, you have to believe me when I say that I just found out about all of this yesterday." She came to a standstill and lowered her eyes.

"Tell me", I said. My fingers were trembling. Though we were sitting on our horses for hours, I was breathless. "I want to know the truth." She averted her eyes and pressed her lips together as if she tried to hold pack something unbearable. With a deep breath she opened her mouth.

"Angelic blood", she said. „ He mixed in into my food and hoped it would make me … happier, more active … I'm not sure. And it actually did. But the point is that I was pregnant, with you." She sadly smiled.

„The angelic blood affected me, a grown-up woman in her late twenties. Just imagine the effect it could have on still developing living beings, an unborn just like you were. He told me he did all of this to protect us from the dangers of the Shadow World, but the truth is that it was just another of his experiments. I guess he never really understood that Shadowhunters' are part of the Shadow World too."

"Old legends say that the blood of the angels can give Shadowhunters enormous power, it is able to make you stronger, faster and also happier. Valentine mixed dried angelic blood into my food hoping that it would cure my depression. It did. It didn't make me stronger or more powerful, but it helped me to get more active. When he started feeding me the mixed food, I could tell that something changed in my body, but I thought that it might be natural due to the pregnancy."

"Stop", I gasped for air. My pulse was racing, and I couldn't breathe. Unbelievable pain shot through my veins, and I felt the tears in my eyes. "But how- Where did he get the blood from? It's just a myth, there is no place on earth where- Father's only chance to get ahold of angelic blood is through the angels themselves… And-"

"I know Clary", my mother's eyes were filled with pain. "And the angels would never give a Shadowhunter their blood voluntarily …" Her voice was nothing more than a whisper. A single tear ran down her cheek. We both knew that there was no greater felony than hurting an angel. We had never been close to the angels, we were their descendants but in all the years since Jonathan Shadowhunter there had been no one who ever saw or spoke to an angel. But we knew they were there, watching us. But not even my father was powerful enough to raise an angel. Even if he got the blood from someone else at some point the blood must have been taken from an angel at some point. My heart ached.

"Now that your father finally told me the truth, so much seems to make sense now. I believe that I was too old to experience all the effects of the angelic blood but on a living being that's still developing the effects could be much more intensive. When I remember the past seventeen years, I am pretty sure that it changed you more than it changed me. I believe that it runs through your veins which means that it has a permanent impact on you while I had to consume it on a daily basis, like a drug."

Those things Jocelyn told me. I knew they were true, there was no reason to lie but still I couldn't believe a word she said. It sounded wrong and horrible and insane. From one to the next moment everything I seemed to know about my father vanished. My whole world view turned upside down and it was irreversible. "You want to say that there is angelic blood running through my veins? Even if it is true nothing has changed, I am an ordinary Shadowhunter. Nothing is special about me." Of course, I knew that my words weren't true. We, the Morningstar children, were special. Trained to kill faster, better and quieter, there was nothing an army of ordinary Shadowhunters could do against us. At least my father had told us so.

"You aren't ordinary, Clary", my mother said. Of course, anyone's mother would tell such a thing to her child but she was right and wrong at the same time. We were stronger than the Shadowhunters of the Clave, but it was our hard training that had shaped the warriors we were meant to be. Still, I wasn't faster or stronger than Jonathan and he hadn't angelic blood in his veins so the blood couldn't have affected me in many ways.

"I know that you are special, I saw you grow up. You were a gifted child, talented in everything your father and I taught you. You were generous and kind and calm. When you were very young, around three to four years old, you started to have very strong emotional outbursts. It didn't happen often. For a moment you seemed totally happy but one second later you were incredibly furious. In those moments there was nothing we could do. Hearing us breath was enough for you to snap. Those outbursts never lasted longer than seconds, but they were from such an immense power that we feared to interrupt or come in your way. You'd never hurt us but in those moments you didn't seem to be yourself, as if someone else had taken control over you." Though the story she was telling sounded scary and terrible she gave me a warm smile.

"Why did you never tell me about this? I can't even believe that I did those things, I mean …" The story of the four-year-old me sounded odd as if I had started to go crazy for a couple of minutes every now and then. As if I had been possessed. "What did I do?"

"You got really upset. Sometimes you ran through the room so fast that we couldn't even see you move, you would hit against the wall with such a power we feared you would break through it. The dings in the walls … you remember them, don't you? Your father never managed to cover them completely, crafting wasn't his strength."

"You mean, those dings in the walls are from me, from my outbursts?" I remembered some of them pretty well. Sometimes I'd been sitting on the staircase listening to the parental conversations in the living room while my fingers had wandered around the wall.

My mother nodded. "The older you got the rarer your outbursts became. Back then I thought that it was just a time some children went through at some point but now I believe that it might have had other reasons. I believe that it was the angelic blood in you."

"But the angels are kind and patient. You told me the story of a young girl behaving like a monster", I said and looked down at my hands. I couldn't believe that I had been capable of something like that.

"The angels are warriors too, Clary. They also have a darker side inside of them. There are enough legends saying that there is nothing more unpredictable than the temper of an angel. They can be kind but if they desire, they can kill you within seconds. All of this is new to you, and I wish we had more time to discuss everything in detail, but I have to tell you the rest of the story." She examined me briefly as if she was questioning how much more it would take for me to fall apart.

"I wasn't the only one Valentine fed with angelic blood. After Lucian had left, your father needed a new second-in-command. He chose Stephen Herondale. Stephen's wife Céline was pregnant too. He gave her a medicine which she should take every day before going to bed. It was that part of his explanation yesterday when I realized that Valentine never had the intention to protect any of us. It had all been part of his plan, he wanted to create the strongest warriors the world had ever seen, stronger than any Nephilim could ever be. He knew the cause of your behavior all along, he fooled me all those years."

"But he could never bring his plans to an end because Stephen died in an attack against vampires. Céline … she was only a young girl, she couldn't bear it. She died shortly after giving birth to a healthy baby-boy. She named him Jonathan, after our Jonathan. After all what Valentine had done to her and her family, she had still looked up to him. Céline was a very pretty and kind woman but too young and too naïve." Jocelyn's gaze went into the distance.

"What happened to the baby?" My father was a strict man, mostly detached but I'd never expected him to be so cruel. Normally I should have waited with my judgement until he had the chance to defend himself, but something told me that there was no need for that.

"Valentine wasn't lucky. Jonathan was adopted by the Lightwood family. They had once been part of the Circle but left before their first child was born. Jonathan Herondale was out of Valentine's reach, his experiment failed."

I nodded and petted the horse's soft skin, it was surprisingly warm. The icy wind had stopped but the snow was still falling and there was no end in sight. "So that's it? Jonathan Herondale had been saved from our father's claws but what did that change for us?"

"It changed a lot", my mother replied with a serious voice. "It turned his attention back to his actual plan."

A fragile laugh escaped my mouth. It rather sounded like a cry than a laugh. "His actual plan?" As if he hadn't already done enough.

"The destruction of the Downworlders. The Clave planned the renewal of the Accords, the contract with the Downworlders that ensured peace and punished unnecessary violence between one another. It all happened before you were born. Of course, your father was totally against the Accords, he and the other members of the Circle planned to sabotage the signing. As the years passed, I forgot who Valentine really was and who he had been before. His former ideals didn't matter to him anymore … Lucian was the reason why I asked his sister Amatis, who had left the Circle shortly beforehand, to search for Lucian and spread the message of Valentine's plan to the Downworlders."

"So you betrayed him", I said and wasn't sure if I was stunned about her bravery or frightened about the danger she had put herself into. "He didn't find out, did he?"

Jocelyn shook her head in a silent response. Her bright green eyes shone like emeralds. "On the day of the signing, Downworlders of all kinds stormed into the Hall of the Angel before the members of the Circle could finish their plan. It came to a horrible fight between them. It was a massacre which the Circle lost in the end. Before the Clave could catch us, we managed to escape. Valentine burnt my family's manor to erase all our traces. The Clave should think that we were dead, that we had rather killed ourselves than be caught. A lot of the Circle's members were dead, Valentine's plan had failed, and I guess this was the reason your brother has to go through hell."

I stared at her not knowing how I should ever accept those facts as truth. My father was a murderer. The murderer of countless living beings. Up until now I had believed that the world conspired against us; that my father was the only one who knew the right path. It turned out that we conspired against the world. "What did he do to Jonathan?"

"Valentine gave Jonathan away to Lilith, the mother of all demons." Her voice sounded more fragile than ever. I was ready to throw up although I didn't understand a thing she said. "Lilith was never able to have children herself, all of them died right after birth. In Jonathan she hoped to find the son she never had so she gave Valentine some of her blood to turn Jonathan into … her son."

My horse seemed to feel my terror, it nervously started to prance back and forth instead of running straight ahead. "I don't understand, you said that the blood's effects can have a greater impact if the child is still developing …"

"This is the truth with angelic blood, it has a similar consistence as our Shadowhunter blood because we already carry angelic blood within us. Demonic blood is thicker than our blood so it dominates when getting in a living body, this is the reason that Shadowhunters as well as humans can be turned into Downworlders but not the other way around."

"Does this mean that Jonathan is … a demon now?! Did he behave like this because of the demonic blood? How is that even possible? The offspring of Shadowhunters and demons die."

"I can't tell for sure", Jocelyn whispered without any emotion and I could see that she broke down in tears. "I have no clue, why Jonathan is still alive, why the blood changed him at all. Some exceptions of the rule exist in history. But it did change him, he isn't your brother anymore, Valentine said it himself. He wasn't expecting the blood to change Jonathan as much as it did. Valentine has his problems to keep him under control."

"Mom", I whispered and bent across the horse to touch her shoulder in comfort.

She turned her head away. "We have to hurry to cross the border soon. Magnus Bane's portal is waiting for us in France ", she remarked and spurred her horse.

I couldn't believe that Jonathan was lost. I loved him more than I loved myself. Everything my mother had told me seemed so surreal and the future had to show me if all of that was really true. But for now, I guessed I had to trust her. My heart ached when I thought about Jonathan, he was all I ever had and him being some kind of demonic Shadowhunter was worse than the thought of him being dead.

Jocelyn was wrong in one point, though. Jonathan would always be my brother.