Morning came grey and cold.
They reached the highland zone by the second hour of riding. Xin felt the suppression field thin immediately — like surfacing from deep water, his channels expanding back toward full capacity, the white fire brightening from sixty percent to nearly complete.
He stopped his horse.
"Here," he said.
He sat cross-legged on the rocky ground and went into the ley line connection. The coastal network was distant but clear now, the eastern ley lines running clean through the highland border and out toward the sea.
The coastal convergence point was there.
Dragon's Lock intact. Thirty years of a guild master's unsuccessful attempts visible in the energy around it — not damage, but the particular texture of something repeatedly tested from the wrong angle. Like scrat
