Page 113 of The Surviving Sky
Then she collapsed onto him, her chest heaving, both their bodies sweaty.
They remained unmoving for a long time.
Ahilya disengaged slowly. She made to get up, off the bed, but Iravan reached for her. She froze, then settled back into his shoulder. Their fingers entangled, in and out. For the first time in nearly eight months, some of his tension receded.
She broke the silence first. “Iravan,” she said softly.“I—Wedidn’t—Mycycle…mymonth’sblood—”Ahilya took a deep breath, her chest rising under his arm. “It’s not why I asked forthis—butif we were to make ababy—itwas…the right time.”
His hand stilled in hers, and she lifted herself up to look into his eyes, but it was not Ahilya he saw. Iravan saw the faces of their children, a girl who looked like Ahilya, and a boy with his midnight-dark skin. The image flickered for a second, and an ache grew in him, so strong, so deep, that for a second Iravan couldn’t breathe. He thought of his fight with Ahilya all those months before. He thought of Bharavi sayingYou were holding on to your material reality while exercising the Ecstatic powers of trajection. And Iravan thought of the Resonance that had reappeared in his mind, that had never truly left, even during his act of intimacy. His fingers twitched uneasily.
“What do you want, Ahilya?” he asked, but this time there was no anger in his question. He watched as a dozen expressions flew over her face, confusion and anger and regret.
“I want our marriage back,” she said. “What doyouwant?”
Iravan’s eyes drifted from hers to the ceiling, where sungineering globes emitted their soft yellow light, and where there was still no phosphorescence. “I want to do what’s right.”
“And what is that?”
“I’m not sure anymore.”
The Resonance glimmered again in his head, and Iravan pressed a hand to his forehead to suppress it. The two paths had reappeared. Would they never cease to haunt him? He looked back at Ahilya, but she had quieted, her face withdrawn. It would not do. If balance were possible, he would achieveit—hewould not become like Bharavi. He could not.
Iravan nudged her closer. “We never talked about that time in the jungle.”
“There wasn’t anything more to say,” she muttered.
“I shouldn’thave—ThewayI—”Iravan grimaced. “I’m sorry, Ahilya. I shouldn’t have hijacked your mission.”
The corner of her lips lifted slightly. “As everyone is reminding me, I only survived because of you, Iravan-ve.”
“No,” he said at once, sitting up. “Not you. Please, not you.”
Iravan wasn’t sure what he was denying, her excuses for him or her use of the respectful suffix, but her words wrought a thorn through his heart. He shook his head again, and Ahilya nodded slowly, as though understanding what he himself could not. She sat up too and stroked his jaw with her hand, her thumb running along his cheek. Iravan leaned into her, this comfort she was giving him that he did not deserve.
“You were so fearless in the jungle,” he said. “It was the first time I went back in there since my own Junior Architect training; did you know that?”
Ahilya nodded, but she didn’t remove her hand from his cheek, and she didn’t say anything.
“Isn’t that ridiculous?” Iravan continued, with a sarcastic laugh. “A Senior Architect oblivious of the jungle? We have forgotten so many of our roots. Each time you went on an expedition, the Junior Architect you took with you reported to the council about the nature of the jungle, but we only saw the jungle as part of the topography. We never looked at it as something to learn from. You’ve been right all along. We only evade the earthrages. We don’t really survive them. And being out thereagain—Ahilya,I was scared. I was so scared. But you were fearless. You were amazing. I should have told you that before.”
He closed his own hand over hers. Ahilya shifted her weight. She settled herself along his lap, sitting atop him, facing him, gazing into his eyes.
“I love you,” they blurted out at the same time, and Iravan saw his own surprise and delight reflected in her. He pulled her closer and kissed her again, holding back his hunger, trying to pour into his kiss all his devotion instead.
When she pulled away this time, her eyes sparkled. “Iwasafraid in the jungle,” she said, laughing a little. “But not of the jungle. I was afraid of you, of you finding out about the spiralweed I was going to smuggle in.” Ahilya swept a shaky hand through her hair, her breathing slightly ragged. “We were in the middle of an earthrage, Iravan. I should have been terrified. I guess I didn’t know enough to be scared.”
Goosepimples covered her arms, and she rubbed them. Iravan twisted to reach down to the floor, where their discarded clothes lay in a pile. The both of them pulled their kurtas over themselves, then arranged themselves cross-legged.
“I should have insisted we return,” he said.
“I wouldn’t have listened.”
“Then I should have convinced you,” he replied. “I knew something was wrong the minute we entered the jungle and I heard the jungle raga. A raga is a residue of trajection, Ahilya, but I could hear itbeforeI had begun trajecting the jungle at all, which shouldn’t have been possible. I should have guessed it was an Ecstatic, even if I couldn’t have known it was Bharavi.” Iravan got off the bed. He pulled his trousers on and rolled the sleeves of his kurta back again. “You were right about the council’s priorities. You were right about the jungle. I wonder how much else you were right about.”
Ahilya rose too, pulling on her own trousers and settling her kurta. She ran a hand through her hair, detangling the knots. “Would you consider that I am right about the habitat?”
Iravan shook his head. “I don’t want to sound like an architect, but I think Naila is right. How could anything survive the rages?”
“You’re missing the evidence. Thereissomething down there.”
