Page 78 of A Sunwoven Ascent

They were not done yet. There were many bodies to burn.

Chapter 36

He came for her. He found her. And she was alive. Holden was alive.

Only after arguing with Kaldrek and insisting she could tend to Evelyne’s wounds did Heidara finally kneel beside her, hands moving carefully over skin torn and bruised but already beginning to mend. The sight of those dark marks had nearly broken Kaldrek when Evelyne shifted back into her own body. The healing was slow, but it had begun. Her body was doing what it had always done: surviving. She needed water. Food. Warmth. She needed to scrub the putrid smell from her skin until the memory of those tunnels no longer seemed to cling to her.

But they had done it. She and Holden were getting out. All of them were. She would not let the pack leave the other prisoners behind. Around them, wolves moved through the chamber, dragging the Noskari into piles. Someone struck flint. Fire caught. Kaldrek’s voice carried over the noise as he ordered the bodies burned. No risks. No remains. It had to be done before anything else returned.

Flames spread across the fallen creatures, and the bloodroot veins along the tunnel shrank from the heat, slipping back into the walls like frightened things. Evelyne watched them withdraw with a grim satisfaction.

Perhaps only minutes had passed, though the moment felt stretched into something heavier than time. Prisoners stumbled past her in dazed clusters, murmuring quiet thanks as they went. One brushed her hand in gratitude. Another lowered his head. She made certain the others still chained in the farther tunnel were freed as well. Shifters, Kaldrek had said, every one of them. All grateful.

But where was Aurelia?

Evelyne looked around, and dread dropped hard into her chest. “Where is she?” she demanded, panic cutting through her exhaustion. “Where is my sister?”

“Holden and Alaric are with her,” Heidara answered calmly, catching Evelyne before she could fall. She wrapped an arm firmly around her waist. “Easy.”

“She’s all right,” Evelyne breathed, more to herself than anyone else.

“Yes,” Heidara said softly. “She is. And she has you to thank.”

“Take me to her. Please.”

Heidara adjusted her grip and guided her forward, Evelyne’s arm draped around her shoulders for support. Each step felt unsteady, her body weak from blood loss and shock.

Then she saw her.

Aurelia was being carried from the chamber where she had been held. Her once-pristine hair hung in tangled strands. Her limbs dangled limply at her sides, strength utterly spent. Her head rested against Holden’s bare chest as he carried her carefully, protective even in his exhaustion. He got them out, got her out. And for that, Evelyne would be eternally grateful.

“She’s alive, Ev. She’ll be all right,” Alaric said gently, stepping forward to steady Evelyne before she could sway again. “Holden nearly knocked me flat getting to her. Didn’t even slow down—just pushed me out of the way and took over.” A faint, almost disbelieving smile touched his mouth as he rubbed his shoulder. “I suppose I was in his path.”

The sight of them—Aurelia breathing, Holden standing, Alaric unhurt—shattered the last of Evelyne’s composure.

Relief hit her so hard it turned to sobs before she could stop them. She clung to Alaric as he guided her arm around his neck, and with Heidara steady at one side and him at the other, they helped her toward the tunnel’s exit.

***

The pack had grown quieter by the time they neared Velenshire.

Evelyne walked beside the sled in silence, one hand resting lightly against the wooden frame as it was pulled along the trail. Aurelia lay wrapped in thick wool and spare leathers, her body curled inward beneath the blanket. Someone had brushed the dirt from her hair. Someone had cleaned the dried blood from her skin. Now that she was no longer caked in the filth of the tunnels, the resemblance between them struck Evelyne harder than before.

She and Cillian had not left Aurelia’s side since they pulled her from the darkness. Evelyne stepped away only briefly to wash the blood and grime from her own skin, then returned at once. She was bone-tired, aching for sleep, but she refused it. Not yet.

At least the herbs Lorena had given Aurelia had finally done their work, drawing her into a deep, healing sleep. Her breathing was steady now, even and calm. And there was something else—something Evelyne had begun to notice in her sister. Her scent. Faint, almost smothered by woodsmoke and the sharp bitterness of crushed herbs, but unmistakable once she caught it.

Wolf.

She never spoke the thought aloud. She did not need to. She could feel it deep within herself, in the way Aurelia’s wounds knit faster than they should, in the swift return of color to her pale skin. Aurelia was a shifter.

Cillian had sensed it too.

The realization both comforted and unsettled her. How much had been hidden from them? How much had been buried beneath silk gowns, courtly grace, and noble expectations? Now her perfectly polished sister lay among wolves, wrapped in leather on a sled and hauled along a rough wilderness trail.

Evelyne brushed her fingers over Aurelia’s fair brow. “You are so very strong, sister,” she whispered, though Aurelia did not stir. “We are here. You are not alone.”

The others followed close behind them, including the prisoners they had freed from the tunnels. They might have fled the moment their chains were struck away, each vanishing into the woods without a backward glance. Yet they had not. Instead, they kept to Ironwolf’s path, quiet and watchful, but steadfast.