City of heavenly fire. The after story

The darkness around us (24)

"Ahh do come in" a voice bellowed from inside of the door. Jace swung the door open fully and stared in shock at what lay in front of them. Inside the back of the queens quarters it was dark and damp with old vines whistling down from the roof, and in the centre of all that was a cage, that consisted of roots and branches needed together with passion, Jace heard Clary gasp beside him, and he tensed up, ready to swing for her if she ran. Because crumpled in the middle of the cage in old rags and a bloody face, was simon. It looked as though someone had sucked the life out of his eyes and as Jace readied himself to grab Clary, a dark shape hurtled by him, shit, he had forgotten about izzy.

Clary burst into the room straight after izzy went running and she tried to look at what was in the room but Jace blocked her view with his lean build. "No Clary" he said as he tried to grab her, but Clary wriggled free of his grasp and ran over to izzy, she stopped about half way when she saw that in the middle of the room was a cage, and inside that cage, was a beaten and slack looking simon.... "How nice of you to join us" the queen said with a laugh, Clary slowly looked around the room, which was half full of fairies all wearing brown and grass green armour, they were holding nasty looking knives that pointed up at one end as though to gut a fish. Clary heard Jace call her name as he skidded to a stop next to her, "don't move, you stay with me at all times" he whispered into her ear as he too looked around the room with panic. "What do you want?" Jace asked coldly as he looked over to where izzy was frantically trying to pull the cage free . "I don't think it's what i want mr herondale but more as to what you can offer me in return for a certain shadow-hunter" she said with a malicious grin on her face. "And what do you want?" Jace spat through gritted teeth. "Your wife" one of the warriors said as he took a step towards Clary. Jace raised his seraph blade and screamed Gabriel as the blade lit up a beautiful and eye catching blue. "One more step and your dead" Jace said as he moved his blade into his left hand expertly. "It's a simple offer" the queen said smugly and then looked to izzy, "you would like your husband back would you not?" The queen asked her quizzically. "Go.to.hell" izzy panted as she tried to pull at the bars once again. "Haha but alas my fellow warriors there will be no breaking him free without the use of another fairy and i don't see any of you being expectantly close with one of our kind" she chuckled smugly. "Maybe they are" a voice said from the darkness. And with that the smile dropped off of the queens face. As she looked around her men in search of who spoke. "Who dears defy me?" The queen asked with a lot of hurt, as though this Were the biggest insult one could give. "Do you not remember me ?" Dresance asked as he stepped into the centre of the room with Clary, Jace and izzy. As the queen and dresance had a convocation Clary turned to Jace. "Shit this is stressful for y-" but Clary put a finger to his lip. "I would like to see Jake again thank you so listen up, no complaints about splitting up but you and izzy need to hold off whilst dresance gets simon free. And whilst your doing that i will draw us a portal out of here" she said as she searched his beautiful gold eyes for a hint of emotion, but this was the closed off Jace, the one that he only ever showed to those he didn't trust or hated. "Ok but i want you in my line of sight at all times" Jace said as his face broke down into a look of worry, "don't worry sir i promise" Clary said with a fake salute as she turned to face the queen. "Never" Clary spat and as soon as she did Jace burst into action, he managed to take out at least three of the warriors before they had time to retaliate and as soon as they did izzy got up from the floor. Like she knew what was going on and joined Jace to hold Off the fighters. Clary skidded over to dresance as she passed to try and get to the far wall that wasn't occupied. "Simon" she screamed as she ran by, and dresance seemed to understand, he turned on his heel and ran over to the cage that simon was caught in.

Clary slammed into the far wall with a hard force and began to instantly draw a portal. The stele started to suck the energy out of her as she drew and she could feel the pull of drawing it. She was just about finished when a sharp pain spasmed through her leg, she looked down already afraid of what she would see and was right, sticking out of her leg and curving up at the end, was the point of a fairy sword dripped in red at the end. Clary swung round ready to fight off whatever it was that threw the knife but as she turned she saw Dresance behead a fairy with the scissoring method and then turn to her. He yelled something but Clary couldn't make out what. Through the adrenaline of fighting the pain was starting to kick in, she crumpled onto one knee with a sharp scream, she gritted her teeth to numb the pain slightly. With one hand she slowly without looking grasped the hilt of the blade and pulled it out of her leg, it dropped limp to the floor with a clash as Clary could feel the blood running down her thigh. She didn't want to look at how deep it was but then a thought hit her, the portal, she had lost a lot of blood and energy but she needed to finish the portal. Clary spun round with all her might, somewhere in the mist of battle she could hear her name being called but all she could think about was finishing the portal. With all her restraining energy she slammed her hand back to the wall, the stele seemed to drag as she drew the simple rectangle that she had memorised so many times before. This time as Clary drew to a finish with the portal the world around her fell silent, she felt a dizzy spite and knew she was going to pass out, but she had to finish the portal. With a cry of agony that pierced her own ears she drew the last line and as the shimmering blue light of the portal opened up, Clary fell into darkness....