Elara did not answer immediately. The weight of the moment, of a world’s history held in the balance of a single question, was too immense for a quick reply.
She met Lyra’s gaze, and in the elder’s eyes, she saw not the hardened certainty of an adversary, but the flickering, fragile hope of a survivor.
She chose her words with the care of a builder laying the first stone of a new world, a world that had to be strong enough to hold both their truths.
’Then let us begin,’ Elara said, her voice a quiet invitation not to a debate, but to a shared act of discovery. ’Let us see it together.’