Song inspiration: Like a Prayer (Choir Version, Slowed Reverb) – Deadpool & Wolverine, my tears ricochet – Taylor Swift, Bitter Sweet Symphony – The Verve
Chapter 98 – The Rise of the Morningstar
Contrary to Valentine's precise plans, it was clear that a battle at Lake Lyn had never been intended. The majority of the Shadowhunters consisted of defectors who would fight for his cause, yet their average age was significantly higher than that of the entire Shadowhunter community. Established, conservative men and women along with their families — families like the Ashdowns, if not older. And even though the Seelie Queen fought alongside him with her alliance, he had not mentioned the fairies at all in his plans to conquer Alicante. The faerie knights were likely meant only to guard the lake until dusk — until the demons could be summoned. Would they also engage in a direct battle against the rest of the Underworld?
A battle they would undoubtedly lose without the demons. The faeries could not withstand an army of Shadowhunters and Shadowworlders, the combined strength of the Underworld.
Valentine had not anticipated his son's failure. He had expected to summon the demons with ease, for the Angel Blade had already been in his hand.
Valentine had not anticipated a fight at the lake. Clary and Jonathan had now brought that fight to him.
He sees through the best lies. Nothing surprises him because he doesn't miscalculate.
Adam had spoken the truth, and Valentine had believed him. How could the truth be a lie when one believed it to be true? A distinction that the Soul Sword apparently did not grasp.
Jace raised his head with trembling resolve, just as everyone on the northern shore must have done, and looked at the sibling pair, who had been summoned beneath a veil of lies to answer for the truth.
Clary stomped across the crunching gravel. The sound of her footsteps reached Jace's ears as if the rest of the world had faded into background noise. Clary's inscrutable, determined expression rested on Valentine alone. Her emerald eyes fixed on her father with an unpredictable bias as she headed straight for him. Jonathan followed his sister less than a meter behind, like a guard dog towering over her, watching her back. Any trace of his demonic malice was swept away – any trace of any emotion. His green eyes – Clary's eyes; Jocelyn's eyes – scanned the beach in the Shadowhunter way of charging straight into the carnage.
No one stood in the way of the Morgenstern siblings as they headed toward their father. Neither Valentine's Shadowhunters nor his allied faeries. The entire beach seemed frozen. These were still the children of their leader – without a clear order from him, they would not dare go near the two prodigies – would not waste their lives unnecessarily.
Jace's eyes weren't the only ones that widened when Clary finally stopped five meters from Valentine. The ordered indifference dripped from every pore, as if this were just another moment like any other. It made Jace pause.
"Father." Her voice climbed several octaves in nervous finality.
Something was different. Under the wild pounding of his heart, which was about to burst out of his chest at any moment, an unfamiliar feeling spread through Jace's veins. Cold as fear, hot as pain. He wanted to look at Isabelle – wanted to know why she had not felt any of this – but his eyes were glued to her, with no chance of ever turning away from her voluntarily.
With her brother's protection breathing down her neck, Clary allowed herself a quick scan of the scenery. The racing in his chest stopped as her eyes darted to him. Only to glide over him, without a spark of recognition on her face. Without a spark of memory.
Jace felt his feet stumble as Clary ignored her friends, as if she had kicked his feet out from under him. A gasping breath escaped him, and for a second stretched into infinity, he experienced her death once more. A blink of an eye later, he was kneeling in the grainy ground.
"This is a welcome turn of events," Jace heard Valentine say in a tense tone. He wanted to look, but his chin would not move an inch. His eyes were fixed on the gravel with such vehemence that it would only take one wrong breath to sink into it. All strength had gone from his bones, and he could not even put a number on why. "Proof of how subjective the truth can be."
Clary ignored Valentine's words as if he had never spoken. "Valentine Morgenstern. In the name of the Clave of the Nephilim, we arrest You for kidnapping, torture, murder, genocide, and treason, as well as the kidnapping and torture of the angel Ithuriel," she announced, distantly and clearly. Clearly enough for Jace to recognize how strangely she was stringing the words together.
Jace had seen the fire consume her. They all had. How was the Clary who had disappeared in her own heavenly flames connected to this Clary who seemed like a new version of herself? What had happened?
"Look at you, my children," Valentine spoke, any emotion from earlier hidden under a careful layer of amused scrutiny. Jace had expected him to explode at their betrayal. Considering that Clary was responsible for his missing hand, he had expected unshakeable anger. "Lackeys of the Clave. You have become exactly what I warned you about for years."
Neither Clary nor Jonathan responded to his taunts. "Your time is up. Surrender, or face us in battle."
When Valentine started to laugh, Jace finally managed to raise his head. His eyes immediately bored into Clary. Where her suppressed emotions should have been, there was nothing but unwavering rejection. She had addressed him so formally, as if Valentine were a stranger and not her father.
So what had changed?
Jonathan stepped to Clary's right side. The demon was gone, that much was certain – the Heavenly Fire must have burned it out, there was no other explanation. But how much humanity had the fire burned out of the siblings? Except for a clear disdain for Valentine, they seemed as unhuman as demons or angels. Contempt that revealed no personal touch.
"I am glad you are here," Valentine continued, ignoring Clary's request. He regarded Clary and Jonathan searchingly. His next words sounded more calculating than anything else. "Now the world is finally back in balance."
Neither Clary nor Jonathan reacted. They stared at Valentine with the same disinterest as before. But the words had a much stronger effect on Jace. The fact that neither of them even batted an eyelid made Jace's muscles tremble.
Jace had been there when Jonathan had struck down his own mother with the Angel Blade all those months ago. Valentine had just stormed into the entrance hall of the Institute when it happened. Clary had been standing just a few meters in front of her brother when it happened. Her expression of infinite agony was burned into Jace's memory forever. As were the words that had escaped Jonathan's lips like a madman shortly afterwards.
Now the world is finally back in balance.
The tremors in Jace's limbs spread with such intensity that he wanted to sob. He wanted to rage, to scream. Out of despair and hopelessness and pain. No sound came from his throat. It seemed as if his body was too emotionally drained from the ups and downs of the past few hours to show any reaction. But his enemies reacted all the more intensely.
Someone grabbed the collar of his gear and pulled him forcefully in the opposite direction of the events. Only out of the corner of his eye did he catch sight of Vanessa Ashdown's red hair. At the sight of her, Jace wanted to feel anger – hatred that she had to interfere right now. She would not wait for Valentine's orders, that much was obvious. She would kill him if he didn't have the strength to defend himself. Meanwhile, his Clary didn't even look in Jace's direction.
"Too late," Vanessa murmured from somewhere behind him. Was she talking to him?
"Wait." Milo Coldridge. Why should she wait to execute him? Now was the perfect opportunity.
Jace didn't fight Vanessa. His attention was still focused on the scene that seemed to be unfolding before him like a tragedy. Unstoppable in its progression. Almost fateful. In view of his children's lack of reaction, the corners of Valentine's mouth lifted in a self-satisfied smile. Without drawing a weapon, he approached Clary and Jonathan.
"I choose war," Valentine declared, his chin raised in pride and a small smile. This man didn't smile unless he had the upper hand. What did he see that Jace didn't?
In the face of his proclamation, Clary and Jonathan immediately moved into fighting positions. Waiting for their father to make the first move, they raised their twin swords defensively.
The gesture drove Jace's eyes wide open, all emotional exhaustion forgotten. Another strangled sound burst from him as he saw what Valentine had long since realized. Because he knew them. Because he had taught them for nearly two decades.
Almost caressingly, Valentine's eyes glided over Eosphoros and Phosphoros. "How could they leave them to you?" For anyone else, the sigh would have sounded melancholic.
The remark jolted the siblings out of their emotionless state. A coldness and distance so artificial that the cracks quickly turned into chunks as the walls around their faces collapsed. A panic, shattering to the core, leapt to the surface of Clary's features. Jonathan's feet staggered and tried to reposition themselves, as if he could suddenly no longer find his footing on the ground.
"Did the Clave really think it could outsmart me?" Valentine sneered, throwing his head back. One moment long. Then he sobered up to his usual matter-of-fact self. With a sweeping gesture, he pointed at Clary and Jonathan, not a hint of interest on his face. "Kill them."
Something clicked in Jace's brain. Like the collapse of stars bursting. Then the world around him fell silent. His vision expanded, lost its focus, lost its anchor.
Only now was he able to see the swarm of submissive lackeys that had gathered around Valentine when the siblings had appeared. They didn't hesitate for a second to follow their master's orders.
Jace's eyes jumped to Isabelle, Aaron and Adam, who still had the Angel Blade in their care. They had used the distraction to put more distance between them and Valentine but were cornered by a group of defectors on the beach. They had long since lost sight of what was happening to their right. But Isabelle's shocked expression spoke volumes.
Amidst the chaos left behind by the now-vanished portal, there was no trace of Alec's team. The haze had settled again, but Jace could not see his Parabatai anywhere. None of them – not even the Shadowhunters who had chased after them. As if they had all been swallowed by the earth. With one of their two objectives fulfilled, everything now rested on Jace's group to reclaim Mellartach. And to keep it out of Valentine's reach.
Even though they had already completed the first part, Jace's focus was slipping. Like a fragile thread slipping through his fingers no matter how hard he tried to hold on to it. He could not afford to think about Alec or Magnus, could only hope in his heart that they had escaped.
Now, he had to ensure that Isabelle survived. That the Soul Sword found its way back to the capital with her. Nothing else mattered. Still, every breath felt labored, as if he were standing inside a burning house — the scratchy smoke slowing his thoughts, choking him slowly, preventing him from finding a way out.
Alec, Magnus, Isabelle. Jace had pushed them all to the background. He had been so focused on Clary that he had lost sight of the rest of the world. Because she was the center of his being. The heart in his chest. The core of his earth. The sun in his solar system. The center of his galaxy.
Valentine didn't watch as his men attacked Clary and Jonathan. Instead, he turned on his heel, grabbed some Shadowhunters, and charged toward Isabelle, Adam and Aaron.
This was the end. They were all significantly outnumbered.
Get up, get up, get up! Help them!
Things were happening so quickly that Jace didn't know where to look.
Vanessa's grip on Jace's neck tightened. She pulled him up as if she wanted to lift him to his feet. His survival instinct begged him to finally wake up from this paralysis that should have cost him an axe to his abdomen long ago.
"Jace, get up!" she yelled at him. Milo slapped him hard in the face, causing Vanessa to hiss like an angry snake. Jace barely felt a throb. His eyes didn't see any of them, staring between them at the chaos. As if his brain could not miss a second of it. As if he had to see it with his own eyes to actually believe it.
Because deep in his chest there was still a trace of hope flickering like the fine flame of a tea light that was about to evaporate all of its available wax.
A unit of four Shadowhunters surrounded Clary and Jonathan, stalked them like predators. No one wanted to make the first move, as if they were afraid of the siblings – because they knew who the real predators were. Finally, one of them broke out of the constellation and swept his seraph blade down on Jonathan. The others took this as their signal to obey their comrade.
The fight was short and filled with brutality. No surprise, but not for the reason most would have assumed. Each of them was an average fighter. Clary's movements lacked the precise aggression, the smooth dynamics that Jace had always admired in her style. Jonathan, who should have been her counterpart, had a completely different fighting style.
When the defectors managed to break through their defenses, Jonathan was the first to fall. A clean blow through the chest that ripped open his lungs and severed arteries in his heart. He was coughing up blood before the Shadowhunter had even pulled his blade out of him and immediately collapsed into the sand, his knees giving way.
Jace could not hold back the heart-wrenching scream at the event that followed. One against four wasn't too bad odds for Clary. He had seen her take on more and take down at least one. Today, she didn't stand a chance. Faced with Jonathan's demise, her eyes widened – desperate and afraid instead of pained and angry – and she lost touch with the real fight. The blink she allowed herself to see Jonathan fall allowed the Shadowhunter at her back to raise his blade through her defensiveness.
Clary didn't see the sword coming, maybe she heard it whizzing through the air. It was over so quickly that Jace could not have blinked. Just like that. No fanfare, no heavenly warnings, no time standing still.
The adamas cut through her skin like butter. One powerful blow and Clary's head was completely severed from the rest of her body – spinning through the air like a flickering fireball, only to become stuck in the sand like a stone seconds later.
The Shadowhunters screamed their triumph to the Heavens. Isabelle and Adam screamed their hearts out. One moment long. Then Clary and Jonathan's skin suddenly began to blur. But it wasn't the eyesight of those present that had suddenly failed. It looked like a shimmer caused by heat that flowed over their corpses in a seamless transformation.
It revealed Jace's suspicion. It confirmed what Valentine had suspected minutes before with a probability bordering on one hundred percent.
All that remained of Clary and Jonathan were Eosphoros and Phosphors – the twin swords. No red and white hair, no green irises, no freckles and sharp facial features. The slaughtered Shadowhunters were shapeshifters. Two inconspicuous faces that had transformed into the two most feared people in this war for half an hour, next to Valentine.
Jace sobbed. Clary was still dead. A damned warlock had only brought her face back to life, but not her soul. He had realized it when he had not recognized her fighting style. It didn't change his torn heart.
Surprised murmurs arose, whirling through the ranks of renegades until they finally reached Valentine himself. But he didn't care about impostors. Valentine, who was the first to recognize the shapeshifters as such. Who, despite all his mistakes, could identify his children faster than anyone else in this world. In the absence that their existences had left behind, the Angel Blade was all that mattered to Valentine. If it had ever been any different. And so he drove Isabelle's group further out into the lake – having long since driven away the faeries, as he didn't trust them with the Sword. The water level was already up to their waists. It would not be long now, and they would have to fight not to swallow a drop of the poisonous water.
"Archers," roared Valentine, his voice trembling with dislocation. Tired of any delay. "If necessary, we can fish the Sword from the bottom of the lake!"
Isabelle and Adam locked eyes, their faces swallowed by the reflective darkness of the lake. Aaron, standing in front of them like a shield, defiantly raised his chin, eyes fixed on Valentine. From the distance, that was all Jace could make out. The stars glittered on the lake's surface, surrounding the three like a crown.
Jace tried to get to his feet, but Milo pressed his hands onto his shoulders. The strength emanating from him was insurmountable. It should not have happened. Jace could not have been so weakened. From what?
The animalistic growl that left Jace's throat made it clear how little of yesterday's Jace remained in his heart. The only thought in his head was that he had to get to his sister. That he had to protect what was left to protect. This time he would not be too late. This time he would be there.
So Jace closed his eyes and concentrated solely on the power at his core – he braced his hands on the edges of the barely discernible, bottomless hole and stared straight into it. The way she had taught him. Agony, fear, anger. The emotions dug their claws deep into his arms, dragging him closer, dragging him over the edge – down into the warmth. Jace allowed it, surrendered to it willingly. A shrill light opened inside him. When he fluttered open his eyes, the angel had taken possession of him.
Milo's perfectly neutral features shifted as he stared into Jace's blazing gold irises. He hastily pulled his hands away from his shoulders as a searing sound rose between them. The heat flowed out of Jace like the liquid adamas had flowed across the floor of his grandmother's office, burning everything that came near it.
Soon, Jace and Milo were eyeing each other. Vanessa appeared on his left, but Milo's surprise wasn't reflected on her face. Jace could not describe what he saw. He didn't have enough control over his power to focus on too many details. Like a dream, Jace's reality was more tied to emotion than logic. Although his vision could not have been clearer, his every action was based on an instinct bordering on the surreal that he could not explain. Jace knew what to do, but not why.
When he tried to walk past Milo and Vanessa, Milo stood in his way again. Unlike Milo, however, Jace didn't need a weapon to kill him. He rushed towards the young man and overcame his blockade with a maneuver. Before Jace could execute him, Vanessa threw herself in front of him. With the axe raised in defense – he didn't notice her breathless trembling.
Jace reached for the dagger on his weapon belt. Anger at this woman would guarantee a quick victory. He bared his teeth – the only warning she would get. As if in a dream, time leapt forward without him noticing. Suddenly Vanessa was holding her upper arm. Blood seeped between her fingers as she pressed her hand to a puncture mark that matched the deep red blade of his knife. Jace's power, driven wild by hunger, drove him forward a second time – out of the corner of his eye he saw Milo jump as he brought his dagger down on Vanessa once more. Too fast for it to be possible, she dodged him.
"Stop!" a familiar voice called out at that moment. Isabelle. Her voice echoed across the northern beach a few octaves too loud. Was she amplifying her voice? The distraction caused the power to slip from Jace's fingers, like a dream that one was suddenly torn from and that one would not be able to return to even if one fell asleep again. In front of him, Milo and the bleeding Vanessa repositioned themselves, but they were staring down at Isabelle just like him.
Isabelle, raising the Angel Blade to the sky, a desperation on her face that turned into determination. A determination so hard that tears lined the corners of her eyes. Suddenly Jace could see her clearly. It didn't make sense.
"Enough is enough," she said more subduedly, and yet each of her words ripped through the atmosphere between them.
It was Mellartach, Jace realized with fatal dismay.
"No!" Valentine shouted at Isabelle and suddenly threw himself into the water of the lake.
Isabelle's eyes searched for Clary's father, who froze in his movements when he made eye contact. The determination turned to anger. Deep in the drawer that she had locked away in the back of her soul when she had left the Basilias. Rooted in the endless pain of a loss that only a few in this world could ever understand — a torment that Valentine, as Luke's Parabatai, should have at least been able to grasp on some level.
Her face flared with an emotion darker and more malicious than anything Jace had ever associated with her. Retribution. For Maryse and Robert and all the Shadowhunters who had turned their backs on his ideals in time and had been punished with the full force of the law. For Céline, his own mother, and all the other Shadowhunters who had been too young to even understand that they had made themselves a tool. For Imogen and all the Shadowhunters who had lost someone to his Circle. For all the Shadowworlders who had lost their lives because of his worldviews.
Isabelle closed her eyes. Valentine roared his indignation into the oppressively quiet night. Mellartach lit up, illuminating the night like the light of Jesus, which had revealed the path to God for humanity. A single flash of lightning burst from the cloudless sky and struck the tip of the Angel Blade.
For Clary, who had given her life so they could end it.
As the demons took shape all around Isabelle, Adam and Aaron, not a single sound passed over the beach. They crawled out of the black waters, they descended from the black sky to the earth, they crept from the black shadows between the forest and the beach. One hundred. No. More. There had to be at least two hundred.
Two hundred demons against more than two thousand fighters in Alicante. Valentine had indeed planned to advance in waves, not unleashing them all at once.
A creature with slick skin the color of ash and elongated, crocodile-like feet turned its slimy neck toward Isabelle and tilted its head scrutinizingly. It was as large as a horse and as long as a compact car, though its body was proportionally smaller compared to its clawed paws. "You are not Lord Valentine," it hissed with an alien accent.
"I am not. I–"
"I am here!" Valentine interrupted her with a commanding directive. Given the eerie silence, his words were effortlessly conveyed to the demon. "I, as your master, command you to kill this girl immediately and hand over the Sword to me."
"I hold the Angel Blade," growled Isabelle, her authority in no way inferior to that of Valentine. Her voice carried the unmistakable appeal to the demon as she assessed him. "I am now your commander. And I command you to incapacitate Valentine Morgenstern but leave him alive!"
The majority of demons, as terrifying as they might be at first glance, weren't beings of the highest intelligence. Usually used by demon lords in wars, they carried out orders without the ability to question. And so they now looked among themselves, not knowing whose side to follow.
"I hold the Angel Blade," Isabelle repeated, pointing it straight at the demon who had spoken. "I can show you mercy or punish you in the harshest way!"
After seconds of tension that threatened to tear the beach in two, the demon to Isabelle's right finally bowed his head in surrender. "Bearer of the Sword, Your wish is our command."
"Not for us!" another creature hissed as it fluttered out from the middle of its floating swarm. An Achaieral demon. It had the form of a gargoyle; its skin appeared as if carved from solid stone, with claws shaped like sharpened knives. It had descended from the vastness of the sky, and its leathery, bat-like wings stirred up a foul stench with every flap. "Lord Valentin made us promises. We want them fulfilled. So we fight for him, the rightful bearer of the Sword."
"Do you think that just because you hold the Sword, you are worthy of it?" Valentine sneered at Isabelle, spreading his arms in a sweeping gesture. "You are nothing but a child. I alone can fulfill the concessions made to the beings of the other realms!"
The renegade Shadowhunters and the Seelie Queen's army, caught in the middle of this raging war, were growing increasingly nervous. The Shadowhunters took up a fighting position that Jace knew well – forming a circle so that none of the demons would be lost from sight. A faerie knight, who appeared to be in command of the forty-man army, whispered orders to his soldiers. As the smell of decay spread across the beach, the suffocating atmosphere threatened to tip over and drown them all.
The summoned demons awakened a blood-given need in Jace to run down the beach and face them in battle. It was the nature of every Nephilim to do just that. It was all the more abhorrent for Valentine to ally himself with his people's age-old arch-enemy – the reason for their existence. The means of achieving the goal spoke volumes about the person in a way that charismatic words of persuasion never could.
"I am Isabelle Lightwood, bearer of the Angel Blade and a Nephilim with pure intentions. I am worthy, and I will do what must be done." In that moment, she could have been Jonathan Shadowhunter, and Jace would have believed it.
An animalistic hiss split the beach in two — creating an abyss that sliced right through the demons. Isabelle had managed to turn almost half of the existing demon army against Valentine. A previously hopeless battle had turned into a possibility that even Jace dared to hope for. Following Valentine as he had to get his own hands dirty felt utterly out of place to him.
Valentine's defense was thin. The Shadowhunters who had led the hunt for Isabelle had spread out around him like a pride of lions — they saw him as their top priority and would sacrifice everything for him. Most of his Shadowhunters had been scattered throughout the camp when Jace had been brought in. Now that Alec's half of the unit had also ventured out of their hiding place, some of them were busy enough that they could not get through to Valentine. The demons weren't making it impossible, but they were challenging enough to potentially turn the tide.
Then there was the faerie army that Valentine had boasted about earlier, as if they were his own men and women rather than Downworlders he would have called them under other alliance conditions. They were now making their way out of the dense trees of the Brocelind Forest. But would they fight alongside Valentine? Would they battle a demon army when this had never been part of their alliance? Without their Queen present to make a decision, the faerie knights seemed, much to Jace's regret, determined to uphold the alliance. What had Valentine promised them?
One hundred faerie knights, sixty Shadowhunters and one hundred demons. Against another hundred demons, six Shadowhunters, a warlock, and a werewolf. Even with the demons, their chances still seemed doomed. And Jace could not even imagine a battle, side by side with their archenemies, not even in his dreams.
"The time has come," Jace heard Vanessa speak behind him, pulling him sharply out of his thoughts about the impending battle.
For the brief sixty seconds, he had completely forgotten about the two of them, even though they could have taken him out in any one of those sixty. As Jace spun around to face them, his dagger already poised to counter their attack, he realized that Vanessa had not been speaking to him at all.
She was looking up at Milo, who had his arms crossed over his chest and, with an impassive expression, was watching the demons shift into attack positions. What had happened to this boy over the years that he had become this soulless monster? None of them cast Jace even a glance, despite the fact that he had just gutted Vanessa like a slaughtered fish a minute ago. "Either they come, or they don't. This is our last chance, and you know it."
Milo let out a long, drawn-out sigh between his thin lips. Jace could hardly hear it over the screams of the attacking demons. However, the burgeoning sense of relief that followed threw him off balance. "Finally," he murmured, the single word so charged with emotion that it had an undeniable power over Milo. When his pupils finally caught Jace's, his eyes darkened into the mask he had been wearing all evening. The fight minutes earlier was definitely not forgotten. "He's a liability."
Vanessa's attention followed Milo's and landed on him. She looked away too quickly to read anything from her gaze. Milo interrupted her flow of speech before it had even begun. "No time for arguments. I want it this way and it's my right."
A, for Jace, incomprehensible conflict played out across Vanessa's broad features. She met his gaze with a profound exhaustion, hesitating for just a second. The dagger in Jace's fingers slipped into a ready position, but she was already one step ahead. His back completely absorbed the harsh impact, stealing the breath from his lungs. Vanessa's boot pressed him further into the stinging gravel. With his eyes wide open, Jace could do nothing but stare into an opening sky where demons were being torn apart and arrows flew toward their intended targets. The roar of battle was deafening, yet he had completely tuned it out until this moment. The hard impact with the ground had jolted him awake — once again.
That he lay here, pressed into the earth by Vanessa Ashdown's boots, made no sense. It could not be. It must not be. He was Jace Herondale. He was one of the strongest Shadowhunters of his generation. Had grief truly robbed him of all strength? To be loved is to be destroyed. Were Valentine's words the truth, then? Where had all his skills gone? Jace wanted to call upon the angelic power, but once again it failed him — as if his insides were so cold and empty that the flame of the angel could not thrive there.
"I know you don't want to listen to me, Jace," Vanessa rattled off the words, both firmly and hastily, watching the escalating action on the beach. The gurgling and hissing of the demons increasingly mixed with the orders that Isabelle and Valentine were throwing around. The thunder in the chilling air seemed to burst at any second. The urgency was reflected in Vanessa's copper-colored irises. She avoided looking directly at him, which only fueled his anger. "Go and help Isabelle, but don't follow us. I'm on your side, even if you don't believe me. I can only hope that you understand, but ... it had to be this way. He couldn't see the mistake coming. This mistake. He had to believe it because you believed it. We changed the rules. So promise me that you won't stand in our way."
Vanessa didn't wait for an answer. Too quickly to catch her breath, she removed her foot from Jace's chest and turned. She ran down the beach toward the water, Milo after her, straight into the chaos of metallic clanging, magical explosions, and hissing demons. Soon enough to decapitate a spider-like beast with slimy fangs that was attacking Milo from behind with her axe. The screeching of various beasts filled the night, and Jace was able to raise his dagger just in time to finish off a troll-like Hauras demon. When he looked up, Vanessa had already caught up with Milo, who had come to an abrupt stop less than ten meters in front of the fighting Valentine.
By the Angel, what had she just told him? None of her words made any sense. Vanessa Ashdown, Blake's cousin, was supposed to be on his side? She could have told him that Blake had mysteriously risen from his grave to join Valentine, and Jace would have believed that more than this. He wanted to believe she was trying to deceive him, but even that made no sense. Why would she spare him if he had been indirectly involved in Blake's death? She hated him as fiercely as he hated her — that much she had already made clear.
Staggering, Jace got to his feet, taking a few unsteady steps to follow Vanessa and Milo. His eyes scanned the corpse-littered beach, searching the darkness of the night for a dark red head of hair. When he spotted her on the blood-soaked shore, his breath hitched — Vanessa's words kept circling through his mind, as if they were trying to take root.
Although Vanessa and Milo now found themselves at the center of the action, for a few ticking seconds, it seemed as if none of it could touch them. As if they were standing in the eye of a storm – surrounded by a barrier of calm that separated them from the deadly Coriolis force. Confronted by a pack of Cerberus demons, who saw nothing but a feast in their bodies and charged straight at them, the wind seemed to dissolve. Neither Vanessa nor Milo appeared particularly concerned about this turn of events, as Jace could only deduce from their body language, since they had their backs turned to him.
It would have been the perfect moment to shoot a precise arrow through their necks. But even if he had possessed a bow, Jace would not have moved. Exactly as Vanessa had demanded.
I know you don't want to listen to me, Jace. It took him a moment to realize with what ease his name had rolled off her tongue. As if she had said it thousands of times before. As if she were familiar with it.
Before Vanessa and Milo could even raise their weapons in coordinated synchronicity, two renegade Shadowhunters rushed to support them — as any Nephilim would have done for those of their blood. Because Vanessa and Milo were renegades themselves. At least, that was what Jace believed —what they all believed. Even Valentine. Why should any of them have doubted? Milo had struck down Lyall without batting an eyelid. Was Vanessa just toying with him again, like Blake had toyed with Clary? Was this the Ashdowns' way of getting inside their victims' minds? Was he an idiot for barely being able to catch his breath at her words, without his subconscious communicating, why at all?
He couldn't see the mistake coming. This mistake. What mistake?
Every demon that fizzled out of existence brought them a little closer to Valentine. When he glanced briefly over the northern part of the beach to assess the situation, he took no further notice of them. Penned between the fronts of demons who had not come to an agreement on one side, he held his head haughtily raised and yelled one command after another. He didn't expect that the march Vanessa and Milo had just begun would only end right in front of him personally. Like the queen on a chessboard, evading every piece and prepared with a counterattack for every maneuver, their path led directly toward him. Yet was Valentine Morgenstern their black-clad king, or did they embody the white queen, advancing across the opponent's board?
Suddenly, a memory long pushed to the background by grief flickered to life before Jace's inner eye. But what if I don't want to play chess? What if I just change the rules? They were his own words. His next breath caught in his throat as he grasped at straws in his mind that had no rational basis for existence.
The demons that separated Vanessa and Milo from Valentine fell one after the other. They didn't stand a chance against this team of experienced warriors, whose every move seemed so coordinated that you would have thought they had never done anything else but fight. In the absence of their facial expressions, their posture told a story of determined finality. Their backs straight with confidence, as only the man in front of them could. The tension in their muscles, as if every step had been carefully calculated. The firm grip on the steles that they drew simultaneously, as if they were the sharpest of all blades.
Vanessa and Milo stopped once. Right where the shapeshifters in the form of Clary and Jonathan had fallen. Left to their own devices in the heat of battle, the twin swords lay untouched next to their corpses. Now no longer.
They didn't continue their path immediately. It seemed as though they exchanged a long glance, perhaps even words. From this distance, Jace could not say for certain. But when Milo was the first to move again, he caught a glimpse of Vanessa's face for just a second before she turned away from her companion. Even from here, even across the entire beach, he recognized her emotions as if they were deeply familiar to him. So much pain that the walls could not hold it back — that it could no longer be swallowed down. It was as though he were looking at a new painting by his favorite artist, whose style he knew by heart. A picture so new and familiar at the same time.
Because everyone makes mistakes, Clary had answered him. We must change a rule he didn't even know existed.
Only a few Shadowhunters separated Vanessa and Milo from the most powerful or feared man on this earth. Valentine, his attention once again completely focused on Isabelle and Mellartach, had nothing for them but a fleeting sideways glance. A final, meaningful look passed between the two. Then they pushed the armor of their left forearm slightly back and raised their steles in such a coherent manner that it could have been a coincidental synchronized gesture.
A glow as silver as angel wings lit up the steles as they glided over a rune, erasing it. For the second time in the quarter of an hour, Jace watched, transfixed, as the Shadowhunters he knew seemed to disappear under a flowing shimmer. The return to the origin.
Red-orange flared into an orange-red, hell transformed into the sun. Demon black gave way to angel white. All that remained was the powerful dignity, the bordering-on-arrogance confidence, and the graceful precision that eerily resembled Valentine's. Because it was one and the same.
Between gliding wings, poisoned paws and sparking seraph blades. Clary and Jonathan stood in the midst of a destruction that had been prophesied for months, which swept across the lake as if it wanted to destroy the face of the earth once and for all. Eye to eye with what was likely the greatest threat to the Shadow World.
"The world has been out of balance for far too long." Jonathan didn't need to raise his voice to instantly capture his father's attention.