The Rise Of The Morningstar (Eng. Version)

Chapter 66 - Lost and Found

Chapter 66 – Lost and Found

The moment my father's hologram disappeared, the silence of the vast Clave chamber oppressed me. Instead of immediately bursting into excited chatter, as I would have expected from them, they all sat as quietly as a mouse on the benches. All their eyes were on me. They clung to me like weights, pulling my muscles down and disrupting my every movement. They stared at me because in my hands rested the Soul Sword that they had thought was lost. But I had managed to take exactly that away from my father. I had managed to get it into my possession.

And now they were all waiting breathlessly to see what I would do with it. With this power. Because I had nothing other than power in my hands. At that moment, I was almost certainly the most powerful person on the planet; an army of demons at hand should I call them. And I could understand why, despite Valentine's disappearance, some people still had fear written all over their faces.

I was his daughter. Raised by a psychopath who wanted that sword so badly that he wouldn't hesitate to break her fingers because she got in the way. In their eyes, I may have been a gifted fighter, but I was even more unpredictable. Over the past few weeks, trauma after trauma had hunted me, and I had proven more than once that I was capable of making irrational, unstable decisions. If I decided to take that power, they wouldn't know if I might be capable of the same things as my father.

The energy of the Mortal Sword coursed through my veins, but I felt like I was losing more of my own power with every second. As if it took away all the adrenaline that had just been pumping through my body. In awe, my eyes slid over the silver blade of the giant sword, and I felt my legs wobble beneath me – fail.

Someone put an arm around me from behind; kept me from plunging. I fell to my knees, my intact hand clenched convulsively around the hilt of Mellartach. A blink of an eye later, two faces burst into my field of vision. One pair of eyes gold, the other blue. Their looks were so different and yet similar, which surprised me since the Inquisitor had never liked me. Let alone worried about me.

"Clary?" Jace's frightened voice finally broke me out of the trance of blood loss.

For a minute, everything around me seemed to buzz with intensity. My mind had been able to fortify itself thanks to the adrenaline. But now I hit the surface of reality with full force and my senses suddenly returned. The pulsation in my injured hand — the hand through which my father had plunged a dagger — made me gasp.

I felt that it was suddenly becoming difficult for me to breathe. Suddenly my chest rose and fell far too quickly. My lungs didn't seem to be getting enough oxygen. My blinking eyes fell on the hole in the back of my right hand and my stomach churned.

I blinked and suddenly the Clave hall was gone. Instead, I sat tied up in a basement. The blood was everywhere. I heard myself screaming and the pain was unbearable.

I blinked again and that distant place was gone. Jace and Imogen reappeared in front of me and Jace had sat down next to me in the blood as if it wasn't even there. His arms supported me, kept me upright. I still held Mellartach, but the blade rested on his lap. Secure. It was safe there.

"I really hope it's not too early for that," Imogen murmured, the edge that was always in her tone gone. The light blue of her eyes had softened. Whether it was for Jace's sake or because she felt sorry for me, I couldn't say. I sucked in a breath as she pressed her stele against my skin. The cool power of the adamas flowed through me and even as Imogen drew the Iratze, I found it easier to breathe. When she released me and skeptically leaned back to examine me, the black edges disappeared from my vision.

I turned my head and looked down at my injured hand. I didn't even realize I was leaning against Jace; that he bore my weight; that we both sat in the blood of Malachi, myself and my father; that he looked at me like I was going to disappear or die or go crazy any second.