Page 66 of The Surviving Sky
Dhruv circled his pen around. “The inventions room is one giantdeathbox—justwithout the glass boundaries. It’s a deathchamber. It’s where we test all our batteryexperiments—weneed to be certain the batteries don’t depend on trajection. I haven’t activated the forcefield yet; that’s why the bio-nodes still work in here.”
Ahilya considered this. She could not have borne it, she knew, if her actions jeopardized the ashram; the thought had haunted her for days, ever since Iravan had spoken of the interference in the Moment. What else could interfere with the universe but the possibilities of another plant, uninvited and unseen? The spiralweed was still dangerous, but if sungineering worked the way it did, then perhaps the plants she had brought back for Dhruv were not to blame, not for the difficulty in trajection.
She withdrew the broken tracker locket from herpocket—thereal reason she had comethere—anddangled it between her fingers. “Can yousee—”she began.
“Do you think you can extend my permissions?” Dhruv asked at the same time, leaning forward, his eyes still on Ahilya’s bracelet. “A few more days in the invention chamber, and I should have enough to satisfy Kiana about the beginnings of a battery to ward off a transfer.”
Ahilya shook out her sleeve, covering the rudra bead. “Are we just going to make a habit of breaking rules now?”
“He gave it to you to use, didn’t he?” Dhruv retorted.
Ahilya wasn’t so sure. Iravan had given her the bracelet as a challenge and an invitation, to meet him halfway in their attempts at reconciliation. His action was tied somehow to the nomination he had agreed to; her husband did not do anything with a singular purpose. This bracelet was no ordinary gift. It was a test of trust. It was a measure to see how Ahilya would treat her power, how well she deserved the council seat.
“Can you see if anything on the tracker survived?” she asked, trying to change the subject. “I think it was damaged in theescape—it’sno longer chiming.”
Dhruv plucked the tracker locket from her. He connected one end to his bio-node and another to a spare solarnote tablet lying on the desk. “It’s your bead,” he said, ignoring her question. “But if you’re unwilling to use it for our work, maybe Iravan has already seduced you.”
Ahilya recoiled. “How can you say that?”
“Have you even noticed,” Dhruv said, meeting her eyes, “that you’ve started to use the wordashram?”
Stunned, Ahilya said nothing. He was right. After years of resisting it, she had unconsciously incorporated the word back into her lexicon. When had that happened? Was it because of Iravan? Her husband had grown in her mind, a presence at the back of every thought, every private conversation; he hadreturnedto the days when they had been together, and he had done it so quickly, without her notice.
Her eyes met Dhruv, and her friend shook his head. “I know you’re thinking of forgiving him,” he said.
“I—He’strying, Dhruv. I haven’tdecided—”
The sungineer snorted. “Don’t take too long or he’ll decide for you. He’s a charmer, Ahilya.”
“I know.”
“You vowed never to associate with an architect because of your parents, you could have wed any of your other lovers, Eskayra or Amna or Jai but you still ended up marryinghim—”
“Iknow, Dhruv.”
“Then stop lying to yourself,” he said. “You were clever, attaching our nomination to your condition for helpinghim—butAhilya, both you and I know your real motivation was to save him from the council.”
Shock rippled through Ahilya. “How doyou—”
“I worked it out,” Dhruv said dryly. “I recognized the rudra bead he gave to Naila. The rest was obvious. It’s his head on the line personally, isn’t it? Tied to the investigation? They think it is his failure.”
Ahilya stared at him. Dhruv was her oldest friend, they’d grown up together, but he had never fully taken to Iravan. For him to have such sensitive information on herhusband…
“Rages, Ahilya,” Dhruv said tiredly. “I won’t tell anyone. But you’re becoming like him, for all that you want him demoted.”
“I don’t want him to be demoted,” she said, still reeling. “I want him to get his priorities right. The council has confusedhim—therewas a time when he’d choose his beliefs against the rest of the world, everything else be damned. But all he’s done since his promotion is forget himself, forget who he is.”
“As you say,” Dhruv said, turning back to the bio-node where Ahilya’s data appeared. “Justremember—demotionis as likely as excision, and neither is likely when it’s Iravan. Either of those would be an embarrassment to the council.”
He was right, she knew. Iravan waspopular—toopopular. His career trajectory was nothing short of inspirational. When it took most Maze Architects a decade to even be considered for a position in the council, Iravan had been inducted after a mere four years of service. Besides, the council would not easily relinquish anarchitect. Twenty years before, there had been no sungineers on the council at all. The architects may have agreed to non-architect representation, but Ahilya did not think their magnanimity would extend into excising one of their own so easily.
The solarnote Dhruv had attached to her tracker locket blinked. He disconnected it, muttered, “Looks like the data survived,” and handed it over to her without another word.
Ahilya bent her head to study the information. The solarnote hummed, a newer model than the one she had lost in the earthrage. She swiped at the glassy screen and frowned. The tracker had stopped chiming in the jungle; she had expected it to bebroken—butthis, what she was seeingnow—
“I think the data is warped,” she said.
“It’s not. I checked.”
