Lyra's POVThe second cluster met us in a forest clearing that smelled of pine resin and cold water and old decisions, the particular scent of a place that had been chosen for survival rather than beauty, and had over time accumulated a beauty of its own from the choosing. Thirty-six people, Nadia had told me, and I had prepared for thirty-six people, but the reality of them was something that preparation could only approximate, the families, the children, the elderly man whose determination had long since overruled the objections of his joints, the woman holding an infant against her chest with one arm and a small packed bag with the other, both arms steady, neither shaking. People carried things in the specific way that told you what they had learned to be afraid of losing. I watched all of it and felt the silver light pressing at the inside of my chest, warm and insistent, asking to be useful.Vaelin was the one who organized them into column. He had a gift for this kind of thing t
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