THREE WEEKS.
Three weeks of dawn patrols to the valley's edge. Three weeks of mapping dead grass and testing soil samples and watching the shadows lengthen across the meadow. Three weeks of sleeping with seven cold stones under his pillow, willing them to warm, to hum, to do anything.
Three weeks of silence where System should have been.
Alex stood at the ridge's edge, watching the morning light spill across the caldera valley. The grass was greener now—spring rains had come twice in the past week, turning the meadow into something that looked almost like the paradise Granite had promised. The dead circle where the stones had fallen had shrunk, new growth pushing up through the blackened earth like hope refusing to die.
But the stones in his pouch were still cold.
And something else had changed.
