Chapter 19
The witch’s shop was pleasantly warm, a quiet refuge from the chill still clinging to Cindermoor’s early-morning streets.
Though they had traveled farther south, autumn was beginning its slow claim, as if the north refused to loosen its grip entirely.
Cillian felt the change the moment he crossed the threshold.
Warmth stirred beneath his skin, not just the heat of shifter blood, but the softer glow that now lived in his chest.
His body was still learning its new balance, and at times that balance felt fragile.
Still, he was grateful beyond words to feel like himself again.
Free of demons. Free of blood witches. Free of anyone else’s control.
Whenever he let himself think how much worse it might have been, unease softened into relief.
Holden, at least, had continued to help, explaining wolf instincts and heightened senses, even offering hunting advice Cillian knew he would never use.
For all Holden’s rough edges and stubborn manner, there was an unexpected kindness in him, and his dry humor still managed to pull laughter from Cillian when he least expected it.
Perhaps this strange season of companionship was exactly what he needed.
Cillian had always preferred the edges of rooms, content to observe rather than join in.
Maybe that was why Holden tolerated him so well.
Because Cillian listened. Or perhaps, more simply, Holden had come to see him as a friend.
Either way, Cillian took comfort in the presence of those willing to stand guard over him and his sister.
Even Alaric, in his own complicated way.
“Hello. You must be Cillian.”
The woman spoke from a table set at the center of the shop, her voice gentle and welcoming.
She was strikingly beautiful, he thought, with dark curls cascading loosely about her shoulders and a smile that seemed to reach him before her gaze did.
Candlelight caught on her features, lending her an almost otherworldly ease as she looked between Cillian and Kaldrek near the door.
Kaldrek had insisted they come early, before the market came to life, explaining that Selene favored the quiet of morning and would be more inclined to help them.
Cillian had not objected to the alpha’s presence, though he had wondered at the reason for it.
Perhaps he simply had no appetite for further surprises.
Cillian did not mind. He missed the certainty of his library at home, the old comfort of knowing that answers existed somewhere if one only searched hard enough.
Yet Sunweavers had vanished from both memory and text.
Whatever he was becoming, knowledge had not kept pace.
“Yes, miss,” Cillian said, offering a small, instinctive bow before he could stop himself. “Good morning. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
A light laugh escaped her. “There is no need for all that formality. I have no title and no grand estate to my name. I am merely a witch.”
Right.
“Come,” Selene said, gesturing to the table. “Sit down, both of you, and make yourselves comfortable before we begin.”
Kaldrek moved first, drawing out a chair before turning and nodding toward the seat beside him. Cillian obeyed, settling in as the steady glow of candlelight surrounded them from shelves and tabletops alike. It is safe here, he told himself. And for the moment, he believed it.
Selene folded her hands atop the table. “Kaldrek told me what happened last night,” she said gently. “What was done to you, and what now stirs within you. He spoke of the light you carry, and of its power to draw out blood magic once it has sunk too deeply into the soul.”
Her gaze met Cillian’s, steady and searching, more intent on understanding than judgment.
“He also told me why you came. About the prophecy. And about Alaric.”
Cillian’s throat tightened, though he gave a small nod. There was no point in pretending otherwise. “He said you might help me understand it,” he replied quietly. “Or at least teach me enough that I do not do more harm than good.”
Selene inclined her head. “We have little time, and I will not pretend otherwise. Whatever training I can offer will be brief. But guidance,” she added, her voice softening, “may still make all the difference.” She leaned back slightly.
“Tell me how it feels, Cillian. Not what you think it ought to feel like. What does the magic feel like when it moves through you?”
He considered that carefully. “It’s… warm,” he said at last. “Like a glow beneath my skin. Constant, even when I try to ignore it. But if I wait too long to release it, it begins to hurt, as though it’s pressing outward and demanding to be used.
” He glanced briefly toward Kaldrek. “When I healed him, it felt right. Pure. It did not hurt me at all. In fact, I felt calmer afterward, as though the magic had been used exactly as it was meant to be.”
Selene’s lips curved in quiet approval, though she said nothing.
“But when I tried to cleanse Alaric,” Cillian said, his voice drawing taut, “it burned from the inside out, just as it did when I weakened Vaelora. It felt as though I was pushing it beyond what it could yet sustain.” He exhaled slowly.
“I understand that this is tied to the Great Rite. That whatever was awakened in me is meant to help cleanse the world of darkness. But I am only one person. I don’t know how to wield this power, let alone control it.
I don’t know how I’m meant to do what the prophecy demands. ”
“Prophecies rarely concern themselves with comfort,” Selene said softly. “More often, they are simply misunderstood. They do not demand that you become everything all at once.”
Before she could say more, Kaldrek spoke. “Lorena mentioned something. She spoke of people once called Sunweavers, bearers of light who lived in communion with the land itself.”
At the name, Selene went still. Recognition lit her eyes, bright and sudden as struck flint, and then she smiled. Not with amusement, but with something nearer to relief.
“Sunweavers,” she murmured. “Yes. That would make sense.”
Cillian straightened instinctively.
“There are only fragments,” Selene said.
“Witches in the southern territories have always behaved as though whatever power lies behind their borders belongs to them alone, as though no one beyond those lands could possibly feel it. But we do feel it. We always have. After our last encounter, I spent time searching through what records my coven keeps, comparing old accounts, following stories most would dismiss as half myth.”
She folded her hands more tightly on the table.
“What I found was this: centuries ago, during the earliest fractures among the covens, a group called the Solgrove Kin left the southern territories.
They did not leave empty-handed. They took with them a single cutting from their mother tree, the Solwyn Tree.
It is said they sailed south, beyond familiar shores, and planted it in secret. "
She closed her eyes as though searching for the memory. When she opened them again, she continued.
"In the sunlit soil of the Southern Isles, that cutting took root. It did not become the Solwyn as it once was, but something akin to it. Beautiful in its own right. Still bound to the old magic, though spared the same burden of decay. They named their land the Vale, and the tree they raised there became the heart of it, their guide in a new world.”
Her gaze drifted, as if following the shape of some old map only she could see.
“The grove they built around it was sacred, a haven where light magic ran strong. Its roots were said to be threaded with celestial power, and the stones encircling it bore ancient inlays, each one placed by hands long gone to honor the balance they meant to preserve.”
Selene shook her head faintly. “I cannot tell you with certainty what became of the Sunweavers. Only that the rumors endured. Light-bringers who survived while the covens of the south faltered. Who carried on through a sister tree. Not as powerful as the Solwyn must once have been,” she added, meeting Cillian’s gaze, “but stable. Still tied to the old world despite the sea between them. It allowed the Solgrove Kin to remain tethered to both earth and light. A sanctuary, in an age when such places were vanishing.”
Silence settled over the table.
“If answers remain,” Selene said at last, “they will be found where the light was allowed to survive. Where it began.”
Kaldrek’s expression tightened in thought. “You believe his magic mirrors that of the Sunweavers. That their power came directly from the Solwyn Tree.”
“I know little of what they were,” Selene replied, “but the magic Cillian describes bears the same purpose. As for the tree, I cannot say whether any power remains within it, or whether it gave itself wholly to the one soul capable of carrying the prophecy.”
Her gaze came to rest on Cillian.
“Yours."
“But why me?” The question slipped free before he could stop it.
Selene looked at him with quiet sympathy. “Why anyone? Why light, or darkness, or fate? Those answers I do not have. But I do not think your bloodline was chosen by chance. If memory serves, only certain kin were ever able to contain such magic. Those descended from a line touched by light.”
Cillian frowned. “But the Duskwood bloodline comes from wolves.”
“Yes,” Selene said.
Kaldrek’s gaze sharpened. “And your mother’s line?”
Cillian opened his mouth, then faltered.
He had not thought of that. Not truly. It felt as though every certainty he once held about himself had been stripped away, layer by layer, revealing nothing but unanswered questions.
His mother’s family had always been ordinary. Unremarkable.
Quiet.
Hadn’t they?
There had been his great-aunt. The one his mother said had gone mad.
The memory stirred uncomfortably. He recalled the whispered reassurances when his own hallucinations first began.
Madness runs in families, his mother had said.
She suffered too. Yet no one had ever spoken of what plagued her.
Only that she dreamed too vividly. Of the sea and the wind.
Of stars that called to her in the night, and a humming beneath the earth that never let her rest.
She was always lost, his grandmother had once murmured. Out there.
Cillian shook his head, as though he might dislodge the thought entirely. “I don’t know,” he admitted at last. “I feel as though I know nothing anymore.”
“I should speak with Evelyne,” Selene said thoughtfully. “She may recall details you do not.”
Selene turned her attention back to Cillian. “May I see your hand?”
He hesitated only a moment before extending it. She took his palm gently, turning it upward, her touch warm as she traced slow, circular patterns against his skin.
“Close your eyes,” she instructed softly. “Reach for it.”
He understood at once. He searched for the faint fracture of light within him, the place where it always waited. At the slightest tug, it answered. The glow rose from his chest, coursing down his arm, pooling into his palm with growing intensity.
Selene continued her soothing motion, grounding him. “Let it gather and take form. I want you to see it.”
Cillian kept his eyes closed, focusing only on the sensation in his hand, careful not to allow the magic to awaken the instinct to shift that lurked beneath his thoughts.
“Open your eyes,” Selene said.
He did.
Light shimmered above his palm, curling in soft wisps before condensing into a brilliant, fiery sphere. A small sun burning radiantly.
Kaldrek exhaled under his breath. “Shit…”
“Look at me,” Selene said calmly. “Breathe. Focus on the purity of it. This magic is good.”
Good. Yes, the word resonated deeply within him. Healing. Purpose.
Selene slowly withdrew her hand.
The moment her touch left him, his concentration splintered. Light flared, illuminating the shop before collapsing back into his body in a rush that knocked the air from his lungs. He gasped, clutching at his chest as the force reverberated through him.
Kaldrek was on his feet instantly, steadying him with a firm hand on his shoulder.
Once Cillian’s breathing had settled, Selene said, “This will take practice. Everything you are feeling is new. I have had years to learn control. You have only had days.” She paused. “Yes. Much practice.”
“We do not have the luxury of time,” Kaldrek said flatly. “Alaric is drowning in Vaelora’s blood magic, and Cillian is our only hope.”
“I can do it,” Cillian said, lifting his head.
“I am not questioning your resolve,” Kaldrek replied. “I am questioning the risk. You are not ready.”
“I will learn control. I only lost focus for a moment.”
“No,” Kaldrek said firmly. “I will not allow you to destroy yourself.”
“Bring Alaric here tonight,” Selene said, her voice cutting through the tension with quiet authority. “Cillian will remain with me today. We will work in intervals, and I will assess his condition before any new attempt is made.”
Cillian nodded at once. “I will stay. Thank you.”
Tension worked through Kaldrek’s face as he considered. “If he is too weak, he will not touch Alaric.”
“You have my word,” Selene said evenly. “I will be honest with you.”
No more was said. Kaldrek departed, leaving Cillian alone across the table from the witch, candlelight flickering around them.