Chapter 344: Between
The network took them in the way the gorge had given them up — slowly, and from the edges first.
Two more days of easy highland walking. Zone One fell behind them. Ahead lay the close pair: the ridge zone and the river-valley zone, the two he had chained near each other, the two whose changed rings had grown until they touched.
Kai had read that joining from the map. Now he was going to walk through the middle of it.
He kept Ambient Map open as they went. The nine zones held steady on it, one field, the whole thing turning slow under his read. But the two close zones read differently from the rest. Brighter where they met. Not louder — fuller. Like two voices that had found the same note.
"We'll camp in the band tonight," he said. "The ground between the ridge and the valley."
"The band that belongs to neither zone," Yara said. She was already reaching for her records.
"That one."
They reached it by late afternoon.
