Page 55 of The Surviving Sky
“What do we do?” Tariya said, panicked, as more roots whipped around them, hair-thin.
The water rose to their ankles.
A great powerlessness swept over Ahilya. She saw herself trying to hold the magnaroot nest together with her fingers. She saw herself on Nakshar’s terrace, facing the bracken wall. She saw herself pound at the barrier, crying for Oam. None of it had mattered. In the back of her mind, she remembered how she and Dhruv had once been caught in a cave-in much like this when they had been little.
A thick root crept slowly toward them as though managed by a more skillful hand. It wove between Ahilya and the others, bracing itself to the far rock. Tariya steadied Reniya, tears sparkling in her eyes. Ahilya had saved the woman only to let her die again. She’d broken the roots onlyto—
“There is a way,” she gasped out.
The others turned to her.
“We can’t do anything about the water,” Ahilya said, her voice louder. “But wecando something about the roots. These roots aren’t trying to hurt us; they’re trying to build a way out. That means the architects are rebuilding their constellation lines, just like Reniya said. They’re trying to rescue us. We have to help them.”
“What do we do?” Tariya asked again, her face worried.
“Focus your desire,” Ahilya replied. “Focus it on one thing and one thing alone, for the roots to not hurt us.”
Understanding flickered in their eyes. These people were not architects, but all of them were likely married to one; they had family who were architects. They knew how the city worked. What Ahilya hadsuggested—itwas akin to landing protocol, when the combined desires of Nakshar’s citizens had provided a catalyst to the Disc’s trajection. The consciousness of the ashram, directed toward a singular purpose, had guided Nakshar to safety hundreds of times before. She and these people would have to do the same for themselves.
Around Ahilya, one by one, the citizens blinked their eyes closed, their faces frowning in concentration, even as thick roots wove between them. Ahilya closed her own eyes, her heart hammering. The water reached her shins, and her trousers stuck to her. She heard everyone’s panicked breathing. A root touched her cheek and she flinched. Ahilya battled down her fear, her shame, her terrible helplessness.
There were many ways to endure, but all of them began at the same place. Desire. Heart beating fast, Ahilya focused her mind into a singular possibility. Survival.
17
IRAVAN
Under Iravan’s instruction, the young architects of Nakshar reconstructed the maze.
Long minutes ticked by. Too long.
Terrifying thoughts circled him.
What was happening below in that cave-in? What if the citizens were injured? What ifAhilyawas injured? Had he killed someone again with his actions? Had he killedAhilya? Oam flipped in the air again, and Iravan watched himself let go of the boy. He watched himself ignore the call of his instinct to not enter the jungle.
Around him, the children shook like leaves in a storm. Iravan gestured to Naila to take the weakest off the Moment. His army was depleting. The children were tiring. None of them would last very long, and then everything they had built would collapse, burying the citizens if they weren’t buried already.
TheResonance—orperhaps itsmemory—dancedbehind his eyes, tempting him. Iravan tensed. He’d have to do it. He’d have to enter the Moment. Nausea rose in him. He braced himself, gathering the shreds of his courage andjudgement—
“They’re here,” Naila gasped. “Other dust motes. The Maze Architects.”
Iravan’s eyes widened.
Someone had seen hismessage—eitherthe councilors or the administrating team at the temple. “Get these children out,” he said at once, sitting up.
One by one, the little bodies around him relaxed, their lights winking out, their trajection vines disappearing. A few teetered to their knees. All of them appeared breathless and shaken.
“Naila, stay in the Moment,” Iravan ordered. “Tell me what’s happening.”
The Junior Architect frowned and stared in front of her. “Looks like they’re turning the roots we engaged into a platform. They’re raising it, sir.”
Relief so powerful burst through Iravan that he became light-headed for a second.
The Maze Architects, with their resources in the temple, had directed his roots perfectly. They had repowered the citizen rings of those below, seen where the people waited, seen the broken architecture with sungineering holograms. They would be able to build around the citizens, ensuring they were safe, ensuringAhilyawas safe.
The waterfall in front of them drained to a trickle, confirming Iravan’s suspicions.
The earth groaned and cracked open, chunks rendered apart like waves that undulated and lapped at his wheelchair. A chasm opened on the far end of the bowl and rippled in the beginning of a staircase, and Iravan thought abstractedly with a kind of dull anger,Stairs. It is always fucking stairs.
