Improbably, she thought of Speaker. She remembered what the Akarak said to her in those long hours on the shuttle, watching over Tupo. You don’t want to, Speaker had said. That’s it. That is all it ever needs to be. Pei opened her eyes, and she saw two things. She saw the bluest blue, dark as the sea, shifting in currents that carried nothing but love. She saw orange, sharp and sorrowful. This was not incongruous with the other hue. Sorrow was the right thing to feel when there were two doors in front of you and you knew that one of them was going to stay closed. The decision solidified. It
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