A Broken Future

Twenty-Three: The Final Stand

Clary stepped slowly and carefully toward the dining room. Amatis had ordered her into a golden pair of heels to match her uncomfortably tight-fitting dress, and she stumbled awkwardly in the unfamiliar footwear. She had to admit that it was nice to be a bit taller, though.
The overall atmosphere was somber and grim when she entered the dining room, with the exception of Sebastian's razor-like grin of pleasure. Jocelyn and Luke looked joyless, Jace was on edge, Izzy appeared to be near tears, and Alec seemed worried. She didn't realize why Alec looked so concerned until she saw Magnus's pale face and sloppy posture; his father must have been making him ill.
An alter, made of a dark, twisted metal, stood against the wall behind the still smirking Sebastian. Tonight was the ceremony, and he was obviously elated.
Sebastian wore red; a shirt and pants the same color as his army's gear. The edges of it were trimmed with same gold fabric as her dress was made of, but his was embroidered with runes of the Gray Book in red. They spoke of love and binding and union. She felt nauseous.
Clary walked toward the opposite end of the table as him, each person in their usual chairs. As she stepped through the threshold, she locked eyes with Jace long enough to signal: It's nearly time.
Clary picked at her food nervously, butterflies hammering around in her stomach. This is it, she thought. You either win or fail. You are free, or a slave for eternity. There is no second chance.
At the end of the meal the dishes and silverware were cleared by Endarkened servants, who did out with the table and arranged the seven guests' chairs in rows. They quickly disappeared to wherever they had come from.
After an annoyingly eloquent and short speech, Sebastian drew Clary through the center isle to the shadowy alter.
Finding his place, he took Clary by the shoulders and turned her toward him. He gave her an excited smile, handing her the stele.
"Don't be nervous, little sister," he whispered.
She was anyways.
Clary took the tool in hand, and, steadying his right arm, traced the marriage rune onto his bicep. She knew Jace could not get the sword to her in this position; she was practically hidden behind her brother. After completing the rune, she drew away.
"Now here," Sebastian aided, undoing the top three buttons of his shirt to reveal part of his pale chest. He brushed his fingers over his heart, and she lifted the stele to his skin with a shaky hand. As she did it, she tried to glance at Jace. But Sebastian had angled his body to block him from sight, as if he could make her forget the person she really loved.
She swallowed, completing the Mark before she could think twice. Clary silently cursed her gift for the words that did not speak.
Sebastian deftly buttoned his shirt back up, taking the stele from Clary. Eagerly, he began the same design on her upper arm, quickly finishing it and shifting as he proceeded to mark the place above her collar bone. A chill ran up Clary's spine as his cold hand brushed her skin. He began to draw.
Clary's eyes briefly darted to Jace. He nodded minutely, telling her it was time to bring their plan into action.
For a moment she looked up at Sebastian, met his gaze, and whispered two words that made his dark eyes widen and wiped the childlike grin from his face.
"Hail, master."
Everything that happened next was like a flash. Clary thrust out her left hand toward Jace. He reached underneath his chair and slid the glimmering Morgenstern blade out from where the sheath had been discreetly strapped. It had been hidden on the underside of his chair. He tossed it to her, hilt first, and she caught it before Sebastian could even think to glance at them. Every other face in the room was shocked into speechlessness.
Suddenly she felt her chest tighten when Sebastian finished the final rune, as if her heart- as if her heart was being knit with- with-
With Sebastian's.
She plunged the gleaming blade into Sebastian's back, grinding it past bone and straight into the cold, lifeless heart there. Disbelief covered his face for a moment, and he collapsed. Laying on the ground, his back arched up as the golden fire poured from the wound on his back. He grit his teeth, clenching his fists in reaction to the agony. It disappeared as soon as it hit the ground.
Sebastian writhed on the ground, black eyes flung wide open and unfocused, and then fell still. But his eyes remained open, and instead of charcoal, they looked like spring grass. They were the same eyes Clary saw in the mirror each day, the same ones her mother wore, the same ones her tiny daughter had looked at her with.
A tearing pain enveloped Clary's chest, seeming to tear the runes from her skin. The connection, the part of his heart that had been bound together with hers, was torn away, and she cried out with agony. Clary saw a blurred group of people rushing to catch her, but the events of the past week brought her down too quickly.
She lost consciousness before she hit the floor.