The stele's tip carved its graceful lines across his pale skin. The completed Mark blazed bright, so bright Robert shut his eyes from the glare of it.
That was the last thing he remembered.
The last he remembered clearly, at least.
After that there was everything he'd tried so hard to forget.
There was pain.
There was the pain that seared through him like a lightning strike and the pain that ebbed and flowed like a tide. There was the pain in his body, lines of agony radiating from the Mark, burrowing from his flesh to his organs to his bones--and then, so much worse, there was the pain in his mind, or maybe it was his soul, an ineffable sensation of hurt, as if some creature had burrowed into the depths of his brain and gotten hungrier with the firing of every neuron and synapse. It hurt to think, it hurt to feel, it hurt to remember--but it felt necessary to do these things, because, even in the heart of this agony, some dim part of Robert stayed alert enough to know that if he didn't hang on, didn't feel the hurt, he would slip away forever.
Later he would use all these words and more to try to describe the pain, but none of them captured the experience. What had happened, what he had felt, that was beyond words.
There were other torments to endure, through that eternity he lay in bed, insensible to all around him, imprisoned by his Mark. There were visions. He saw demons, taunting and torturing him, and worse, he saw the faces of those he loved, telling him he was unworthy, telling him he was better off dead. He saw charred, barren plains and a wall of fire, the hell dimension awaiting him if he let his mind slip away, and so, through it all, somehow, he held on.
He lost all sense of himself and the world around him, lost his words and his name--but he held on. Until finally, one month later, the pain abated. The visions faded. Robert awoke.
He learned--once he'd recovered himself enough to understand and care--that he'd been semiconscious for several weeks while a battle had been raging around him, members of the Clave warring with his parents over his treatment as two Silent Brothers did their best to keep him alive. They had all wanted to strip him of the Mark, his parents told him, the Silent Brothers warning daily that this was the only way to ensure his survival and spare him further pain. Let him live out his life as a mundane: This was the conventional treatment for Shadowhunters who couldn't bear Marks.
"We couldn't let them do that to you," his mother told him.
"You're a Lightwood. You were born to this life," his father told him. "This life and no other."
What they didn't say, and didn't need to: We would rather see you dead than mundane.
Things were different between them, after that. Robert was grateful to his parents for believing in him--he too would rather be dead. But it changed something, knowing his parents' love for him had a limit. And something must have changed for them, too, discovering that a part of their son couldn't handle the Shadowhunter life, being forced to bear that shame.
Now Robert could no longer remember what his family had been like before the Mark. He remembered only the years since, the coldness that lived between them. They acted their parts: loving father, doting mother, dutiful son. But it was in their presence that Robert felt most alone.
He was, in those months spent recovering, frequently alone. The kids he'd thought of as his friends wanted nothing to do with him. When forced into his presence, they shied away, as if he were contagious.
There was nothing wrong with him, the Silent Brothers said. Having survived the ordeal with the Mark intact, there was no risk of future danger. His body had teetered on the edge of rejection, but his will had turned the tide. When the Silent Brothers examined him for the last time, one of them spoke somberly inside his head, with a message for Robert alone.
You will be tempted to think this ordeal marks you as weak. Instead, remember it as proof of your strength.
But Robert was twelve years old. His former friends were tracing themselves with runes, shipping off to the Academy, doing everything normal Shadowhunters were supposed to do--while Robert hid away in his bedroom, abandoned by his friends, cold-shouldered by his family, and afraid of his own stele. In the face of so much evidence for weakness, even a Silent Brother couldn't make him feel strong.
In this way, nearly a year passed, and Robert began to imagine this would be the shape of the rest of his life. He would be a Shadowhunter in name only; a Shadowhunter afraid of the Marks. Sometimes, in the dark of night, he wished his will hadn't been so strong, that he'd let himself be lost. It would have to be better than the life he'd returned to.
Then he met Michael Wayland, and everything changed.
They hadn't known each other very well, before. Michael was a strange kid, allowed to tag along with the others, but never quite accepted. He was prone to distraction and strange flights of fancy, pausing in the middle of a sparring session to consider where Sensors had come from, and who had thought to invent them.
Michael had shown up at the Lightwoods' manor one day asking if Robert might like to go for a horseback ride. They'd spent several hours galloping through the countryside, and once it was over, Michael said, "See you tomorrow," as if it were a foregone conclusion. He kept coming back. "Because you're interesting," Michael said, when Robert finally asked him why.
That was another thing about Michael. He always said exactly what was in his head, no matter how tactless or peculiar.
"My mother made me promise not to ask about what happened to you," he added.
"Why?"
"Because it would be rude. What do you think? Would it be rude?"
Robert shrugged. No one ever asked him about it or referred to it, not even his parents. It had never occurred to him to wonder why, or whether this was preferable. It was simply the way things were.
"I don't mind being rude," Michael said. "Will you tell me? What it was like?"
Strange, that it could be that simple. Strange, that Robert could be burning to tell someone without even realizing it. That all he needed was someone to ask. The floodgates opened. Robert talked and talked, and when he trailed off, afraid he was going too far, Michael would jump in with another question.
"Why do you think it happened to you?" Michael asked. "Do you think it was genetic? Or, like, some part of you just isn't meant to be a Shadowhunter?"
It was, of course, Robert's greatest, most secret fear--but to hear it tossed off so casually like this defused it of all its power.
"Maybe?" Robert said, and instead of shunning him, Michael's eyes lit up with a scientist's curiosity.
He grinned. "We should find out."
They made it their mission: They probed libraries, pored over ancient texts, asked questions that no adult wanted to hear. There was very little written record of Shadowhunters who'd experienced what Robert had--this kind of thing was meant to be a shameful family secret, never spoken of again. Not that Michael cared how many feathers he ruffled or which traditions he overturned. He wasn't particularly brave, but he seemed to have no fear.
Their mission failed. There was no rational explanation for why Robert had reacted so strongly to the Mark, but by the end of that year, it didn't matter. Michael had turned a nightmare into a puzzle--and had turned himself into Robert's best friend.
They performed the parabatai ritual before leaving for the Academy, swearing the oath without hesitation. By then they were fifteen years old, a physically unlikely pairing: Robert had finally hit his growth spurt, and loomed over his peers, his muscles thick, his shadow of a beard growing in thicker every day. Michael was slim and wiry, his unruly curls and dreamy expression making him look younger than his age.
"Entreat me not to leave thee,
Or return from following after thee--
For whither thou goest, I will go,
And where thou lodgest, I will lodge.
Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.
Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.
The Angel do so
to me, and more also,
If aught but death part thee and me."
Robert recited the words, but they were unnecessary. Their bond had been cemented the day he turned fourteen, when he finally got up the nerve to Mark himself again. Michael was the only one he told, and as he held the stele over his skin, it was Michael's steady gaze that gave him the courage to bear down.
Unthinkable that they had only one last year together before they'd be expected to part. Their parabatai bond would remain after the Academy, of course. They'd always be best friends; they'd always charge into battle side by side. But it wouldn't be the same. They'd each marry, move into houses of their own, refocus their attention and their love. They would always have a claim on each other's souls. But after next year, they would no longer be the most important person in each other's lives. This, Robert knew, was simply how life worked. This was growing up. He just couldn't imagine it, and he didn't want to.
As if listening in on Robert's thoughts, Michael echoed the question he'd dodged earlier. "What really is going on with you and Maryse?" he asked. "Do you think it's for real? Like, for good?"
There was no need to put on a show for Michael. "I don't know," he said honestly. "I don't even know what that would feel like. She's perfect for me. I love spending time with her, I love . . . you know, with her. But does that mean I love her? It should, but . . ."
"Something's missing?"
"Not between us, though," Robert said. "It's like there's something missing in me. I see how Stephen looks at Amatis, how Valentine looks at Jocelyn--"
"How Lucian looks at Jocelyn," Michael added with a wry grin. They both liked Lucian, despite his irritating tendency to act like Valentine's favor had given him insight beyond his years. But after all these years of watching him pine away for Jocelyn, it was hard to take him entirely seriously. The same went for Jocelyn, who somehow managed to remain oblivious. Robert didn't understand how you could be the center of someone's world without even realizing it.
"I don't know," he admitted, wondering if any girl would ever be the center of his world. "Sometimes I worry there's something wrong with me."