Chapter 330: Twin Seam
The walk east took three days.
The land flattened after the river valley. Old ground, settled long ago, the slope stone giving way to a wide shelf of harder rock under thin soil. Through Ambient Map, the seven chained zones stayed present the whole way — each with its own surface character, its own draw pattern, its own steady rise of gene energy into root and soil. Zone Seven was the newest of them. Its energy was still settling above the conduit, not yet deep in the soil.
On the third afternoon the carrier function found the eighth zone before Kai's eyes did.
He stopped walking.
There were two of them.
Not two entities. Two lines of stone. The carrier function read them at the same moment, side by side under the surface — two parallel runs of old rock at the same depth, maybe forty meters apart, with something softer between them.
He stood still and let the read settle.
