The pain arrived slightly after the fact — the specific, delayed quality of an injury sustained during movement so fast that the body's reporting systems had needed a moment to catch up with events.
Lukas looked down.
Six inches of bone shard, embedded deep in his stomach, the entry point clean and the blood flow immediate and substantial. The fragment had not been the primary strike — it had been a secondary consequence, a piece of the cavern's destroyed surface that had found the one gap in his evasion and used it with the indifferent precision of physics rather than intent.
A grunt escaped his lips before he could decide whether to allow it.
Damn.
