Chapter 332: Recovery Stone
They walked east for two days.
The terrain dropped slowly from the twin-seam ground at Zone Eight into older country — flatter, quieter, the stone further down. Kai felt the eight zones behind him the whole way. He did not have to look for them. Since the Ridge Light Gene had settled, the awareness sat under everything, a steady map of where each chained zone drew its energy and how strong each draw ran.
He read it the way his father had once read a road. Not checking. Just knowing the shape of what was there.
The eight signals held steady behind him. Ahead, at the edge of the map, something small and quiet waited.
They made camp the first night in low scrub.
Soren set out two instruments and watched the readings settle. Yara walked the perimeter with a sample bag and came back with three kinds of grass. Mira sat with the vault pair in her lap, not reading, just holding them the way she held them when the background signal was steady.
