The fourth exchange was different from all the previous ones.
Lira stopped probing.
The blood currents didn't come in calculated sequence — they came in layers, one over the other, the kind that doesn't seek to impact but to saturate. Force Serah to use the ambient temperature field constantly, at a cost that accumulated.
Serah held it.
But it cost her.
Lira saw it in the silver markings — the glow was the same but the rhythm had changed, a fraction of a second slower between pulses. Enough for someone who had studied her for centuries to notice.
"Interesting," Lira said, dodging a wave of ice without stopping talking. "It used to last longer."
Serah didn't answer.
"Is it the shoulder?" Lira materialized three simultaneous currents from different angles. "Or have you been thinking too much about how your little piece of trash is doing?"
The three currents arrived.
Serah froze two.
She dodged the third — but the dodge exposed her right flank for half a second.
