But then it shut off.
And Adryel felt all alone.
She shifted in the seat, her hand moving to her ribs automatically. Nothing there. She exhaled and made herself stop.
The refineries, she told herself. They were heading to the dark side. Of course it smelled like that. Everything here probably smelled like that.
She almost believed it.
The transport sealed and lifted, and Adryel watched the platform drop away through the narrow viewport beside her seat. Two escort ships swung into position alongside them, sleek against the dark sky, and she felt something loosen slightly in her chest at the sight of them.
Dhomhes had come through.
She told herself to relax. They were moving. They were safe. Stron was at the front of the ship, Dhomhes had done everything he said, and in a few hours this would all be —
There it was again.
Faint. Underneath the ore smell and the recycled air and the press of too many bodies in an enclosed space. Earthy. Smoky. Wrong.
She made herself breathe evenly and look straight ahead.
The refineries, she told herself. Dark side atmosphere. She'd never been anywhere like this before and her nose was just confused.
She almost convinced herself.
Almost.
She watched the escort ships hold their position alongside the transport, steady and reassuring. She tried to focus on them instead.
It didn't work.
The smell came and went in waves. Sometimes she'd go a few minutes without catching it and convince herself it was gone, that she'd imagined it, that the dark side atmosphere was doing something strange to her senses. Then it would drift back, faint but unmistakable, and her stomach would drop all over again.
She thought about going to find Stron.
She didn't move.
He was at the front of the ship with Dhomhes, doing whatever needed doing, and she wasn't going to walk up there and tell him she thought she smelled something. She wasn't going to be that person. She'd handled worse than a bad feeling on a transport.
Beside her, Sereya sat perfectly still, hands folded, eyes forward. Whatever had cracked open between them when the ramp sealed had closed again. But she was still there. Still sitting next to Adryel instead of Roemary, wherever Roemary was.
Adryel didn't look for her.
She didn't want to know.
The transport shuddered once — turbulence, or the atmosphere changing as they crossed from the light side to the dark. Through the viewport, the landscape shifted. Green gave way to grey. The last of the trees disappeared.
She pressed her hand flat against her ribs.
Nothing.
She exhaled and dropped her hand before anyone could notice. Instead, focused on the windows, looking out to the dark side of the world.
Which was exactly like she'd expected. Barren and industrial, all hard edges and thick air. No trees. No golden light filtering through a canopy. Just refineries and rock and the kind of sky that hadn't seen green in a long time.
She watched out the window, but really, there wasn’t much to see.
Just rocks. Channels where ore had been mined. Or processed. Or something.
