Page 141 of A Sunwoven Ascent

Lumira. The name meant nothing to him.

Alia looked at him carefully. “Do you understand what I am saying, Cillian?”

Did he? Was she saying he was not only a Duskwood wolf shifter, but also tied to an ancient Sunweaver bloodline?

“Yes,” he said slowly. “Though I do not understand how it passed only to me. Why me?”

“I imagine others in your family carried it before you,” Alia said. “Perhaps they simply seemed… different.”

Cillian thought of the stories his mother used to tell about her sister, the one everyone claimed had gone mad. She had spoken of things no one else could understand, and the family had kept its distance until she became little more than a warning whispered behind closed doors.

She had hanged herself for it.

“You may never have known either,” Alia said gently, “if you had not been tied to a prophecy.”

She was right. He might never have known what slept beneath his skin, what had lain dormant in his family for generations.

“What of my sisters?”

Alia shook her head. “I do not sense it in them. I asked the mother, and she does not recognize them as her kin.”

Of course. Of course he would be different from everyone, even his own family. He had known he was more than a wolf, known he could wield magic, but he had thought it came from the prophecy alone. Now it seemed he had belonged to the Solwyn bloodline all along. An ancient one. And apparently, he had not been brought here only to weaken Vaelora through wolf blood and prophetic light. The tree had chosen him for two paths.

Protect.

Cleanse.

The most impossibly vague instructions he had ever received.

“I do not know how to feel about any of this,” he admitted. “But I am grateful for you. For your kindness.”

Cillian reached for her hand, and this time the touch felt more intimate. Alia looked down at their joined fingers, but she did not pull away. He heard the flutter in her chest and found the courage to admit what had been haunting him.

“I am afraid,” he said. “Of what is coming. Of not knowing when it will happen. Of not being ready.”

Alia’s gaze warmed. “You are not meant to know when.”

“I do think they are weaker,” Cillian said suddenly. “The Noskari. They are not what they were when Vaelora ruled. Now they seem to attack only to feed, then vanish again.”

“Yes,” Alia said. “They have lost their anchor.”

“Anchor?”

“Blood magic is not natural. It was never meant to be used. Vaelora was their source when she created them, the power that bound them and fed them.” Alia shook her head. “Her creatures will not simply die because she is gone, but they will weaken and they know it.”

“So we must protect this grove,” Cillian said.

Alia shook her head. “No. Not the tree.”

Confusion pulled at Cillian. If the Noskari needed an anchor, surely the Solwyn Tree would have been the strongest source.

“They must anchor themselves to a soul,” Alia said quietly. “A powerful one.”

The wind stirred the leaves above them, and both rose to their feet. It was time to leave, but Alia caught his hand before he could move.

“The night you found me here, I was warning the tree,” she said. “Vera told me it was time. That you would come soon.”

“What can it do?”