The Guardian~Magnus Bane Love Story

39. This Girl is on Fire

The volcanic Plains spread out like a Pale Moonscape reaching to a line of distant mountains, black against the horizon. White snow dusted the ground: thick in some places, crisp, thin ice in others. Deadly sharp rocks sliced through the ice and snow, along with the bare branches of hedges and frozen moss.

The moon was behind clouds, The velvet dark sky painted here and there with stars, dulled by a sheen of cloud. Light blazed up all around them, though, from seraph blades-and I saw as my eyes adjusted, light from what looked like a bonfire burning in the distance.

The portal had deposited Jace, Clary, and me a few feet from each other, in the snow. We were side by side now, Clary very silent, her coppery hair dusted with white flakes, while I was sporting a full blown snow afro. All around us were cries and shouts, the sound of seraph blades being ignited, the murmur of the names of angels.

"Stay close to me," Jace murmured as he and Clary reared the top of the ridge. Me right behind them. Jace had caught up a longsword from the pile by the portal just before leaping in, Jia's cry of dismay followed us through the shrieking winds. I expected her or Robert to follow us through, but instead the portal has closed up immediately after them, like a door slamming shut.

It appeared all at once, rising up in front of us like a fish breaking through the surface of water with a sudden silver glint. I stared in amazement at the Adamant Citadel. Carved out of the same stuff as seraph blades, the Citadel glowed against the night sky like a star; it was what I had mistaken for the light of a bonfire. A circular wall of adamas ringed it, with no opening in the wall except a single gate, formed of two huge blades plunged into the ground at angles, like an open pair of scissors.

All around the Citadel was covered in half volcanic rock and half snow. Sebastian and Roderick's dark Nephilim were in red gear. Which made them stick out very easily, especially against the white snow.

"Where is he?" Clary whispered. Her breath was white in the cold. "Where's Sebastian?"

Jace shook his head; many of the red-geared Shadowhunters have their hoods up, and their faces were invisible.

Sebastian or Roderick could have been any one of them.

"And the iron sisters?" Clary searched the plain with her gaze. The only white was snow. There was no sign of the sisters in their robes.

"They'll stay inside the Citadel," Jace said. "They have to protect what's inside it. The arsenal. Presumably that's what Sebastian's here for-the weapons. The sisters will have surrounded the interior armory with their bodies. If he manages to get through the gates, or his Endarkened do, the Sisters will destroy the Citadel before they let him have it." His voice was grim.

I saw the blond woman who had talked about a cure and Jason earlier pleading with an Endarkened. He laughed and killed her. I also saw a Silent Brother with a staff, fighting in the distance. A long line of Endarkened showed up and I could feel the Shadowhunters beginning to panic.

Jace yelled about it being a trap but my eyes met someone's gaze. Clary had sprinted away from Jace and I was about to follow her when a voice spoke.

"Going somewhere Alice. I do hope not. After all the parties just begun," Roderick smiled, pulling back the hood of his dark red jacket.

"Is that what this is to you?! A party?! Innocent people are dyeing," I yelled. He smirked and shrugged.

"What's one more pathetic life." I pulled out Iudicate and lunged at him. He swiftly stepped out of the way and smoothly pulled out his own sword, swinging it between his fingers.

"Honestly sister, this meaningless game of cat and mouse, no matter how entertaining it is, does get rather boring."

"Well that why don't I kill you? Change it up a bit," I growled and raised my sword. He blocked it and we fought. We continued for a while until he snapped his fingers. I went flying back and slammed into Jace, both of us falling to the ground.