Chapter Text
Things weren’t supposed to end like this.
That was the thought Alec couldn’t quite banish. It clung to him as he was dragged out of his own Institute with the cuffs around his wrists and his people watching on with looks that ranged from shock to horror, with a few here and there of glee. It repeated over and over in Alec’s mind through the night he spent in the Silent City with nothing but the dark and his memories to cling to.
And it was the thought he had now as he stared at Imogen Herondale and the Silent Brother who held the deruning device so calmly in his hands.
There’d been no trial. No chance for Alec to stand up and speak his piece. No chance for him to call in anyone to represent him the way they had for Izzy, to try and refute the charges against him. Just a very public arrest following what had to have been an entirely private trial. So private not even Alec had been allowed to be present.
While he hadn’t been there to hear the charges brought against him and to defend himself from them, Imogen took joy in laying them out for him now as he was forced to kneel before her on the cold stone floor of the deruning chamber.
“Failure to uphold your angelic duty,” she declared, her eyes as sharp as any blade and her voice daring Alec to argue, to try and refute her words. He couldn’t, they both knew he couldn’t.
(Countless reports full of not quite lies but not quite truths, covering up a multitude of things. Unsanctioned missions. Losing Clary. Losing Meliorn)
“Interfering in the affairs of the Downworld, outside of the purview of the Accords and without sanction from the Clave.”
(The raid on Hotel DuMort, the death and burial of Simon, getting involved in an Alpha dispute)
“Treason.”
(His stele had been the one to open the safe, losing them the Cup. They couldn’t prove it was Isabelle or Jace who did it, so they’d tried to convict Isabelle for Meliorn, and they’d failed. But there was only one stele that could’ve been used to take it from that safe. Whether it’d been done by another or not didn’t matter. Alec had allowed his stele to be stolen, and the Cup briefly lost, and he’d known even as he’d held Izzy after that he would pay for it)
The charges were serious enough on their own. Together? Alec didn’t stand a chance. Especially not when he couldn’t offer any sort of argument against any of them without throwing his siblings under the sword. Alec’s choice was to either kneel here and take what came to him or stand back and watch as the same was done to his siblings, and likely still him as well when all was said and done.
As if there were any real choice.
Alec knelt there and said not a word. And he felt something in him break away as the glee in the Inquisitor’s eyes grew a little more.
“Time and time again you’ve shown a blatant disregard for the rules of our people,” Imogen said, far too much smug pride in her words. “But this time you’ve gone too far. You’ve put the whole of our people, our world, at risk with your carelessness. That sort of action will not be allowed to go unpunished.”
The hands on Alec’s shoulders tightened, and he knew his time was up. Things weren’t supposed to end like this. Alec drew in a breath that somehow didn’t shake and he met Imogen’s stare head on. He wouldn’t cower while he met his fate. It would be the last strong thing he ever did here. The last moments of Commander Alexander Lightwood. He refused to spend them cowering.
“Alexander Gideon Lightwood, you have been charged and found guilty. Though some argued for death, or imprisonment, the Laws are clear. You are hereby stripped of your rank, your titles, your name, and your service. You will be deruned, and portaled to the city of your choice to live out your life as a mundane, forbidden from entering any Institute or any of our sacred lands. May the angels watch over your journey and guide you back to the light.”
Alec registered the formal words and his soul screamed under them, throbbing, aching inside of him, but he kept himself calm on the outside. He stayed where he was and said nothing, refusing to flinch as the Silent Brother came forward with the deruning device and pressed it against his skin for the first time. He held still and locked his screams behind his teeth at the erasure of his first rune, and his second, his third, fourth, fifth.
Through waves of agony and a burning cold that seeped through his veins Alec kept silent.
Right up until they reached his parabatai rune.
He couldn’t stop them, stood no chance against the hands that gripped him so tightly, and yet it was the one thing Alec couldn’t bring himself not to fight. He bucked against their hold for the first time and tried to yank himself away, to break free before they could rip apart a bond that might’ve already been fraying but was still his.
The screams that echoed through the chambers when they tore his parabatai away would echo in his dreams and nightmares for a long time to come.
(Somewhere in the shadows echoed another scream, full of grief and pain and heartache, and in NYI training room a body hit the floor)
Darkness filled his soul where once there’d been a piece of the brother. Alec cried out again, a broken, pained sound, and for a moment that darkness pulled him under and Alec drowned in it. He drowned in the grief and the pain and the loss of everything he was and everything he’d ever made himself to be.
When the device moved to his last rune, Alec didn’t have the strength to fight anything anymore. He lay trembling and limp in their arms while the darkness swept over his vision and threatened to steal even that away from him. He didn’t try and fight against it. Better to give in to the dark, after all, than to stare up at Imogen and watch the blatant joy she felt at his pain.
Only, just as the dark seemed like it would finally take him under right when the device began to trace the lines of his angelic power rune, the very last rune to be taken from him, somewhere deep inside of Alec flashed a spark. A light brought on by the tugging of chains that had long since kept it locked away.
Deep in the heart of Alec lay the ghost of something given to him a long time ago. A promise of power and greatness passed from father to son. One that had been given to a lonely woman on a cold night when she'd reached for something better, unknowing the truth of what she held to her. Not yet, at least. Not until it was too late.
They’d thought they’d gotten free from it. That they were safe. The bonds of Raziel had wrapped tight around Alec and strangled everything other until it was almost gone.
Almost.
Now, those bonds were being pulled away, the chains of the nephilim stripped from his soul with the removal of each rune, that spark growing brighter and brighter as the deruning device traced its way over the very last of Alec’s runes. With every moment it pulled Raziel’s power further away and allowed this other power to grow.
Alec’s body bowed up as the power pushed harder and harder against the last vestiges of its cage. He didn’t see the way he started to glow, like a faint light building under his skin. Nor did he hear the questions of the guards who clung to him while the Silent Brother continued on, drawing the last of the angelic power from Alec’s body.
He caught the faint hint of Imogen’s “Stop!” just seconds too late.
The device gave one final press against his skin and then it was gone.
And with it, the final lock on the cage broke, and power came tearing free.
Both the Silent Brother and Imogen managed to draw back in time to avoid injury, but the two holding on to Alec were caught up as the power ripped his body apart, shredding every single molecule of what made up Alec and then remade them anew. The backlash of power it caused as it exploded out from him was strong enough to destroy the chamber he was in, and those close enough to get caught in the blast.
Imogen lay in the rubble of what had once been the hallway leading to the deruning chambers, body protected by one of the Gard waiting outside who had grabbed her and thrown her under him. There, in the broken stones of a shattered hallway deep within the Silent City, Imogen stared in horror at the being that erupted from the destroyed room. A monster made of darkness and fire that shot into the sky like a meteor.
The roar the newly born dragon let free echoed for miles and miles around.
Later, others would claim they’d seen the beast tearing through the sky like a comet lighting up the night. They’d speak and share whispers and stories about the monster made of dark and fire that was unlike anything they’d ever seen before. Mundanes wouldn’t know what it was, shadowhunters equated it to a demon, and those in the Downworld thought magic.
For Alec, that first flight was a blur. One made up of pain and power and so much else he didn’t understand. The need to get away, to get somewhere safe, were the only things he truly understood.
He wouldn’t ever remember the mad, desperate flight. Just the feel of body parts he’d never had before, the wind under them, carrying him awayawayaway from the darkness and the pain. And he would remember landing. The crash of his body into something damp and cold that made everything hurt anew.
His body skidded along something else that prickled against new, sensitive places, and the air echoed with the thudding sound he made as he tumbled over and over until he finally came to a stop.
Pain echoed along every single inch of Alec’s body. He tried to huddle in, only to find that the body that he had no longer felt like the one he’d always known.
Alec would admit to himself later that he panicked then. There was no other word to describe how he reacted when he opened new eyes – everything was so different, so bright, like it’d been lit up by a sun despite it still being dark – and saw what had happened to him. Just how much he’d changed.
During his life there’d been plenty of times that Alec had wished he could be someone different. Someone better, stronger. A warrior his parents could be proud of. He’d imagined it, over and over, picturing himself as someone better, someone stronger. Someone who could do all the things that Jace and Izzy did and not be worried the whole time about the rules they were breaking. Who could stand up and fight with them and make his parents proud, yet also go out and have all the fun someone his age was apparently supposed to.
He'd never pictured this.
Alec rose up in the sand of the beach and stared down at a body that wasn’t his. Wasn’t human.
In place of long, pale limbs and dark runes, he found thick legs covered in jet black scales, and clawed feet that dug into the sand. As he stared at himself, his horror growing stronger with each passing moment, he watched as a hint of a glow built under his skin. Like fire burning through rock. All he could think as he stared at himself was demon.
In his panic, his wings suddenly stretched up behind him, and he scrambled back like he could somehow get away from his own body. Instead, he found himself crashing into the pier he’d landed by, ripping apart the wood and sending it flying. Alec tried to jerk them back in, only to end up tripping over his own feet as he did. He hit the sand with a thud and what had meant to be a curse but came out as a growl that shook the ground.
The panic took him over, and for a moment, Alec was lost in a maelstrom of pain both inside and out. He lost his ability to breathe in a way he was far too familiar with – panic attack.
Only, this time he wasn’t curled up in his room hiding away while he gasped like he was dying. He was on a public beach with who knew who else nearby, in a new body he didn’t know how to control, with power he hadn’t even registered yet. Power that responded to the terrified, aching need to hide.
Alec didn’t register the way his body shrank in on itself. Or how he literally began to shrink until he was no larger than a housecat. All he could think of was curling himself in while wrapping his wings around himself. Broken cries tore from his throat in sounds that only served to send his panic higher.
Voices suddenly shouted all around him. Curses and shouts that sounded like they were getting closer.
At the same time, something crackled in the air nearby. A feeling that buzzed against him. It snagged his attention, though it wasn’t quite enough to break through the panic, not completely. Not until he heard a painfully familiar voice shouting out “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” at the same time another one called out “Get back!”
More voices shouted, all of them blending together, but through it all Alec heard that familiar one again, close enough to push through the panic a little more.
“Get away from them!” That buzzing feeling was back in the air, stronger than before, and even closer. Alec twisted toward it, his wings trembling as they began to unfurl. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“It’s a demon!” someone else shouted.
Alec heard another person scoff, and then a woman’s voice. “That’s not a demon. That’s a dragon. Your weapons won’t work on them. The only thing it’s going to do is piss them off or scare them even more!”
“Call your Institute Head and tell him that the High Warlock of Brooklyn has things under control,” that familiar voice said, and the confidence in it sparked something in Alec. Memories came rushing forward of warm smiles and flirtatious eyes. A sense of breathlessness that Alec had never felt with anyone else. A hint, a promise, of something so good, and so terrifying, if only he could be brave enough to reach for it. (He’d never been brave) “Dragons are beings of magic, and as such, they’re under my purview, not yours.”
Magic pressed in closer, surrounding him without touching him, and Alec knew before he even looked up just what he would find.
Magnus squatted just a few feet away from him. Far enough back to not be threatening, while close enough to be able to help. At his back stood a woman, the back of her legs likely touching Magnus’ back, standing guard between him and the nearby shadowhunters, all of whom had their blades unsheathed and lit.
“Don’t pay any attention to them,” Magnus said in a far gentler voice than he’d been using so far. “You’re safe. We’re not here to hurt you, we’re here to help.”
He looked… he looked good, Alec couldn’t help but think. Soft, almost, like he’d been dressed down for the evening, though his makeup was still sharp and his hair perfectly styled. His eyes were kind when they landed on Alec, and his smile even kinder. Friendlier.
Would he still look like that if he knew who it was he spoke to? Alec could remember the coldness on Magnus’ face after Alec walked away from him, again and again. Hurting him, because Alec was too much of a coward to fight for the both of them. Not when he’d already dedicated his life to fighting for his siblings. Protecting them. There’d been no room left in him to fight for anyone else. Most especially not for himself.
(He had no one left to fight for anymore. Those ties were broken, gone, stolen away right alongside his runes. Lost even more with the loss of his humanity. He had no one now. No one.)
Alec blinked his eyes, and a mournful cry burned in his throat, low and throbbing.
He watched Magnus flinch slightly under that sound. The buzz of his magic grew a little stronger. When Magnus spoke again, his words carried a faint sense of urgency, as if he were desperate to make Alec believe him. “Whatever happened, whatever they’ve done to you, we can help you. We can get you out of here to somewhere safe. I… I know the local Institute Head. He won’t be the type to come after you. Not unless you’ve truly done something wrong.”
Oh. Alec’s heart ached. Even after everything, after the way Alec had treated him, Magnus still had faith in him. Still trusted him. Alec didn’t deserve that faith. He didn’t deserve anything.
Without realizing it, he took a small step forward, his wings unfurling even more. The urge to leap at Magnus and take that promised safety and comfort was almost too much to resist.
Tonight had been too much. Alec hurt, in so many places and in so many ways. The part of him that still thought like a nephilim knew that he shouldn’t go towards Magnus. That part reminded him of all the reasons why he’d held himself back before.
Only – those reasons didn’t exist anymore, did they? Alec wasn’t a shadowhunter, wasn’t even a nephilim. He had no people to throw him out for something he knew he wasn’t supposed to feel. No family he had to keep his post and his position for so that he could protect them. All of that had been stripped away from him. Alec had nothing. He wasn’t a shadowhunter, wasn’t a nephilim, wasn’t a Lightwood – he was nothing. Just… just this.
Magic swirled around him with the first step forward, and then the next. Alec stumbled forward on awkward claws that suddenly gave way to stumbling feet.
He never heard the gasp from the others. Though he did see the shock that hit Magnus’ face just seconds before Alec collapsed against him, body bare and shivering in the cool ocean breeze.
Hesitant arms curled around him. When Alec slumped even more, barely able to hold himself upright even on his knees, they tightened and took his weight, drawing him in against a firm chest. He heard the faint “Alexander” breathed out against his hair.
Alec’s eyes drifted shut, exhaustion tugging him down and under. The darkness once more crept along the edges of his vision. Alec didn’t fight them this time, either. He let go and let his body fall, trusting himself to the arms of the only person in his life who had ever wanted him, who’d ever treated him like he was something special, and who, up until a few hours ago, he’d thought he might never see again.
The last thing he felt before the world sucked him under was the tightening of those arms, and the whisper of a breath against his hair. “I’ve got you,” Magnus said softly, voice coming as if from far away. “I’ve got you, darling.”
Alec sighed as the world went black.