She closed her eyes.
And then—channeled.
Not fully. Not casting. But tracing. Matching the impression of Leonard's aura from earlier. The sharp, precise intent that had twisted space like a thread pulled taut. She rebuilt it as best she could from memory—constructing not the spell itself, but the emotional tone behind it. The pressure. The logic of the will that had been ready to strike.
It took her a few seconds.
And then she felt it.
A tremor.
Not in her hand.
Not in the air.
From him.
Astron's mana pulsed—not flared, not surged, but responded. In the tiniest possible way. Like a muscle twitching under a blade it had once known.
The tremor faded almost instantly.
It wasn't even a full second.
Just a pulse—small, contained, but undeniable. Like the slip of a heartbeat in a dead room. But to someone like Eleanor, whose senses had been sharpened by decades of combat, analysis, and high-tier regulation training, it was enough.
More than enough.
