Arius's amber eyes gleaming gold—Elara was still caught on that moment. The subtle shift in the guardian's expression when she spoke her grandmother's name, "Evelyn Casta." That flicker of emotion—neither quite sorrow nor relief—that vanished before settling, a trace of feeling from one who had lived eight hundred years. (Grandmother knew that person. Absolutely.) There was no proof. But it was the only explanation that made logical sense. The Arathun-related thesis Evelyn had submitted to the Solenia Institute of Measurement forty-five years ago, only to have it rejected. Arius's reaction. Two points were beginning to connect in Elara's mind. The rock beneath her feet was solid. As they approached the base of the Servatura Range—the spine that ran north and south through the Eldorian continent—the path increasingly became one of quartz-veined bedrock. The air was thin and cold. The exhaustion from yesterday's trial—the terrain manipulation in the Hollow Hills and her first dialogu