They ran for almost three hours.
Maybe four. Ishiki stopped counting after the second mountain.
The forest on this side of the prison hill was dense and old — trees wide enough that three people linking hands couldn't close the circle, roots that had long ago broken the surface of the ground and turned the whole floor into an obstacle course of raised wood and black soil.
The guards' voices had faded after the first hour. By the second, there was nothing behind them but bird noise and wind moving through high branches.
Still they ran.
Because Sael knew this kingdom and Ishiki did not, and Sael had not said stop.
But he knew what they were doing pretty much, they were jumping from one hill to the another.
The second hill was lower than the first with more ridge than peak, a long grey spine of exposed rock above the treeline that they crossed in the morning cold with their breath coming out white.
