It was a heartbreaking picture of all we had lost with the fall of Orlind, and it brought the importance of our task into clear focus. What had become of our beautiful Seventh Realm was a tragedy. If it could be reversed, it was our duty to do all in our power to try. And it was our utterly inescapable duty to prevent a similar destruction from happening to any other part of our cluster of worlds.
We concluded our tour at last and reconvened on the roof of the fabulous bejewelled building — a structure standing in for Orlind itself, in what had once been a hypothetical future. Pense and Ori were as resolute as I, and even Gio had changed. His confusion and wretchedness had faded, and he and Ori stood close together, clearly a united team.
‘Ready for this?’ Ori said.
Pense said, ‘Yes,’ w
