Page 39 of A Sunwoven Ascent

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.”