Blood of the Hunt

Blood of the Hunt - Chapter 13

 "Ignis aurum probat."

Sera peeked over the edge of the chasm that carved its way down to a sluggishly-churning river of lava and watched a few drops of her blood disappear. She hastily stepped back as some of the scrub under her boots crumbled away, and she wiped at the fine sheen of sweat that had beaded on her forehead, not only from the humidity of the late afternoon and the shimmering heat rising from below, but from the anxiety of speaking to the forbidding Iron Sisters. The murder of one of their order at her mother's hands was fresher than ever in her mind as she waited with Clary for the drawbridge to lower and grant them passage across the path of knives.

Murderess, a nagging whisper hissed at her.

Shut up, she growled back, clenching her teeth in annoyance as she let a quick iratze heal the cut across her palm. I didn't have anything to do with that one.

She could almost swear that she heard mocking laughter, and she actually looked around to see if there was anyone else on the volcanic plain, but there was only Clary, waiting patiently. A brilliant flash of blue light followed by the heavy release of gears across the chasm cut off any further argument with her irritating subconscious, and the drawbridge began its slow decent.

Clary turned to give Sera a bright smile in response. "Dexteritas runes on, okay?"

"Yep, no problem." The younger Shadowhunter pressed her right palm to her left forearm and the curving lines of the dexterity rune stood out starkly when she took her hand away. She heard Clary exhale next to her.

"Could you... would you mind...?" Green eyes flashed with excitement and Sera grinned as she held out her hand to oblige her new friend.

Clary stared at the rune emblazoned along her own forearm by Sera's gift and traced the edges lightly with one finger. "Simply incredible," she sighed wonderingly. "You can't feel it at all."

Sera felt a pang as she remembered Marking Rayce for the first time, a mendelin to hide them from Mundane eyes as they had fled from his turn-coat sister, Kylea, through the streets of Toronto. He hadn't even noticed, and she had been able to keep her secret just a little bit longer. The few times that she had runed him up for battle since then, she had seen the relief in his eyes as the Marks had appeared without the accompanying sting of a stele. His half-Faerie blood didn't particularly appreciate the sigils of Heaven, and he felt the bite of the adamas more keenly than regular Shadowhunters. It had almost seemed like a mercy for her to gently lay his marriage runes upon his arm and over his heart during their wedding without the pain that he had become accustomed to while growing up under Zeke's tutelage.

"You're thinking about him, aren't you?" Clary asked, her artist's eye picking out the hints of thought written across Sera's face.

The younger Shadowhunter looked back in surprise. "How did you know?"

"A lot of experience," Clary answered wryly.

"I just... I miss him," Sera admitted sheepishly. "I know I didn't even have him to begin with, and then promptly lost him, but I just..." She touched her heart, just over where her own marriage rune was hidden beneath her black tank top. "It's weird not to have him with me. And we haven't even been gone that long."

Red hair gleamed in the fading, late afternoon sun as the other woman nodded in understanding. "What you did, in that... other place... to bring him back with you – I'm not surprised that you feel his absence so keenly. You're even more connected now than you were before. It'll take some getting used to, I'd imagine." She laughed. "And, you know – you are allowed to just plain miss the love of your life and husband every now and then."