The northern forest closed around us in layers of pine and broken rock. We kept to the animal trails and the shadowed cuts between ridges where formation tracking from the air would be least effective. The pace was hard enough to matter and measured enough that Feng Lan's residual strain and the deep ache in my marked arm did not become immediate liabilities.
Seraphina reported the echo's coherence every quarter hour without being asked.
Six percent.
Seven.
Eight.
The increase was steady and quiet. The stripped residual signature that had attached during the administrative suppression was no longer only a passive recorder. Faint internal structures were forming inside it, the first thin scaffolding of independent will. It still lacked the power to act, yet the direction of the change was unmistakable.
Feng Lan felt each increment through the residual burn in her channels. She said nothing about the discomfort. She simply adjusted her breathing and kept moving.
