The descent felt like waking from a fever that had lasted years. Every switchback arrived only once. Footsteps stayed where boots placed them. When Cal spoke, the mountain did not answer with his own voice a breath later. The relief made the whole party slightly giddy.
Kael demonstrated the new reliability of reality by throwing a stone off the path and waiting, dramatically, for an echo-stone to follow. Nothing did. He bowed to the empty air. “Ladies and gentlemen, the mountain has learned manners.”
Ysara almost smiled. “Temporary manners. Do not trust them completely.”
Tallen kept stopping to write. “The residual loop pressure is dropping in measurable increments. If the pattern holds, the Hold will attempt a test cycle within days, not hours. We may have bought actual time.”
Sela wa
