The trail became a road about halfway down the slope.
Not suddenly. It happened the way most changes happened in the world outside Helios—slowly, without announcement. The worn stone path grew wider. The edges became cleaner. Small flat markers appeared at intervals, set into the ground at knee height, carved with lines Kai did not recognise. Not Helios marks. Not anything from the transit system below the city. Something else entirely.
The older man crouched beside one of the markers and studied it for a moment without touching it.
"Route signs," he said.
Liora looked both ways along the road. "Who made them?"
"Not Helios." That was all he said. He stood and kept walking.
That was enough.
They followed the road down.
