This is where the story truly begins. Hope you enjoy! Chapter 3 is when things finally begin interesting, so bear with me for a while, for these starter chapters like these are just foreshadowing and forming of the story. Stay patient and continue reading please!

Love all readers, ily! ilyttmab so tag a shadowhunter below...

 “Channy! Check this out!” Ares shouted for his parabatai, but Chantelle was nowhere to be seen. “Channy? Chantelle Carstairs this isn’t funny.” He scanned the surroundings. Was she..? No, it simply wasn’t possible. It was understood that Ares Herondale was the obvious heir to the throne left by his ancestors, that he would be the best Shadowhunter of his time, like his father and grandfather. Moreover, he was the last Herondale, after some members of the family tree went missing. But Chantelle was a close second, the best knife-thrower. She was a god with those and she never misses, even if the whole world was spinning, her knife could hit the dust off your boots miles away. Chantelle was the best female warrior to ever exist in Ares’ opinion.

But Chantelle stepped out of the shadows, blood on her face, blood that didn’t belong to her. As usual, she wore her weapons jacket, and inside was an array of different kinds of throwing knives. “Here, comrade.” She was just a little beat-up, but showed no signs of exhaustion. Her eyes flickered to what Ares held. “What? EW YOU SO DID NOT!”

Ares looked down at the head he held. “What, this? Come on, they say that if you chop a demon’s head off and hang it in your room, you’ll have good luck.”

“And who exactly is ‘they’?” Chantelle grinned.

“Zachary.”

“You know Zachary was kidding, right?”

“Believing seems fine since it’s no harm right?” Ares threw it into the air and caught it again as Chantelle crossed over, glancing down at the head. Suddenly, something hit her head hard, and she sunk into the darkness.

***

Something whizzed past Chantelle. “Follow me.” It said, and Chantelle found herself running after the creature. It came to a stop by the roadside, perching on a HoloTree. She ran smack into someone. “I’m sorr—mom?” She looked up into the same brown eyes she had.

A honk sounded. “Get in!” Yelled a man in front of the wheel. He was smiling.

“Dad.” Chantelle breathed, not believing her eyes.

“Yes, yes, it’s me. Come on, let’s go get some SoyBurgers.”

“Dad, I still want to be a Shadowhunter.”

The man sighed heavily, looking at the mirror. “Chantelle, we’re not going to have this conversation. I am not sending you to the Institute.”

Chantelle whined. “I’m a warrior, not a mundane.” They set off, and Chantelle continued whining. “I want to go to the Institute, I want to, I want to!”

Her mother gave her a warning look. “Not now, Chantelle. Not when your father is driving.”

Chantelle ignored this. She always obeyed her parents, always did what they told her to, but she felt especially rebellious today, wanting to be a Shadowhunter more than anything else. She watched a vampire kill a mundane that morning, and when she wanted to finish the vampire off, her mother pulled her back. “No, Channy. It is not your job to make sure Downworlders don’t kill mundanes. You’re not a Shadowhunter.” She had said.

But Chantelle was, and she owned a heart of one.

“I WILL GET TO THE INSTITUTE, EVEN IF IT MEANS KILLING CREW AND DRIVING THERE MYSELF.”

Her father turned around, filled with anger. “You are not a—“ And he didn’t see the red light, so he skidded into a truck, vehicle spinning…

The world was spinning. Chantelle slipped in and out of consciousness. “Mom? Dad?”

Just then, a girl rushed over. She was a passer-by, in her twenties. Marissa, the girl, knew Chantelle had the Sight, for Chantelle looked at her, registering her presence, something mundanes would not be able to do.

“You can see me?”

Slowly, Chantelle nodded. But the others couldn’t see Marissa, and they phoned the ambulance. “Do you want to come?” Chantelle knew she meant the Institute. Marissa had runes, and Chantelle learned about that when she stole her mother’s copy of the Codex in the study. Therefore, Marissa was a Shadowhunter, like her. Runes could do different things when drawn on a body of a Shadowhunter with a stele, and an Iratze rune could heal. She could get one of those…

Chantelle shook her head. She caused her parents to be hurt, and she will not betray them. So Marissa walked away as the ambulance came.

But her parents were already dead.

***

Chantelle heard a voice—screams—but she hadn’t realised they were from her. She was squatting, hands on her ears, screaming at the top of her lungs, and she hadn’t screamed since years, since the day the accident happened.

“Chantelle, Chantelle, please.” Arms encircled around her. Big, strong arms, as she sobbed. It was Ares. “It wasn’t real. It was a fear demon.”

Slowly, Chantelle saw sense and knew he was right. Well, partially right. “Fear demons don’t work like that. It’s a Nightmare demon.” Nightmare demons weren’t common. It could make you see your worst nightmare, which was what happened to Chantelle. She saw her worst nightmare—her parents dying again. She could tell from Ares’ bloodshot eyes that he saw his worst nightmare too.

“I saw my parents… dying again. They died because of me, because I couldn’t accept that my parents fled.” Chantelle sobbed, and she never cried since the accident too. This was not just her original sorrow, nightmare demons could induce additional guilt and sadness to the brain, which was what happened to Chantelle. Her parents indeed fled when her mother wanted to marry her parabatai, and the Clave forbid it. Chantelle was brought up as a mundane, though she had Shadowhunter blood. After the accident, Chantelle stayed with her aunt, then finally decided to join the Shadowhunters.

Ares listened. “It’s not your fault, Channy. It’s not.”

“It is. I’m supposed to be their filial daughter, but I became rebellious. I shouldn’t have.” Chantelle said, staring at the head of the Nightmare demon.

***

The 5 young Shadowhunters of the Los Angeles Institute gathered at the attic, as usual. They were like a small group of their own, and Marissa often affectionately called the gang “Younghunters”. Among all of them, Ares and Chantelle were the oldest, and managed the group together.

“The Nightmare demon, was it terrible?” Laressa asked. She often heard stories of those from her parents and sister, but always assumed they never really existed.

“It was.” Chantelle spoke. “I saw… my parents… the car crash.” It occurred to Chantelle that Ares never told her what he saw, but she didn’t question. Ares told her about almost everything, and if Ares didn’t mention, it meant he just didn’t want her to know. And Chantelle accepted that.

“Zachary said those were tales.” Andre, the youngest of the group, said. “Maybe it’s just a fear demon.”

“Those take the form of your worst fear, not play—or replay—a situation.” Stated Chantelle, who had done some reading.

“So even you couldn’t defeat it?” Andre inquired, not meaning to mock her. Andre always had a special respect for Chantelle. You see, she was never the ordinary Shadowhunter. When she was first brought to the Silent City, a Silent Brother, Brother Enoch, told her that she was special. Shadowhunters were half-angel, half-human, but Chantelle was almost full angel. Brother Enoch said she was blessed from Raziel himself, at her birth. At that time, her parents weren’t married and were still Shadowhunters. However, no one really understood why she was blessed though, why she was chosen by Raziel, the forbidden child, but no one was to question Raziel’s choices. Therefore, everyone respected her, regardless of her parents, and her angelic blood was so in demand that she was made future Consul.

“Channy isn’t invincible, even if she had special blood.” Ares ruffled Andre’s hair. “My grandparents sure weren’t.”

Ares was right. Clarissa and Jace Herondale had blood that was more angelic too, although lesser than Chantelle. But that didn’t make them invincible…

“Always that story about Clarissa and Jace.” Laressa said. It was true, when they grew up often they heard stories of those two. They were heroes, saving the Shadowhunters when they were almost destroyed and made evil by the Infernal Cup and Sebastian Morgenstern, Clarissa’s own brother, whom she killed herself. “How about my ancestors, Isabelle Sophia and Alexander Gideon Lightwood? They fought alongside, yet the Herondales get the most credit.” Her voice was bitter.

“Chill, Laressa. Nobody forgot about the Lightwoods, but the Blackthorns weren’t much help. Even Emma Carstairs helped.” Zachary said. Just then, something stirred within Chantelle.

“Why are we arguing about our ancestors’ popularity? I-- by the angel.” She said, her voice barely a whisper as she clutched at her head. Chantelle normally sat upright, legs crossed, and everyone assumed it was what dancers did, after all, Chantelle was to pursue the performing arts if it weren’t for the car crash, but now she had no concern for posture whatsoever. And the profanities that came out from her mouth, some were Chinese, some English, as her mother was Chinese, were understandable in any language—it meant pain.

“Channy?” Ares gently put her his hand on her back, concerned.

“By the angel, I have the worst headache ever.” She groaned as the pain overwhelmed her. But headaches weren’t as painful as this. This was like a bull eating the insides of your brain. Chantelle barely said vulgarities, (Ares said them so often it was enough to cover Chantelle’s share), but it was too much to bear.

“Give her an Iratze.” Instructed Zachary.

“I doubt Iratzes could heal this. Get help.” Ares replied, trying to soothe Chantelle. But the pain was subsiding. She rocked back and forth. Before the pain subsided though, she heard a voice. Like a creature entered her mind to warn her. In her mind, it said:

You won’t avoid Death. You weren’t supposed to live. Death is inevitable, Chantelle.