Chapter 340: The Engine
They stayed a third day at the archive gorge.
Kai had not planned to. The new body needed it. He spent the morning relearning small things — how far his hand reached, where his weight sat when he stood. He undershot a step on the wall path and caught himself against the stone. He noted it. The body would settle. It always did.
The pool was the harder lesson. He reached for the floor of it and could not find the bottom yet. The old mark was gone. He did not push to find the new one. Pushing was how people hurt themselves in a fresh body, and he had not survived four breakthroughs by pushing.
Mira watched him from the field's edge without seeming to watch. The vault pair sat lit in her lap.
"You're closer to the ground than you were," she said.
"Denser. The balance moved." He flexed one hand. "A day. Maybe two."
She did not ask if it hurt. She had read the answer already.
Soren had filled four pages since the breakthrough.
