The Dark Artifices: Lady Midnight

Chapter One: Brother's Tears

Hello, there. The prologue was weird, wasn't it? Was it a dream? No idea! Maybe, maybe not. I've been adapting to a couple of changes in my personal life lately, so I dont really know about any kind of updating schedule. I keep saying updating schedules will become will become more frequent but Im sure we all know its a bunch of bull. Its really shaky. Just if anybody is interested, since no one reads authors notes anyway. No one really reads my stuff either. However, didn't want to break the tradition of starting Shadowhunter chronicles with demon hunts, so here you are! Also, if you neglected to finish the Mortal Instruments then it might be complicated to piece everything together though I try to explain it.

"Can you hand me the witchlight please? " Jules said softly as Emma moved closer behind him. In the darkness of the abandoned stairway, Emma could barely make out her parabatai. The outline of his mop of hair was a faint scrawl in the soft black haze, the edges of his face blurred together. And still, it was as if he was as clear as glass, always beside her, always constant, always Jules, her Jules. He had always been home, for her. For whither thou goest, I will go. And he asked her to bring light to him. As she always did. And she always would. Forever. Aren't we forever?

She felt for it with her right hand and fished it out of her belt. The stone was smooth and hard, lighting up as their hands touched, casting a glow on Julian's face. It intensified his blue green eyes, lighting them up like the ocean beneath sunrise. His delicate cheekbones were carved like ice, the planes of his face hard and angular, and yet there was something soft about him, gentle and calm.

"With me? " he breathed, and it was infuriating,  the way he breathed words to her like they weren't  intimate, not the way he thought it was. He smelled like blackberries and lilacs, like summertime. And it was too much for Emma. Too much that she took a step back. Too much to be so close to him, because she couldn't. She couldnt ever be like that. She wasn't allowed...

"Em?"

"I'm with you. " she said, her heart pounding, but not with adrenaline.  Not with bloodlust, and definitely not with fear. With something else, something more painful, more strange. It scared her that she didn't know what it was. "I'll be right behind you, Jules. " I'm always right behind you.

She watched as he descended the stairs to the basement of the old building. She had let him take the lead tonight, since she usually did the leading when they went on hunts together. And today, August 3rd, was his elder brothers birthday, and Jules was restless and greif stricken- as he had been since the Wild Hunt fairies had taken Mark and changed him, five years ago. He needed something stimulating to keep from blowing up, or breaking down, especially in front of his younger siblings. Emma followed him, as the witchlight plunged further into the darkness, the spaces behind them swallowed up in black.

Suddenly an empty room was illuminated before them. It wasnt too large, but was roomy anyways, debris and dirt piled on the floor in desolation, the witchlight showing the snowflakes of dust lingering in the air. Emma pushed loose strands of hair away from her face and gripped the hilt of her shortsword, Cortana. It was the Carstairs sword, one her father had given her before he died that day. And in that dark and dangerous room, it gave her power. In front of her, Julian pulled out a seraph blade.  He was about to name it when he looked at Emma. A start of a smile was lingering on his face. Then he stopped dead, his wide eyes flicking to behind her.