They walked for four hours before Marina felt the exhaustion arrive.

Not the gradual kind that built over distance. The sudden kind, the one that waited until the immediate necessity was over and then collected everything that had been deferred, the ritual, the fifth sublevel, the extraction, the walk through three territories with four root frequencies settling into a configuration her body was still learning to carry.

It hit her between the second and third territory markers.

She kept walking.

Luna felt it. Marina knew because Luna's hand tightened in hers without any other change, no look, no comment, just the small pressure of a child who was paying attention...