That was what I’d seen on Aglaia. I hadn’t said the word in front of Ada. I knew it for what it was immediately, because I’d been looking at pictures of it when researching the Alliance’s most up-to-date information via communicator. Sure, it looked like adamantine, but it felt different. Like it made the magic living under my skin even more intense. As Amanda had said: only magic-wielders could feel the difference between sources. And according to the notes I’d read, only lustre grew in those particular formations. There was a whole magic source right there, and the humans didn’t know anything about it. They’d never been that far onto the mainland, because the centaurs had been there before they’d even come to the continent, nigh on a thousand years before. Not a word from Markos had come through on the earpiece. It was possible he’d forgotten he was even wearing it–hell, I’d forgotten about the damn thing myself. And so had Ada. What a blasted mess. So that was why the centaurs were so uptight about humans impinging on their territory.
