Page 107 of The Golden Rose Of Valenul

Azriel’s chest swelled at the sight of Ariadne. Her ivory dress cut in at her waist with an intricate corset before flowing out at her hips. The silky fabric shone beneath a layer of tulle, stitched with delicate gold roses and inlaid with crystals, that stretched up to her shoulders and swept down her arms where it came together with small, golden buttons at her wrist. Her dark hair parted down the middle and twisted back from her face with strands of gold ribbon. Loose curls flowed down her back, half-hidden beneath the thin veil still obscuring her face.

So lost in his search for her eyes, Azriel almost missed when the High Priestess asked, “To whom is it given?”

His lips moved without words at first. He closed his eyes and shook his head before repeating, “Azriel Caldwell. I shall be its keeper.”

“Rise,” the High Priestess said, “and take your places before me.”

Azriel held out his arm level to the ground, and Ariadne laid hers on top. He silently thanked Alek for his explicit instructions. Though it had seemed foolish at the time to practice with the Lord Governor, it helped tremendously. Without his guidance, he’d have made a fool of himself before the most prominent figures of the Society.

Together, Azriel and Ariadne made their way up the steps to stand before the High Priestess. Between them sat a column of obsidian with a bowl carved into the top. Another piece of the puzzle Alek had been kind enough to impart on him so he wouldn’t be caught unawares.

“Since the construction of our world,” the High Priestess began, “the union of two people has been the marking of new life.”

Ariadne tensed, her fingers gripping his a little harder. He turned his hand over and squeezed hers once. She pulled in a steady breath, released it, and squeezed back again.

“As we stand within the Temple of Keon,” the High Priestess continued and pulled from a satchel at her waist a short knife, “it is pertinent to remember the teachings of the God of the Underworld. Of all those who reside amongst the celestial, it is he who understands the importance of such unions, for it is he who intertwined with a mortal soul.”

Keon’s human wife, Anwen, had been born enslaved in the southern plains and drew the attention of the God of the Underworld through her beautiful songs begging for freedom. When at last he’d answered her call, he fell to his knees at her feet and promised her the world and a throne at his side in the darkest depths of the celestial realm.

Yet when Keon brought her to his kingdom after their marriage, she suffered. Mortals, after all, could not live where the dead roamed. So he constructed her a palace at the northernmost reaches of Myridia and created dhemons in his own image to be her protectors.

As the God of the Underworld, he could visit Anwen a mere once a year. He freed her family and friends and delivered them to her in her palace so she would want for naught. Gifts and feasts and prosperity rained upon Anwen, Mortal Queen of the Underworld, and she worshiped her husband with the same love and devotion he showed her.

Year after year, however, he failed to find the cure to her mortality. So year after year, her beauty gave in to age, and her voice chipped away. Her face took on lines, and her hair shone with silver, yet Keon’s heart never wavered. He still fell to his knees at her feet, even when she struggled to stand for him.

Until one year, he arrived at an empty palace. Only a letter remained detailing Anwen’s death and burial.

Keon hadn’t known. He couldn’t have. Anwen’s pure soul rose to the heavens of Empyrean, where his sister, Sora, ruled. As the King of the Underworld, he’d long been barred from the golden gates.

Keon never saw Anwen again.

The god’s agony caused a devastating earthquake. It rippled through the north, and from it sprung a semicircle mountain range and, at its heart, the Keonis Valley. The shape, curling like horns to point to the long-lost ruins of Anwen’s palace, became the symbol of Keon. In recent depictions of this symbol, the crescent shape rested above three simple lines to mark Keon’s descent into the third and deepest level of the Underworld so he might never be tempted to love a mortal again.

So when the High Priestess raised the knife, Azriel knew what came next. The union between Keon and Anwen centered around the sharing of blood—something vampires revered as much as the gods. It was, in part, why the Caersans coveted the blood of their women. With their roots as human mages from the plains, they believed themselves to be from the same line as Anwen.

“Devotion,” the High Priestess said, dragging Azriel’s attention back to the ceremony before him. He gave a start when he found her dark, milky eyes searing into him. “Love. Protection. These are the values passed from the Father to the Mother.”

Keon and Anwen.

“Devotion. Love. Worship.” She looked to Ariadne. “These are the values passed from the Mother to the Father. Each upholds their three pillars throughout their union and, with the blood shared, swears to do so beyond their final parting.”

Indeed, for after Keon and Anwen shared their blood during their wedding ceremony, it kept them connected beyond the limits of death. So even when Keon hid away in his dark kingdom, he carried with him a drop of his love to cherish for eternity.

The bond in Azriel screamed for the same. It demanded to be satiated by ensuring he, too, held even a minute piece of Ariadne.

And the little control he held on the bond slipped further and further from his grasp the longer the High Priestess spoke. On and on, she droned about marriage and their positions within the union. One as the leader, the other as subservient. For someone meant to be wise, she certainly didn’t grasp the concept of equality of a couple. He wouldn’t stand for anything less between him and Ariadne.

“Your hand.” It wasn’t a request, and when Ariadne didn’t react fast enough, the High Priestess snatched up her arm.

He bit back a low growl. All part of the ceremony. No need to be so protective. Yet.

Still, when the knife scored Ariadne’s palm and she hissed from the pain, Azriel wanted nothing more than to rip the knife away and stab it through the High Priestess’s eye. Then the scent of her blood reached his nostrils, and his brain switched from defensive to desperate. He needed it.

“Repeat after me.” The High Priestess squeezed Ariadne’s hand so a steady stream of crimson dripped into the obsidian basin. “With this blood…”

“With this blood…” Ariadne repeated in a quiet voice.

“I give unto thee…”

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