Chapter 169 - CHAPTER 169 — Degrees of Loss

The high saddle offered no true safety, only a brief interval of stable ground and clear sight lines. The residual scar network continued to shift behind the group, its distorted corridors still rearranging under the influence of the critically elevated claim. Somewhere inside that shifting maze the Azure Phoenix specialists forced their mapping techniques forward by slow, expensive degrees. The residual wills' attention remained fixed on the scarred mark with the patience of mechanisms that had already accepted the internal progression as inevitable.