She grinned.
“I must be out of my mind,” Stron said.
Adryel wasn’t going to dignify that with a response.
Stron wasn’t happy that she was there, with him. They walked through a different part of the main city than what they’d toured over, and she found it absolutely beautiful.
Even if he was horribly annoyed that she had come with him.
Still, she didn’t care. He wasn’t about to leave her back there in that tower, sitting around staring out the window at the smoke that still seemed to be burning even now, days later.
She had to do something.
If only to make sure this wasn’t the Rhysgarrds. Why that would even be a possibility, she didn’t know, but she couldn’t help feeling like she’d brought this whole thing down on the Galactic Alliance’s program, like a space wraith, ready to suck the life soul out of any breathing entity.
So if she had to stick by Stron to get some answers, then that’s what she was going to do.
Her feet crunched on the ground—a mix of organic tree and hard stone, as they walked along a sidewalk of a neighborhood she never remembered reading about in the training.
Little branches and twigs laid about. Trees and branches were everywhere wrapping the area like some kind of secluded place, separate from the sleek world she’d seen before.
Stron ducked under the low-hanging branches with a kind of rhythm as though he did this every day. It was like watching a machine move with precision in the middle of this organic world.
Where in the stars was he taking her?
Overhead, tree canopy covered most of the sky, while golden-orange sunlight streamed down through the branches like rays illuminating sacred spots of ground.
Even through the trees, she could see the sun starting to get low in the sky, and her feet were starting to ache.
Today had been a lot.
Too much.
She hoped they were getting closer to wherever they were going.
She made herself breathe and focus on where she was, this quaint little part of the world.
Residential, but not new. Homes built up incorporating wood from the trees, some of them even looking like they were built into the trees. Or into a cluster of them, anyway.
It felt like something out of a dream, really. A magical child’s story. She expected to see a winged humanoid emerge from a window and start sprinkling glitter all over everything.
It had that energy.
So not what she would ever think that Stron would be connected to.
Stron, looking far more minimalist and sleek than this ornate and organic area, stuck out against the aesthetic.
He turned and walked up a path to one of the homes. This one, with warm yellow paint, wrapped in branches of trees, clashed with his polished appearance.
Of course, he always stuck out to her. He placed his hand over the panel of the house.
It scanned him, the technology so well camouflaged with the wood, she hadn’t even noticed the panel at first.
The arched door covered in wood grain released, clicking open for him.
“Where are we?” Adryel asked as she followed him inside.
A deceptively larger place from the inside than it looked from the outside. Tall ceilings, arched up toward a point. Branches of the trees had been used to create walls, so much of the edges and corners looked like branches growing from the floor. It had a general round shape, like they were inside the trunk of a tree. A large, round tree.
