City of Heavenly Fire

Prices to Pay

(This is still not the conclusion. I have yet to update the epilogue and stuff, so.)

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Jace was running.

Running, running, running with a speed like nothing he'd ever experienced. His legs hurt, his feet screamed at the impact, but he didn't care. All he could see was Simon holding Clary, looking deeply into her eyes.

"Simon, don't you dare!" He roared. It was a beg, a demand, a plea all rolled into one as he watched Simon's hands go to her head, placing them on either sides of her face. It almost looked affectionate, in the way the two best friends held each other. A serene embrace in the midst of battle.

But that was before he snapped her neck.

Jace was only yards away when, with a swift shift of Simon's hands, Clary broke and even through the noises of war, the single sound drifted to him.

That crack made Jace stumble. It was as if his being unraveled, one string at a time, and logic, reason, both ceased.

This couldn't be real.

As he watched Simon hold Clary as her body fell, his face a mask of raw horror unlike Jace had ever seen, Jace wasn't taking it in.

Time slowed. Everything slowed as his mind grappled to put the two pieces together; that the body was Clary. That Clary was dead.

And when it did hit, in the form of that one sliver of doubt that she would not be okay, that rage exploded once more. But this was a different kind of rage. It wasn't fueled by hate, not for the desire to watch another man bleed at his feet. This was a rage fueled by loss, by denial, by seeing the girl he swore to protect broken in front of him.

And that rage grew when he reached her, taking her out of Simon's arms, making noises that were part scream, part sob, no longer thinking of battle and war, just the terror that seized him at the thought of never seeing her eyes again.

Alive.

The war disappeared like it had when he was fighting Sebastian, But this was worse because it was empty and without Clary, the world always would be.

"Clary," he said, drawing her forehead up to his. "Clary, please." For the rage that exploded inside him, his voice was feeble, the begging of a ghost. "You're not dying on me again! You're NOT."

He didn't look at Simon as he yelled at him to get Magnus, someone, anyone. But he didn't look at his face because in that moment, Jace hated him.

But more so, he hated himself then, not only for the girl his hands alone were keeping together, But for the man broken somewhere else.

Clary's words came back to him.

Don't let your father's story be true. Don't let this destroy you.

He'd thought it was Sebastain that would have destroyed him and Jace hadn't denied the feeling of himself slipping away with each brand, each drop of blood spilt by his sword drawn out deliberately.

But that was a slow kind of break. One of choice. One when flames consumed him and burned rules and morals and repercussions simply weren't to be thought of because half of him didn't think he'd make.it out alive. And he wanted that feeling back, anything's except this.

Because this kind didn't happen slowly. Didn't make him feel powerful. Didn't give him a choice. This was the complete opposite. Jace felt defeated in ways no physical blade could do him, his heart carved from him As such that was too painful to survive, yet his body still wouldn't die.