Page 168 of The Golden Rose Of Valenul

“And that he did not have a choice when he took me—that your life was on the line, and he had done it to save you.” She kept her voice low. Though it had been Azriel who told her everything, it felt strange to be speaking of him in such a manner. She glanced at the door.

“He’s not eavesdropping.”

She froze and studied him. “How do you know?”

“It’s not what he does.” Madan shrugged and winced at the movement. “It’s never been in his nature.”

Interesting. So many people of the Society were prone to listening in on conversations they had no business in. Collecting half-truths and gossip provided an individual power to be used at their leisure. That Azriel did no such thing only highlighted how separated he was from it all.

“Keep going,” he said and went to gesture with his left hand before pausing at the sight of his amputated arm. He let it drop with a sigh.

Ariadne looked away again, cheeks flushing with heat. “I do not remember much else. I was so upset when he tried to explain, I left. It has been a blur ever since.”

“Let me tell you something about my brother.” Madan adjusted his seat again. “He’s notoriously hard-headed and difficult to convince of anything. I spent all last winter begging him to join me in Laeton as a personal guard for your family for one reason: I trusted him to protect you and Emillie more than anyone else in this world.”

Her heart stumbled, and she raised her eyebrows. “I know why now.”

Madan shook his head. “You aren’t hearing me. He told me no. He told me no a thousand times.”

“Why?” Ariadne’s eyes stung at the implication. She knew why—at least her heart did—but she did not want to admit it to herself.

“You.” He smiled grimly. “He and I were sent to Valenul almost a hundred years ago and ordered to become guards to get close to your father. It’d been a mission from the Crowe at first.”

She stilled but said nothing. So Madan had been a part of the terrors on Valenul, too. He, the brother and guard she trusted more than anyone, had sought to harm her in other ways—by taking her father from her.

“The Crowe called it off long before Ehrun ordered your abduction.” Madan swallowed hard. “He’d been speaking with Lord Governor Caldwell and making a plan for peace. Azriel and I were stationed at the Caldwell Estate to help facilitate the meetings. Garth Caldwell knew who we were the entire time.”

“Peace.” Now Ariadne gaped at him, scraping her memories for anything that would corroborate his story. “I have never heard of a potential peace treaty.”

“I believe Garth Caldwell, our grandfather, was poisoned with liquid sunshine before he could bring anything to the Council.”

She stilled, her heart picking up its pace. Who would have killed Garth to prevent the end of a war? She could only think of one individual who depended on the continuation of the raids and deaths, and he had once put an engagement necklace across her throat.

“Does Azriel know?” Ariadne looked to the door again.

“No.” Madan took her hand, drawing her attention back to him. “And you shouldn’t tell him, either. Not yet.”

She hesitated, then nodded. She had now witnessed what happened when Azriel got something into his head. He would not rest until he had razed everything in his path to discovering the cause. Even their marriage.

“As I was saying,” Madan continued, “neither Azriel nor his father wanted to hurt you, and it’s haunted him ever since.”

“He has hardly seemed haunted.” Ariadne gave him an exasperated look that shifted into grim understanding at the memory of him kneeling on the foyer floor, begging her to stay. “Until I left him, anyway.”

Madan let out a humorless chuckle. “He tried to hang himself not a month after freeing you.”

The world dropped out from under her—not as it had when she first saw her husband’s red eyes and fear had taken over, but as though a chasm of hopelessness opened up around her, swallowing her whole. Not for the first time, she could not help wondering what the world would be like without Azriel in it.

She sat back and stared into the darkness for a long moment, her mouth opening and closing several times. “But he had just saved you, too.”

“If you have not noticed,” he said, raising his brows, “a fae bond can be rather violent. Do you think that duel with Loren had been a mere matter of your honor?”

Ariadne bit her lip and said nothing. She had thought it to be precisely that and nothing more.

“It took everything in him not to kill the General outright.” Madan smiled sadly. “That anger and violence and hate aren’t reserved for others alone. He’s felt it for himself since the moment he went through with taking you.”

“I hate you more than you hate yourself,” she whispered and covered her mouth, that chasm growing with every new detail.

“Oh?”

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