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Chapter 49: Embedded Pathways

last update Last Updated: 2025-07-30 09:04:28

5:36 AM – Penthouse, Kitchen

Steam from a pan of saba that was boiling rose up, curving like gentle script. Elira was pouring vinegar and muscovado into a bowl, cutting chilies in swift, practiced strokes. The aroma was pungent, earthy.

Caelan came in quiet, massaging his eyes. He looked at her for a second, then reached for the mugs and filled salabat.

"Elira," he told her, not a question, but a reminder. Of space. Of being.

She held out a bowl to him. "We start with what is known."

---

7:04 AM – Foundation Logistics Bay

Piles of annotated maps stretched out on a table. Across them, volunteers with pencils and marking tape hovered, charting courses that circumvented broken roads, flooded alleys, forgotten trails.

Elira touched one pathway scrawled in red. "This one runs between three sitios and hugs the runoff ditch. People use it, just they don't mark it."

Caelan supplemented, "It's not about creating routes. It's about observing where people already travel."

A volunteer smiled. "So
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