Red eyes swept over her, studying every inch, yet despite the strangeness of it all, Ariadne felt nothing but calm. Azazel took a step forward. Ariadne held her ground, staring back in awe at what she witnessed.
The dhemon’s lips moved, yet Ariadne heard nothing. He reached out a dark blue hand, not to her, but to the empty space beside him. Slender, pale white fingers wove between his and from them formed the arm, the body, and the face of a woman that Ariadne had only ever seen in paintings, her belly swollen from a second pregnancy. She wore a white gown worthy of the Society, embroidered with roses of shining gold.
Mariana Caldwell curled herself close to Azazel, clinging to his arm as she smiled at Ariadne before gazing up at the dhemon with the same expression Azriel gave Ariadne. Again, her mouth moved, and no sound made its way through the still air.
“Where am I?” Ariadne asked, then snapped her mouth shut when her own voice failed to create an impact.
A flicker of movement had her pivoting toward the motion just to find herself face-to-face with Alek Nightingale. Except it was not the Alek she knew from her childhood, nor the LordGovernor who had kept Emillie safe. Though his face was the same, it held the same blue hue as every other dhemon, his black horns curving back behind his rounded ears. His ruby gaze lit like a fire as he grinned down at her before a figure formed beside him, just as Mariana had with Azazel, in the same white and gold rose dress.
This time, it was a Caersan woman Ariadne could hardly recall. Her face was familiar not from having met, but from an article in the papers describing the death of a Season’s Golden Rose. Thick brown curls were braided back from her face, her pretty blue eyes shimmering with wonder as she looked at Ariadne before clutching at Alek’s shirt.
What was the name Emillie had said he uttered in his last moments?
Vi.
Viana Threshir.
“Gods,” Ariadne breathed, though the word never made sound.
Close behind Alek, another woman appeared. This one had the same hooded eyes as him, her shining black hair pulled into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Again, Ariadne had seen her only once before: in a portrait lining the foyer of the Nightingale Estate in Waer Province. Like the others, she wore a white gown with roses of gold. A blue hand rested on her shoulder, prompting her to turn her attention up to the dhemon who appeared there—a man Ariadne had never seen, but he gazed down at the Caersan with such devotion, their love was obvious.
One by one, a dhemon appeared alongside a past Golden Rose. While the white and gold remained, each Caersan’s dress changed to reflect their Season’s style. High waists traded for tight corsets and wide skirts. Yet each leaned into their respective dhemon—men and women alike—as though theywere the very foundation to their existence in whatever realm in which Ariadne had found herself.
Turning, she took them all in as the understanding grew: Keon had never abandoned Myridia. He had tried time and time again to end the war and bring peace to the Valley. When the high priestesses of Laeton’s temple claimed that each of them had been chosen by Keon himself, Ariadne had a difficult time believing it to be anything but a madwoman’s false claim. After all, what god would chooseherto be the symbol of the Season?
As it turned out…Keon had done so every single year. Each and every Golden Rose was, in fact, chosen by the god. They merely never found peace with their dhemon companion. At least not until death, it seemed.
Then a dhemon woman swept into view before Ariadne, an infant in a plain dress with tiny specks for horns balanced carefully on her hip. The woman swept her gaze over Ariadne slowly, her eyes snagging on the lone scar of Keon’s symbol. A sadness crept across her face, and she took a step closer to press her fingertips to where Ehrun had pressed the branding iron against the skin.
Ariadne’s heart ached as she felt the woman’s longing for her husband, still alive and yet so broken.
“Rhana.” Once again, no sound came from Ariadne’s lips, and yet the woman smiled sadly at her. Ariadne looked at the baby—so small and fragile and precious. How could anyone have been so cruel? Her own father… Gods, she could not think on it. “Thavii.”
A blue hand formed like mist on Rhana’s shoulder, creeping up a scarred arm with rolled sleeves to bloom out across a chest up to a face that took the ache in Ariadne’s heart and broke it into a thousand pieces.
Three long scars stretched down Kall’s tattooed face, twisting his upper lip even as his mouth stretched into a wide smile. Hisred eyes shone with silver, and he reached past his brother’s wife to cup Ariadne’s face. For that long moment, she felt the weight of his touch, the warmth of his skin, and the pure elation at all she had accomplished to reach this point. Behind him, the stunning pale green scales of Bindhe shifted, bringing her closer to them both.
“Kall, I’m so sorry,” Ariadne croaked as tears slipped free of her burning eyes. “I miss you so much. I wish I had told you before just how much you mean to me… I love you.”
Warmth akin to a hug spread out from Kall’s palm. His eyes glistened, and this time when he opened his mouth to speak, his voice—the voice she had begun to forget—was the only one she could hear: “Sabharni,ydhom.”
The next heartbeat, Ariadne stood before Azriel once more. His peridot eyes scanned her face with the same devotion as before. Had he not seen them? Why wouldshebe granted the vision of the Underworld and not the one with dhemon blood?
But the answer tickled the back of her mind, like a thought not placed there by her own will: he already knew all of it in his heart. It was the job of the vampires to learn the truth of the world and spread the knowledge of Keon’s work within their very own sacred rituals. Rituals she now understood were taken from the dhemons upon their colonization of the land.
“We should move,” Azriel whispered, “so the next person can be seen to.”
Ariadne nodded, still reeling from having seen her friends and their families, who had all been entangled in the web woven by a god desperately trying to save his fae children. Something told her that every one of those ancient spirits that waited so long in the Underworld to see the dhemons reunited was now free. Free to move on. Free to rest. Free to do as they pleased with their own afterlife.
Hand-in-hand, they moved to the edge of the crowd, allowing the next flow of dhemons to move in and receive their tattoos. When they had separated themselves just enough to watch the ritual continue, Azriel cursed under his breath at the same moment a wave of heady need washed through Ariadne, heating her core in an instant.
“Is this part of the bond?” She grinned up at him. “A constant need to have you?”
Azriel’s eyes burned hot. “Insatiable, isn’t it? Now you understand my…needs.” Then he winced and screwed his face up in concentration.
Her breath caught, and she pivoted to face him, aching for him to touch her no less. “Are you alright?”
“Perhaps we should have had all dhemons practice for the ritual,” Azriel hissed through his teeth. “I think I know what emotion I control.”
