Page 34 of A Sunwoven Ascent

Obren matched Holden stride for stride, and the three of them barreled toward—Alaric’s lodge. Evelyne blinked hard, disoriented by the choice.

“Where are you going?” she shouted after them.

“I told them to go there.”

The voice came from behind her.

Evelyne spun to see Lorena jogging toward them, wiping blood from her hands with a cloth, her face set in grim concentration.

Evelyne’s heart lurched. “Lorena—”

Lorena’s eyes flicked to Kaldrek’s limp form, to the dark smear down his throat.

“I don’t believe this is a wound I can heal,” she said firmly.

And Evelyne’s world dropped out from under her.

***

They stopped at Alaric’s lodge only long enough to call for Cillian, and Evelyne hated every second of it.

It felt reckless, cruel even, to pull her brother back toward magic when he had only just spent himself trying to help Alaric. Lorena called it instinct, a healer’s hunch shaped by old stories, tales her mother once told of Sunweavers who could heal and cleanse with light. But Cillian’s gift had come through prophecy, not legend. They had stories. No proof.

And still Cillian nodded, agreeing almost at once, as though he had not been on the verge of tearing himself apart not long before.

Evelyne seized his arm before anyone could move him. “Cillian,” she snapped under her breath, “are you out of your mind? You would have burned from the inside out if Kaldrek had not pulled you away.”

“I know,” Cillian said softly. “I understand why you’re afraid.”

Afraid did not come close to naming it.

Lorena had her bandages and healing instruments ready by the time Kaldrek was brought inside. She sent everyone out but Evelyne and Cillian. Holden, unsurprisingly, took up position outside the healer’s tent like a guard dog daring anyone to test him. Nathan went back to Alaric and Heidara, while the rest of the village shifted into motion. The packs were already gathering supplies and making ready to leave. Evelyne could not blame them. They had lingered too long as it was, and the Noskari now knew exactly where to come looking.

Evelyne paced the packed-earth floor, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. Her chest still ached with the bond’s echo, with the constant throb of Kaldrek’s pain.

“Explain it to me,” she demanded, stopping short before Lorena. “Why can’t you heal this?” The sharpness in her own voice startled her, though strain had been living in her blood for hours now. A poor excuse, and she knew it.

Lorena did not flinch. “I understand that you’re frightened, Evelyne,” she said evenly. “But the wound was torn open again.”

The healer began cleaning her hands.

“It was still mending from the other night,” Lorena went on. “You saw how much strain it took for his body to close it, even with shifter healing. Now he’s lost too much blood, and that weakness slows the rest. And this wound…” Her lips pressed tight. “It was made with purpose.”

Evelyne’s heart pounded. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying whoever did this knew exactly where to strike,” Lorena replied. “The same wound. The same fragile place. Only this time they cut deeper.” She hesitated, then continued more carefully. “I can stitch him. I can stop the bleeding. I can get him through the night and keep the pain at bay with tonics until his strength begins to return.”

Evelyne seized on those words at once.

“But,” Lorena said softly, and the word landed like steel, “I cannot do what follows.”

Evelyne’s throat closed tight. “Which is?”

Lorena’s voice eased. “I can’t search for blood magic, not the way it threads itself through flesh. If something slipped into him when the wound reopened, if even a trace took hold, then I need your brother to cleanse it. And I need that wound sealed properly, so we can leave here with our alpha whole.”

Evelyne closed her eyes and drew in a slow, shaking breath, fighting to keep herself from splintering apart in front of them. She could not watch another person she loved be swallowed by darkness. She could not cast her brother back into the fire after seeing what it had nearly done to him.

And yet, deep in her bones, the wolf in her whispered the same brutal truth.