Page 165 of A Sunwoven Ascent

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.