Before Ellara opened her eyes—before she realized I’d done anything at all, and while Rade was distracted with whatever piece of technology he was currently obsessed with—I reached out and touched Ellara’s forehead for a second time.Just a light press. Barely more than a brush of my fingers right in the middle where the third eye was located.To anyone watching, it would have looked like nothing. A brother’s absent gesture. A moment of reassurance. I altered my breathing and applied probably the most advanced and delicate Arcanum I knew, though an incredibly subtle one. I looked around as I applied it, making sure that there was nothing outwardly noticeable or dramatic enough to draw attention.That was the point: to avoid pushing or imposing. Instead, I started by simply listening to the flow of mana. Her breathing was already close to the rhythm I wanted—quick on the inhale, uneven on the release, the way people breathed when they were excited but trying not to show it. I adjusted myself, slowed my own breath and flow, and let my presence settle until it gave her something steady to mirror, even if it was not conscious.Mana followed breath. It always did, though even I, who lived and breathed mana cultivation and development, wasn’t sure why it did that. I felt her mana trace familiar paths within her body, faint, untrained, and gunky, but still moving the way water moved when it found a weakness in its structure and couldn’t help its own nature.I pulled my hand away before she could notice. After a bit, Ellara blinked, her eyes opening as the noise of the Quad brought her back to the present.“Did you—” she started, then stopped, frowning slightly. “Huh.”“What?” I asked, already turning away.She took a breath, then another. Slower and more even this time.“I don’t know,” she said. “I just feel… different. Like I stopped holding on to something without realizing I was holding it.”Chimes (...)