City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3)(142)

“So you thought I was soft and useless,” said Jace. “I suppose it will be surprising for you, then, when your soft and useless son cuts your throat.”

“We’ve been through this.” Valentine’s voice was steady, but Clary thought she could see the sweat gleaming at his temples, at the base of his throat. “You wouldn’t do that. You didn’t want to do it at Renwick’s, and you don’t want to do it now.”

“You’re wrong.” Jace spoke in a measured tone. “I have regretted not killing you every day since I let you go. My brother Max is dead because I didn’t kill you that day. Dozens, maybe hundreds, are dead because I stayed my hand. I know your plan. I know you hope to slaughter almost every Shadowhunter in Idris. And I ask myself: How many more have to die before I do what I should have done on Blackwell’s Island? No,” he said. “I don’t want to kill you. But I will.”

“Don’t do this,” said Valentine. “Please. I don’t want to—”

“To die? No one wants to die, Father.” The point of Jace’s sword slipped lower, and then lower until it was resting over Valentine’s heart. Jace’s face was calm, the face of an angel dispatching divine justice. “Do you have any last words?”

“Jonathan—”

Blood spotted Valentine’s shirt where the tip of the blade rested, and Clary saw, in her mind’s eye, Jace at Renwick’s, his hand shaking, not wanting to hurt his father. And Valentine taunting him. Drive the blade in. Three inches—maybe four. It wasn’t like that now. Jace’s hand was steady. And Valentine looked afraid.

“Last words,” hissed Jace. “What are they?”

Valentine raised his head. His black eyes as he looked at the boy in front of him were grave. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I am so sorry.” He stretched out a hand, as if he meant to reach out to Jace, even to touch him—his hand turned, palm up, the fingers opening—and then there was a silver flash and something flew by Clary in the darkness like a bullet shot out of a gun. She felt displaced air brush her cheek as it passed, and then Valentine had caught it out of the air, a long tongue of silver fire that flashed once in his hand as he brought it down.

It was the Mortal Sword. It left a tracery of black light on the air as Valentine drove the blade of it into Jace’s heart.

Jace’s eyes flew wide. A look of disbelieving confusion passed over his face; he glanced down at himself, where Maellartach stuck grotesquely out of his chest—it looked more bizarre than horrible, like a prop from a nightmare that made no logical sense. Valentine drew his hand back then, jerking the Sword out of Jace’s chest the way he might have jerked a dagger from its scabbard; as if it had been all that was holding him up, Jace went to his knees. His sword slid from his grasp and hit the damp earth. He looked down at it in puzzlement, as if he had no idea why he had been holding it, or why he had let it go. He opened his mouth as if to ask the question, and blood poured over his chin, staining what was left of his ragged shirt.

Everything after that seemed to Clary to happen very slowly, as if time were stretching itself out. She saw Valentine sink to the ground and pull Jace onto his lap as if Jace were still very small and could be easily held. He drew him close and rocked him, and he lowered his face and pressed it against Jace’s shoulder, and Clary thought for a moment that he might even have been crying, but when he lifted his head, Valentine’s eyes were dry. “My son,” he whispered. “My boy.”

The terrible slowing of time stretched around Clary like a strangling rope, while Valentine held Jace and brushed his bloody hair back from his forehead. He held Jace while he died, and the light went out of his eyes, and then Valentine laid his adopted son’s body gently down on the ground, crossing his arms over his chest as if to hide the gaping, bloody wound there. “Ave—” he began, as if he meant to say the words over Jace, the Shadowhunter’s farewell, but his voice cracked, and he turned abruptly and walked back toward the altar.

Clary couldn’t move. Could barely breathe. She could hear her own heart beating, hear the scrape of her breathing in her dry throat. From the corner of her eye she could see Valentine standing by the edge of the lake, blood streaming from the blade of Maellartach and dripping into the bowl of the Mortal Cup. He was chanting words she didn’t understand. She didn’t care to try to understand. It would all be over soon, and she was almost glad. She wondered if she had enough energy to drag herself over to where Jace lay, if she could lie down beside him and wait for it to be over. She stared at him, lying motionless on the churned, bloody sand. His eyes were closed, his face still; if it weren’t for the gash across his chest, she could have told herself he was asleep.

But he wasn’t. He was a Shadowhunter; he had died in battle; he deserved the last benediction. Ave atque vale. Her lips shaped the words, though they fell from her mouth in silent puffs of air. Halfway through, she stopped, her breath catching. What should she say? Hail and farewell, Jace Wayland? That name was not truly his. He had never even really been named, she thought with agony, just given the name of a dead child because it had suited Valentine’s purposes at the time. And there was so much power in a name….

Her head whipped around, and she stared at the altar. The runes surrounding it had begun to glow. They were runes of summoning, runes of naming, and runes of binding. They were not unlike the runes that had kept Ithuriel imprisoned in the cellar beneath the Wayland manor. Now very much against her will, she thought of the way Jace had looked at her then, the blaze of faith in his eyes, his belief in her. He had always thought she was strong. He had showed it in everything he did, in every look and every touch. Simon had faith in her too, yet when he’d held her, it had been as if she were something fragile, something made of delicate glass. But Jace had held her with all the strength he had, never wondering if she could take it—he’d known she was as strong as he was.