I’d guessed it was related to incandescent, and was right, but it also recalls cadent, which gives it another feel.

Candent – glowing from or as if from great heat

Getting near the end now, only a few pages left of The Orchard Keeper:

“But that was all he heard, through the door now, running down the long hall toward the wide-flung outer doors where a breeze riffled the posters and notices on the wall and past them and again into the candent May noon.”