They did not get far before the cost of the fight caught up with them.
Lucian kept them moving long enough that the ridge and the fallen executor were well past the first broken edges of the hills. He let them slow then, and only because Sera's steps had begun to falter in a way that had nothing to do with fatigue.
"Sera."
She shrugged him off, nearly toppling herself in the process. He caught her, his palm coming away bloody. A long slit of a wound, hidden beneath her cloak, had been keeping pace with her steps, bled through her determination.
"I can walk," she gritted through her teeth.
"You are bleeding," Istra noted, already working at the binding. "Walking is not the same as lasting."
