Page 97 of The Surviving Sky
“He didn’t think you’d listen,” Naila said, and she winced in unexpected mortification. “AndI…I owe himfor…my misconduct.”
The Junior Architect didn’t elaborate, but Ahilya had never seen Naila so out of sorts. The woman refused to meet her eyes. She shifted her feet. “Please, Ahilya,” Naila mumbled, still staring at the ground.“I—Ineed to ease myconscience—”
Perhaps another time, Ahilya would have inquired deeper, but she could not bring herself to gather the energy to care. She gave a tight nod, and Naila tapped at one of her rudra bead bracelets.
The bark in front of them slid open. Iravan stood there, evidently waiting. He lowered his hand where a new citizen ring glinted, although Ahilya noticed his rudra bead bracelets and necklaces were still missing. He looked no better than her, as though his night had been just as restless. Dark shadows lingered heavy under his eyes. His face was unshaven, bristles on his cheeks. Ahilya remained frozen. It was too soon. She wasn’t ready for this.
“Thank you for coming,” he said.
“I wasn’t given a choice,” she heard herself say.
“I understand if you don’t want to talk about it,” he continued, his voice quiet. “But you saw something and I want to explain. If you want to leave, I won’t stop you.”
He waited, unmoving. Ahilya blinked. She nodded again, the words stuck in her throat.
Iravan turned to Naila. “You can report me to Airav now, Junior Architect.”
“—Iravan-ve—Idon’t—”
His eyes glittered in anger. “Please.”
Naila hesitated, then gave him a stiff bow. She walked along the curving wall, tapped at her bracelet again, entered a doorway, and disappeared.
Iravan extended a hand, and Ahilya followed as he opened another door. Unlike the path she had sneaked into a couple of days before, this one led into a tinted-glass-lined corridor open to the skies. Iravan walked next to her silently. His gaze remained straight ahead. The distance between them was like an unbreachable chasm, their marriage a corpse buried in the greatest depths. Ahilya’s eyes drew to his hands a few inches away, to his energy that surrounded her.
She swallowed. “Where are we going?”
“Are you afraid I’m going to murder you, too, Ahilya?” Iravan asked softly.
She raised her eyes to him, and he looked down at her and sighed.
“This is the sanctum,” he said. “The ward where we bring excised architects.”
“What are we doing here?”
“When an architect is in danger of Ecstasy, they’re made to go through an Examination. If they pass it,they’re…free. If theyfail—”
“They are excised. I know this.”
“Yes, but you don’t know what excision does,” Iravan said. He stopped in front of one of the glass panes and pressed a dial in the wall. The tint became transparent. He beckoned to her.
Despite herself, Ahilya drew nearer.
The glass looked into a chamber where a woman sat on a chair, rocking herself. Spittle trickled down her lips. Her gaze was unseeing, her hair gray and thin. Ahilya’s eyes flickered to Iravan, but he gazed at the woman, his face withdrawn.
“What—”Ahilya began, but then the woman turned.
Her unseeing eyes met Ahilya’s through the glass.
And a memory flashed through Ahilya’s mind, of the same woman, her head thrown back in healthy laughter, a memory from when Ahilya had been a child and her parents had still lived in Nakshar. Maiya had been a Maze Architect who had become an Ecstatic. Ahilya had thought she’d been transferred after her excision.
Ahilya gasped.“What—Iravan,what is this? What is Maiya doing here?”
He twisted the dials in the glass and the pane became opaque again. Ahilya stumbled behind him as he walked to a patch away from the glass. Iravan trajected, and a wooden bench grew over the grass clearing. Ahilya collapsed on it, her head spinning.
“What—didI just see?” she breathed.
Iravan sat down next to her. He leaned forward to place his elbows on his knees.
