The Malec Chronicles

The Evolution of Jace Wayland

Bonus Chapter!!!

He doesn't talk about the murder.  

Doesn't want to, outright refuses, and no matter how they beg or plead or threaten, no one can convince him to speak. Not the Inquisitor, not the elderly relative that was so blind she insisted on running her hands over his face to see how much he resembled his father and proclaimed there were no similarities at all, not the silent brothers voices whispering through their skulls.

Not Maryse, who seems sad at how stiff he is when she hugs him hello and shows him to his room. It had been a long walk through the institute, and when she threw the door open with a shove from her hip and dropped his one bag down onto the bed, telling him to make himself at home and to come to her for anything he needed, it was clear that no one had been in here for a long time. There were dust motes swirling through the air, and the pillows were so stiff they let out an audible crunch when he pressed his hand down to them.

We're here for you, she had said, holding onto his hand, and even though the touch was alien Jace did not pull away. He just stared at her hair instead, that long braid that wound down her back and swung from side to side when she waked. Jace had taken to focusing on the little things, maybe so he didn't have to think about the big. Anything that you need. We're your family now.

He didn't bother to tell her that he never had a family, not really.

He had had a father.

But he was dead. And now Jace was alone.

They are both only eleven but there are obvious differences between them, mostly that Jace is a soldier and Alec is still only a child.

Not that he blames him for it.

Jace is starting to think (or feeling, really. He wasn't making any decisions, wasn't letting any real ideas form, but there were flashes, some instinctive feeling curling up in his stomach) that the things his father had done were strange. That maybe other children weren't raised to be fluent in seven languages and have to read a book a day, and that they weren't able to quote any classical story that involved religion or demons or war. That maybe they had friends, and pets that their father didn't kill, and didn't train until the sun went down and their fingers were bloody.

"You have to be better." Jace had swept Alec's leg out from under him without even trying, and Alec had fallen, hard, hard enough that he cried out in pain. Jace never understood that, always wanted to snap at him that it was better to keep his mouth shut, wanted to warn him that bad things happen to shadowhunters who show weakness, but he doesn't. It never made him feel very good when his father had said it to him, and it never made whatever had just happened hurt any less. "You're never going to be a good fighter if you keep your guard down like that."

Alec glared at him from the ground, clutching to his shoulder. Jace hoped that he hadn't hurt him. Alec wasn't old enough for the marks yet, and without the iratzes, he would have to heal the normal way, like a Mundie.

(Jace already had his first marks. The Lightwoods hadn't known until Izzy had cut him with a whip she had stolen from her mother and he hadn't even cried out, just drew out a stele when the blood splattered the floor. Robert had lunged for him, yelling, knocked it out of his hands and grabbed at his arm to check on the half formed iratze that had yet to be activated, only to see the lattice work of scars that already painted over every inch of his body.