The Guardian~Magnus Bane Love Story

55. What Could Have Been

Sebastian had ran toward the platform and reached up to catch Clary's hands; she let him draw her down from the throne, until she stood in front of him. He was still holding her.

"You accept it," he said. "You accept your choice?"

"I accept it," she said. "I do."

"Then kiss me," he said. "Kiss me like you love me."

She tried to smile. "In front of everyone? I don't think-"

"We have to show them," he said, and his was as immovable as an angel pronouncing a sentencing. "That we are unified. Prove yourself, Clarissa."

His arm came up around her and he drew her close. She laid one hand on his shoulder. The other hand slid to her waist, where Heosphoros rested, tucked into the belt of her gear. Her fingers curled around the back of his neck. His eyes were wide. You could see his heartbeat pulsing in his throat.

"Now, Clary," he said, and she leaned up, touching her lips to his face. She felt him shudder against her as she whispered, her lips moving against his cheek.

"Hail, master," she said, and saw his eyes widen, just as she pulled Heosphoros free and brought it up in a bright arc, the blade slamming through his rib-cage, the tip positioned to pierce his heart.

Sebastian gasped, and spasmed in her arms; he staggered back, the hilt of the blade protruding from his chest. His eyes were wide, and for a moment she saw the shock or betrayal in them, shock and pain, and it actually hurt; it hurt somewhere down deep in a place she thought she had buried long ago, a place that mourned the brother he might have been.

"Clary," he gasped, starting to straighten, and now the look of betrayal in his eyes was fading, and she saw the beginning spark of rage. It hadn't worked, she thought in terror; it hadn't worked, and even if the borders between the worlds were sealed now, he would take it out on her, on her friends, her family, on Jace. "You know better," he said, reaching down to grasp the hilt of the sword in his hand. "I can't be hurt, not by any weapon under Heaven-"

He gasped, and broke off. His hands had closed around the hilt, just above the wound in his chest. There was no blood, but there was a flash of red, a spark-fire. The wound was beginning to burn. "What-is-this?" he demanded through clenched teeth.

"And I will give him the Morning Star," Clary said. "It's not a weapon that was made under Heaven. It is Heaven's fire."

With a scream he pulled the sword free. He gave the hilt, with its hammered pattern of stars, one incredulous look before he blazed up like a seraph blade. Clary staggered back, tripped over the edge of the steps to the throne, and threw one arm partly over her face.

He was burning, burning like the pillar of fire that went before the Israelites. She could still see Sebastian within the flames, but they were around him, consuming him in their white light, turning him to an outline of dark char within a flame so bright, it seared her eyes.

Clary looked away, burying her face in her arm. Her mind raced back through that night when she had come to Jace through the flames, and kissed him and told him to trust her. And he had, even when she had knelt down in front of him and driven the point of Heosphoros into the ground. All around it she had drawn the same room over and over with her stele-she had once seen, it felt like so long ago now, on a rooftop in Manhattan: the winged hilt of an angel's sword.

A gift from Ithuriel, she guessed, who had given her so many gifts. The image had rested in her mind until she needed it. The rune for shaping Heaven's fire. That night on the demon plain, the blaze all around them had evaporated, drawn into the blade of Heosphoros, until the metal had burned and glowed and sung when she'd touched it, the sound of angelic chorusus. The fire had left behind only a wide circle of sand fused into glass, a substance that glowed like the surface of the lake she had so often dreamed about, the frozen lake where Jace and Sebastian had battle to the death and her nightmares.