Page 116 of The Surviving Sky
And Iravan saw himself mirrored in the falcon’s mind, saw the creature’s intent; it would kill them all in its pursuit of him, it had found him at last, hidden behind layers of flyingfoliage—
The falcon-yaksha dove from the twilit sky with the force of a storm. Iravan jerked back, and all the Ahilyas resolved intohisAhilya, and she was holding him up as he stumbled on the floor, only just completing her sentence: “—all right?”
The next instant, Nakshar rocked with the impact of collision. The world tilted, the ground split open under them, and Ahilya was thrown off him.
Iravan screamed.
37
AHILYA
Ahilya slid along the tilted floor of her home into the endless sky.
She had no time to scream; one second, she had been leaning over Iravan, and the next, the darkness yawned below, calling out to her. She rolled, caught a glimpse of Iravan, blue-green, still in the house, open sky. Her fingers scrabbled for purchase, digging into the mud, ripping nails.
She screamed then, terror clawing at her throat.
Her scream cut off with a grunt.
A vine encircled her waist. Ahilya twisted to see Iravan nearly fifty feet away, braced against the wall of their crumbling home. A whole section of the house had fallen off. Iravan stood in what had been the kitchen, vines banding his waist. He was like a blue-green spider caught in a corner, tight against the wall, foliage tethering him like webbing.
He snapped in and out of her vision as he pulled her up, and then she was next to him, tied to him. His skin was blinding blue, and shesaw—forthe firsttime—thathis tattoos resembled not flowing vines but glinting wings.
“I-Iravan?” she breathed.
“Hold on,” he said grimly. He gripped her to him, an arm around her waist, his hold painful. The wall behind them opened like a tunnel.
The next instant, the both of them shot through it.
Ahilya had no sense of up or down. They were flying through the tunnel, or falling perhaps. Green flashed by her eyes. Mud flew around them, she smelt wet earth, but none of the flakes hit her. Iravan had encased them somehow in a protective bubble that the green, earthy tunnel could not touch.
The tunnel opened; a hint of twilight.
The two of them burst through it, the force of their momentum shooting them into the night sky.
And below her, Ahilya glimpsed Nakshar disintegrate into fire and chaos.
It was a moment’s glimpse, but it was enough. A section of the ashram broke apart in slow motion, the very section they had been in. It cracked like chalk, and Ahilya watched in horror as part of the city plummeted toward the jungle. Bodies hurtled out, terror in their gestures, limbs flinging, then disappeared into the darkness. She couldn’t hear the screams; the wind of passage filled her ears, but tears overcame hervision—wherewas Tariya, where were the boys?—Ahilya pressed her face against Iravan’s chest; and then they were shooting through another tunnel again, abruptly coming to rest on solid ground.
Ahilya’s knees buckled. She emptied her stomach, but Iravan didn’t let go of her. He grasped her to him, his chilling gaze going beyond her. She turned and her heart climbed her throat.
There in the night sky, flapping its gigantic wings, was a monstrous yaksha shaped like a falcon.
For a brief moment, sheer wonder overtook Ahilya’s fear. The falcon-yaksha was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. Its glossy wings, spanning nearly a hundred feet, gleamed silver and gray. Its pitch-black eyes glinted malevolently. Startled, Ahilya noticed the same strange ringed pattern in its eyes she had seen in the elephant-yaksha a few weeks before. She tried to make sense of it, but the yaksha opened its golden hooked beak and screamed, a high-pitched yarp. The sound sent fresh thrills of terror running through her. She ducked her head, her gaze catching torn rosebushes and scattered leaves. Iravan had brought her to the terrace garden above the temple. The terrace was flat; they must have emerged from a hole in the floor, through the tunnel Iravan had trajected.
About twenty Maze Architects in various states of dishevelment stood between Ahilya and the yaksha, blood and earth streaking their faces. Their robes were frayed and tattered. Their dark skins gleamed with the light of trajection. A hundred bamboo stems shot up around the architects, like jagged spears aimed toward the creature.
“No!” she shouted, and Iravan shouted it too.
The bamboo stems exploded before they could reach the falcon. Shards scoured the air, embedding themselves in soft bodies. Maze Architects dropped like flies, the blue-green light dying out of them.
“NO!” Iravan screamed again, and the falcon-yaksha tilted its head as though it could hear him. “Stay here,” her husband growled, and then he was sprinting across the terrace, glowing like a blue star, blinding.
Ahilya didn’t realize she had risen to her feet, but she was running too as earth exploded around her. Chunks of rock flew at her. Dust obscured her vision, but she followed the shape of Iravan’s white kurta, slipping and sliding, leaping over holes opening in the ground.
A boulder smashed into her, knocking her off her feet.
Ahilya flew at an angle and landed with a painful thud. Dizziness swept over her. Something wet dripped down the side of her face. Blood. She tried to stand, but she was trapped. Vines grew over her, holding her down like ropes. It was healbranch; she tried to shake it off, but the vines tightened around her chest and her wrists. They held her down; they were choking her.
