✓ | Curse Breaker ⋆ Julian Blackthorn [1]

THE BEFORE.

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THE BEFORE

❛fight because you don't know how to die quietly.❜

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Everybody dies eventually.

It was an unavoidable truth and Zoya had known it very well. Her parents had made sure to teach her that being a Shadowhunter required being prepared to face death each and every day, no matter which shape or form it took.

They told her that death didn't always disguise itself as a demon or a Downworlder. It didn't always come with a set of sharp, needle-like teeth or claws that threatened to carve a heart out of someone's chest.

No. Sometimes, death presented itself as a dear friend. Zoya had seen it with her very own eyes.

As every other war before it, The Dark War left nothing but tragedy and loss behind. It raged on, snatching away lives of Shadowhunters and Downworlders alike, as if they were the most beautiful of flowers in Heaven's garden. It spared neither the old nor the young generations, neither the innocents nor those who had their hands bloodied. Many prayers were spoken by the lips of those who relied on nothing but their own skills and weapons. Many prayers were spoken by the lips of those who were true believers, and yet - Gods and Angels seemed to overlook them, turning their backs as if the threatening, merciless chaos didn't concern them. Loved ones disappeared, the memories of them remaining only in the minds of those who cared enough about them. Only fragments of their brave souls and rich lives remained, hoping to give worthy testimony of who they once used to be.

When Dark War came, sailing slowly on the horizon, like a ten thousand tonnes of rusting metal that glimmered in the gentle rays of the setting sun - it rattled loudly, its engine exhaling a breath of bone-shivering danger. As if something was about to explode.

Zoya Caldwell was only thirteen when she first heard that terrifying sound. It crawled beneath her skin, danced on top of her fingertips, rang loudly in her ears, squeezed at her lungs and when she tried to warn her loved ones - they told her she was dreaming horribly. Because, what else were they supposed to tell a thirteen year old girl? That majority of the people she had met in her life were about to face deadly danger and lose their lives? That Sebastian Morgenstern and his followers were about to unleash Hell and all its cruelty upon them? Certainly not.

Ignore it, Zoya. Nightmares often plague our minds. Remember, Shadowhunters aren't allowed to rest, dear.

Zoya tried listening to her mother's words, for Ethel Caldwell was never wrong. She had tried thinking of the terrible ringing in her ears as nothing but bad dreams. But the thing about dreams was that they weren't supposed to follow you once you were awake. Most of them people weren't even supposed to remember.