Chapter 53 – Survivors, Loners and the Dead
"Are you sure you want another round?" I asked in amusement, casually balancing Eosphoros in my right hand. My eyes were focused on Adam.
Adam crouched in the dirt, panting and cheeks flushed from the effort. He lifted his head, his mouth half open so he could pump more oxygen into his lungs. I knew he wasn't going to last another round, but it was fun to challenge him anyway. Boys and their egos ...
"I want to!" a hoarse female voice yelled, and we both popped out of the bubble of our fight.
This wasn't the Lightwoods' garden. This was a burnt piece of land on the outskirts of the city where the Shadowworlders roamed. Right now, we were surrounded by at least a dozen werewolves and vampires, both clans a good meter safe distance apart. They didn't get along well with each other. The werewolves had their upper arms crossed over their chests while the vampires leaned forward curiously. This was a training match, and I was here to teach them Valentine's and Jonathan's fighting style. I was here to show them how to defeat me and my family.
Adam got up unsteadily and brushed the damp dirt off his black overalls. It had been hard work to persuade him to come here with me. The way he gritted his teeth now told me clearly that he didn't find it a bit amusing to be embarrassed in front of a pack of Shadowworlders. Even if it wasn't an embarrassment from my point of view, he had fought well.
I turned to the woman and waved her over encouragingly. She was a little taller than me, slim but wiry with dark skin and hazel eyes. Her curly hair danced wildly around her face as she gave me a challenging grin. Werewolf through and through. While the vampires reluctantly followed my every little movement with their keen senses, the werewolves were more quickly drawn into the frenzy of training.
"Close combat?" I asked and when she nodded, I sheathed Eosphoros. I loosened my limbs and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear that had escaped from the braid I was holding my hair in.
The woman was about my age, her steps graceful and precise. She rolled her head back, shook out her arms, and then got into an attack position. I copied her. And then I attacked. She sidestepped too quickly for my human eyes to register. Even the runes that Isabelle had given me earlier didn't help. I spun around and just managed to crouch down as the girl stalked toward me. The grin was literally glued to her lips. Fighting a Nephilim seemed to get her excited.
I went into an attacking stance like Valentine or Jonathan would have done and she went with me. Shortly thereafter, we were struggling for dominance on the field. She managed to throw me onto my back, and the melting snow mingled with the smell of wet earth as my shoulders dragged over the uneven ground. In response, I lifted my right leg and in a split second had the girl hoisted into the same position I had been lying a moment ago. Her brown eyes widened ever so slightly, but the smile didn't fade. Not even when she struggled and after several minutes still didn't manage my leg off her body.
"Looks like you won," she admitted, nodding her head in playful respect. She sounded excited and pleased, like she had actually enjoyed the fight. My leg wandered to the side, and I held out my hand as I got to my feet. She didn't hesitate when she took it. Her grin was contagious, as was her mood.
"I'm Maia," she introduced herself. "I'm from Luke's pack, so I know pretty much everything about you." She seemed like an open person. I liked that. Even if I didn't quite like the idea that she knew my past.
"Nice to meet you," I offered. Maia brushed the snow off her waist and winked at Luke, who walked over to us at that moment.
"Things are going really well here." He patted my shoulder gratefully. Luke and Magnus had asked that I help train the Shadowworlders. The division Alec had created prospered, and more Nephilim volunteered every day to train with the Shadowworlders. But it still wasn't enough, so those who didn't have a partner practiced in larger groups. The point was to teach them how a Shadowhunter fought. Something the conservative faction in the Clave didn't like at all. "Thanks for helping out, Clary." He then turned to the rest of the werewolves and vampires surrounding us. "That's it for today, folks." Moments later, the crowd dispersed.
"Same time tomorrow?" I asked and Luke nodded. Like most werewolves, he wore barely enough clothing to protect himself from the cold that still dominated the climate. Even if the snow had stopped falling for weeks.
"We really appreciate your help," he said as Adam came to my side. "I don't take it for granted."
"My mother would have done the same," I replied seriously.
"Yes, she would have." Luke's chocolate-colored eyes were set far away, mouth set tight, his mind probably years in the past. Suddenly the sight of him sent a chill through my body. This man had once been my mother's best friend. Maybe he could have been my father if things had gone differently. "She'd be very proud of you, you know?"
"I always wonder what she'd do in my place," I admitted sheepishly. Adam's presence next to me suddenly felt less comfortable than before. I felt awkward talking about these subjects in front of him. "She should have guided me through this new world. Now I'm struggling through it somehow and most of the time I feel more wrong than right."
"You're doing well." Luke shook his head vehemently and squeezed my shoulder again. Now that the crowd had dispersed around us, we had an unobstructed view of the white countryside beyond the city's invisible borders. "This society isn't an easy one. Let someone who once belonged to it tell you that. Some here would do anything to see you go down just because you're different. But it's precisely these people who don't need to be convinced. Just because they shout the loudest doesn't mean they're the majority."
"Are you sure? I found out the hard way how welcome I am here." Adam scratched the back of his head nervously, trying to appear unconcerned. Blake continued to be an issue, which created a rift between us. Even though we'd spent a lot of time together over the past few days, a part of my mind continued to ponder his connection to Blake. My mind would not rest. It was like a part of my body was itching, only the itch just wouldn't stop no matter how hard I tried to ignore it.
"I heard about it." Luke's gaze swept over me. Then a smile spread across his lips. A contrast to the otherwise so desolate traits. "It seems you're good in standing your ground. Just like your mother."
The comparison to my mother warmed my body and at the same time pressed a weight on my back, which pressed me harder towards the ground. "I wish I could ask her for advice. Right now, with war looming ever closer, I've no idea what to do. I lost my last fight against Jonathan. It's pure luck that I'm standing here now."
"I've learned one thing over time, Clary." Luke sighed and stuffed his crusted hands into the pockets of his shorts. "There's no such thing as luck. Everything ... Jocelyn's death, this war, the betrayal of the fairies, it's all part of a bigger picture. Fate. It was supposed to happen. Whether they want to punish us with it, however, is another matter."
"Valentine's strength is supposed to be fate?" Adam asked incredulously. "He was lucky that he was able to live in hiding all these years."
Luke lowered his chin and regarded Adam for a long moment with an expression that bespoke brutal life experience. "Valentine survived because he was smart. That wasn't luck, boy. That was cleverness and calculation."
"Luke was his Parabatai before he was bitten," I explained to Adam, then turned back to Luke. "The idea that you were the best friend of both my parents is so ..."
"Abstruse?" A strange look of regret crossed Luke's face. "Unimaginable? Believe me, I can hardly believe it myself nowadays. That seems to have been in another life. At least that's how it feels. We were all too blind to see who he really was. We all thought it was nothing but a game. And now, twenty years later, so many I knew are dead I can't even count them."
His words made me think of Blake. Blake, who had his own group; ignored by politicians. Was he underestimated? Did he have the power to do anything like my father did? Not that Blake had any sympathy for him, no, he loathed Valentine and me. Which was odd since they actually shared pretty similar ideals.
Then the rest of Luke's words got through to me, and my stomach sank. What must this lonely life be like, knowing you are one of the only ones left alive? How does it feel to think about the past and know that you are alone because everyone you have ever loved lost their lives decades ago? What must it be like to have to leave your old life, your homeland, behind because they don't want to accept what you have become? Just the thought made my throat tight. I suddenly felt sorry for Luke; for this torturous, bitter life he was relegated to simply because the Shadowhunters had no respect for werewolves. Because they thought they were something better — something created by God. Til today.
I stared out into the gathering darkness, out at the Cemetery of the Disgraced, which was not visible from my vantage point. What is it like losing everyone you love? Yes, how was that? The question burned holes in my chest. I knew what it was like because there was no one left to love. My mother was dead. My brother was dead. Having the empty shell of him still walking around, with the same voice as he once had, only made it worse.
I jerked my head away from the snowy slopes of the city limits. "I have to go," I ground out curtly. "See you tomorrow."
I didn't wait for an answer. I turned on my heel and stalked away. Isabelle was around here somewhere too, but I didn't stay to look for her. The last time I had seen her, she had flirted with a vampire.
Footsteps crunched through the snow behind me, but I didn't stop. I didn't feel like talking to Adam. He knew something was wrong and I knew he would bring it up with me. I didn't want to be spoken to. That deep, murky hole of grief had opened up in my stomach so suddenly I couldn't quite deal with it. All I knew was that I didn't want to be comforted by Adam.
"Are you okay?" he asked as if on cue, and my hands clenched into fists of their own accord, enraged at his predictability. His presence was annoying, and I knew it wasn't his fault. It wasn't his fault I felt this way, but that didn't make the feeling go away.
I nodded my head almost imperceptibly. "I'm exhausted, that's all."
"We can get something to eat if you'd like," Adam suggested cheerfully, clearly trying to pull me out of my mood. He didn't know what was going on. Little did he know that this was worse than just being in a bad mood. For him to even choose to be friends with me when I was having mood swings like that ... I had the feeling that Adam often got the worst of my moods. But that thought brought me back to the critical voice in my head that was still wondering if this friendship was actually genuine on his part.
I hastily shook the thoughts away from myself. "Not today. I'm not really hungry, I just want to shower and go to bed."
"As you wish." Adam shrugged next to me but walked me to the Lightwoods' mansion. When I got to the front door, I gave him a quick wave — a motion so staccato it didn't even count as a wave — and disappeared inside. I was probably being unfair and a bad friend, but right now I couldn't have cared less.
I stormed up the stairs, feeling that knot in my chest tightening with every step. Like gallows that would suffocate me. When I got to the top, I suddenly found it hard to breathe. I leaned against the banister, put my hands on my knees, and took a deep breath. Tears burned the corners of my eyes.
I wonder if you are capable of love, Clarissa Morgenstern. The Seelie Queen's questions echoed in my brain, pounding against the inside of my skull, making me wince in pain. Are you like your father or like your mother? Hell, the love for my mother ran through my veins with such fervor that I knew crystal clear that I was nothing like Valentine or Jonathan in that regard. I could love, I already loved, and it was like a burning fire that threatened to swallow me.
I could see her bright green eyes in front of me as if she were actually standing in front of me. She was dead. She was gone. And the love she had left in me no longer knew what to do with itself. That love was all that kept me from getting lost in the dark. That love was tearing me apart. Causing me such excruciating pain that at that moment I wondered if it was even worth it.
"You're gone," I murmured, feeling a tear slide down my cheek. Saying it out loud made it a hundred times worse. A thousand times. "You left me behind." An almost accusatory tone, as if she could help being dead. I was alone. Completely alone. Friends or not. Friends would always choose someone else; friends had families of their own that came first. What were you without your family? I had no family. I was utterly alone. Literally.
"Clary?" Someone on the bottom landing cleared their throat. "Are you all right?"
Yes, I wanted to say. Yes, I'm fine. The words didn't want to come over my lips. As if my body didn't want to lie for me anymore. The rebellion of my lips was the closest thing to a cry for help.
"Adam said to better have someone checking on you." Damn it, Adam.
I don't need help. Again nothing. My vocal cords didn't want to convey these sounds. My body finally wanted to be heard.
Jace walked up the stairs and put a light hand on my back. His breathing was difficult. Although he had made a full recovery, Jonathan's venom didn't heal his torso wound like a normal wound. I still had sores on the insides of my hands myself. "You're shaking."
"I can't take it anymore," I whispered into the darkness. No one had bothered to switch on the witch-lights up here. The shadows tugged at me. They wanted to tear my body to pieces.
"Come," Jace said, as if he knew exactly what was wrong with me. I let him lead me to his room. A moment later I was sitting on the edge of his bed. Jace knelt in front of me, and he was so tall that we were still eye level. "Tell me what happened."
"You know what happened," I replied barely audibly, not knowing why I was talking to him about it but not to Adam. Maybe because I had told him something similar before. "I lost my family." I lost myself.
"You're not the only one who doesn't have a family anymore," Jace reminded me, his voice softer than expected. Usually, the death of his own parents was a taboo subject.
"It doesn't hurt any less because of that." I wondered how it was for him; if he also felt such pain. He had never known his parents, but that didn't mean he didn't mourn their loss, or the illusion of a family that could have existed. If the past had taken a different path. If if if.
Jace remained silent for a very long time. His hands rested on my knees and although I felt the need to grasp them in my fingers, I lacked the strength to do so. It didn't matter. Because a moment later he rose from his crouch and wandered through the room. Over to a shelf from which the books seemed to spill. He took one of the books off the shelf, opened it and pulled something out. He lurched back to me, twisted my palms and pushed three photos into them.
A sound escaped my lips. Amazed, shocked, incredulous. I could practically hear time slowing down around me. I stared down at the photos, crumpled but intact as if the journey to Jace's room hadn't been easy. I blinked because I couldn't believe my eyes. There was me, there was Jonathan, there was my mother and even Valentine.
"Where did you get those?" My voice had turned into a high-pitched stumble and I was struggling to control myself. Of course, I knew where he had gotten the pictures from. They were the same ones I had kept in my own room for years. In my room on the estate, which now officially belonged to me alone.
"You said all you want is your sword," Jace reminded me of the day we had visited my family's home on the outskirts of Idris. "I couldn't leave without taking the photos with me. I felt like I would regret it. Now I know why."
More tears rolled down my cheeks and Jace sat down next to me, wrapping his arm around my waist. His scent of soap and healing ointment enveloped me. I leaned into his touch, my head so far from the here and now that I almost forgot his chest was still healing. I had a hard time focusing on that. The last time he'd held me like that, I'd felt safe; at home.
"Thank you for taking them," I ground out, brushing away the tears that were already drying on my skin. "Even if it somehow hurts even more to look at them."
"It might hurt, but it does for a good reason." Jace grabbed a strand of hair that had fallen out of my braid earlier during practice and rubbed it between his fingertips. "What protectors of this world would we be if we didn't feel pain? We have to be like the people to be able to fight for them."
The longer I stared down at the pictures, the more I felt like I was giving up control of that hole in my stomach. The wound, long since gone, throbbed incessantly. Blood was pounding in my ears. All I heard was my mother's laughter, Jonathan's laughter. All I saw were their smiling faces. All I felt was an infinitely deep emptiness, pulling me further and further into the darkness. A darkness I would be in for the rest of my life. A probably pretty short life.
I broke out of my thoughts and sat up in Jace's arms. "I should go." He made me feel closure. In his presence I was calmer, even more relaxed. But it was a misconception. Jace and I ... There was no family uniting us. It would never be more than a comforting, yearning feeling, which gave me air to breathe for the moment, but took it out of my sails in the long run. We were on the same page, but I would always be the outsider. I would always be lonely.
Jace shifted his weight back to look down at me. His golden eyes had darkened but still sparkled liquidly down at me. The look inside was scrutinizing but gentle as he took in my filthy gear. "You should change," he agreed, and I wriggled out of his grasp in the same instant, stood up and took a step toward the door. The pressure on my shoulders pressed down on me again with full force. "But come back," Jace added, and I turned to face him. "I haven't been sleeping much lately." Keep me company if you want.
I nodded slowly, the fingers of my left hand on the doorknob, the fingers of my right holding the pictures. "See you then."
This time it's a rather short chapter. But in exchange, new Clace content! How did you like it? Let me know! Thanks a lot for all the lovely comments! :D
Skyllen