Chapter 66
Cillian entered the grove with the Sunweavers behind him.
There were more of them than he had expected.
Far more. He had imagined a handful of figures stepping from the ships, perhaps a small remnant of a forgotten people answering the tree’s call for help.
Instead, they had come in numbers and in silence, their gold light moving through the dark like dawn held beneath skin.
They had barely spoken when they met him and Alia at the docks.
They had not needed to. The moment their feet touched soil, Cillian had known where to lead them.
To the grove.
The Solwyn Tree still stood tall, and the witches of Velenshire formed a living ring around it.
Charise and her coven stood nearest the roots, their voices woven together in a low, steady chant that seemed to bind the air itself.
Around them, other covens held the outer line.
Some knelt with their palms pressed to the soil.
Others stood with powders or flame cupped between their hands.
They were not merely casting. They were holding something in place.
A barrier.
Cillian could see it now, a thin shimmer surrounding the Solwyn Tree, bending the darkness back each time it pressed too close.
The witches nearest the trunk fed the spell with everything they had, their faces pale with strain, while those around them fought off anything that tried to break through.
Noskari slipped between the trees in flashes of gray skin and black mist, but the covens met them with fire, water, and stone.
Still, the witches were tiring.
Cillian felt it with every step closer to the tree. The barrier held, but only just. And the Noskari knew it too. They did not throw themselves blindly against the spell. They tested it, again and again, waiting for the smallest weakness to open.
If Kaldrek reached the tree, if that thing inside him sank its claws into the Solwyn’s power once more, he would not stop.
He would drain the source dry.
The Sunweavers filtered into the grove without command, as though each already knew where they belonged.
Some moved to the Solwyn Tree and knelt beside the witches, pressing glowing hands to the roots and soil.
One by one, they greeted the ancient source, receiving the light she offered before slipping back into the night and spreading across the fields.
Cillian watched as they knelt and drove their hands into the dirt.
Golden light poured from their palms, threading through the grove, the grass, and the battlefield until every patch of land touched by the Noskari began to glow beneath their feet.
The witches’ chant changed. It grew louder and stronger, as though the Sunweavers’ arrival had given them something more than power.
Purpose. Hope. Charise looked up, her eyes widening as the remaining kin joined the spell, their light sinking into the ancient pulse of the Solwyn Tree.
The barrier brightened at once, burning so fiercely that the nearest shadows recoiled.
And across the field, the Noskari began to falter.
Cillian stood at the edge of it all, watching people he had only just begun to understand return to their mother, to the home they’d hadn’t seen in centuries, to save her. Yet, even as the Noskari fell and the land began to heal, one thing remained untouched.
Kaldrek.
Cillian lifted his head, his gaze finding the massive white wolf across the battlefield.
Kaldrek stood amid the ruin, the cleansing light tearing through the Noskari around him while leaving him unchanged.
Whatever had taken root inside him was too deeply buried for the light beneath the soil to reach.
It would take more than the witches. More than the gathered packs.
Perhaps even more than the Sunweavers could offer from afar.
But perhaps not more than someone like him.
Another hybrid.
The thought should have terrified Cillian. Once, it might have. Now it settled in him as though some part of him had always known this moment would come.
He exhaled slowly. “You must protect,” he murmured to himself. “You must cleanse.”
He could do this.
Then he shifted.
The transformation came clean and fast, his body expanding, strengthening, light blooming beneath his fur as though it had been waiting there all along. The world sharpened around him. Every sound, every movement, every breath of the battle snapped into focus as he stepped into the field.
Kaldrek saw him, and for one suspended moment, their eyes met across the battlefield. Darkness against light.
Then they moved.
They collided with enough force to shake the ground beneath them.
Claws struck. Teeth snapped. Their bodies slammed together, sending a shockwave through the field.
Kaldrek was stronger now, faster and heavier, driven by raw, unrestrained power.
One claw raked across Cillian’s side, tearing deep, and pain flared through his ribs, but Cillian refused to yield to it.
He held his ground, forcing himself to stay steady as the light rose inside him without consuming him.
That was the difference between them. Kaldrek fought with reckless power. Cillian fought with purpose.
You must protect. You must cleanse.
Kaldrek lunged again, and Cillian met him head-on.
He was not looking for a killing strike.
He was waiting for the one opening that might end this and avoid ending Kaldrek with it.
Each blow battered his ribs and drove pain deeper through him, but Cillian held fast, watching, enduring, searching for the single chance to reach Kaldrek’s neck and hold him still long enough for the light to take root.
That chance might kill him. It likely would if Kaldrek broke free before the light did its work. But there was no other way.
Another strike slammed into Cillian’s skull, hard enough to rattle his teeth and blur the world around him. He stumbled low, stepping back as he fought to clear his vision. Kaldrek bared his teeth, a vicious snarl tearing from him as if he believed Cillian was retreating.
He was not.
Instead, Cillian let his power rise within him, then shifted sideways, forcing his focus through the pain, angling himself carefully. One more step. One more breath. Then he saw it.
He drove forward and locked his jaws around Kaldrek’s neck, holding him in place as light surged through him in a blinding wave. It poured outward like a flood, forcing its way into Kaldrek, into the darkness clinging to him, into every stolen piece of him.
Kaldrek roared as Cillian held on, letting the light burn through the both of them.
Heat spread through his body, the same unbearable intensity he had felt when he faced Vaelora, when the light had nearly consumed him entirely.
His muscles trembled. His breath faltered. Still, he did not release him.
Focus, Cillian. Just breathe.
Just a little more.
He was not here to destroy.
He was here to bring Kaldrek back.
Black vapor tore free from Kaldrek’s body, spilling into the air and unraveling beneath the force of Cillian’s light.
The shadows dissolved around them, but Cillian did not let go.
Not yet. Kaldrek thrashed against him, every violent movement dragging pain through Cillian’s body, but he held on a little longer.
Long enough for his kin to gather. Long enough for the light to take hold.
Only when he felt them close did Cillian release his grip on Kaldrek’s throat.
They collapsed together, both bodies crashing into the earth, exhaustion dragging Cillian under almost at once.
The world dimmed at the edges. Sound faded.
He did not know if it had worked. He did not know if it had been enough.
But it had to be.
His eyes began to close, then flew open as a sphere of light bloomed above them, spilling brilliance across the field.
Kaldrek’s scream tore through the air as the Sunweavers surrounded his fallen body, pressing their hands to him and to the ground around him.
Their magic gathered into something greater than any one of them could have summoned alone, building brighter and brighter until the entire battlefield disappeared inside it.
Then it burst. And silence fell.
For one impossible moment, it was as if the sun itself had broken open over the field, but the light did not burn.
It healed. It swept over the wounded and pulled the darkness from those the Noskari had begun to turn, tearing black shadow from their bodies before it could take root.
The others, the ones too far gone, crumbled beneath it, their forms breaking into ash and scattering into the wind as though they had never existed at all.
When the light finally faded, Kaldrek lay still beside him, naked and human once more. But alive. And when his eyes opened, they were his true color.