Page 124 of The Surviving Sky
Ahilya’s rapid breathing resounded in her ears.
A terrifying sense of loneliness washed over her.
She was alonenow—completelyalone; she might be the only creature alive in the world.
Then the nest tightened, blocking out her view, plunging her into darkness. The only light came from the bright red dot blinking from her chest. Ahilya withdrew the chiming tracker locket. Unaided in the nest, she smelt, of all things, firemint and eucalyptus. Iravan’s scents. Ahilya touched the red dot, tears silently streaming down her face.
Don’t leave me, Iravan whispered in her mind.
I’m coming, she answered.
40
AHILYA
The next few hours were the longest of her life. Each creak of the bark, each shift of the wind startled Ahilya. The branches had closed on their own again, cutting off her view. Ahilya did not try to open them. She did not know how much energy she would waste in doing so. The pod floated on steadily, too slowly, while her heart beat frantically, but she was too afraid to command it any speed. She had tried to count the minutes, tried to calculate how fast she was moving, but the winds of the earthrage buffeted her, sometimes too fast, sometimes slow enough not to be noticed. There was no real feeling of advancement, and tiredness weighed her down. Once or twice, she nodded off, then awoke gasping out Iravan’s name.
She must have dozed off. The next thing Ahilya knew, her entire body was shuddering.
Her eyes flew open. Thepodwas shuddering.
Red beams from the tracker locket bounced around, flashing on one spot then another within the orb. Branches tore and whipped away from the construct even as more grew to replace them. “Stabilize,” Ahilya cried, her voice hoarse. “Stabilize,stabilize!”
The nest continued to quiver as though in a storm. Branches disintegrated into dust on her lap. Grit entered her mouth; she smelled wet earth. Ahilya coughed and snatched at her rudra beads, hoping for something.
“Stabilize!” she tried again, wildly shaking the rudra beads. “I want you to become stronger. Harder.Balance yourself.”
The nest shook like a leaf in the wind, a jarring, heart-shaking sensation. Ahilya’s teeth clacked together and she bit her tongue. Hot blood filled her mouth, and she spat it out, horrified. More branches ripped from the pod, darkness outside, a wisp of clouds. Then her vision skewed completely as the nestflipped.
Ahilya gagged, her stomach churning, blood rushing to her head, hair lashing across her face. The harness held, but the pod plunged toward the earthrage.
Stabilize, she begged frantically, unable to form the words as the orb plummeted.Fly. Float. Glide. Do SOMETHING. Please!
A roaring filled her ears, either her blood or the earthragebelow—thesame earthrage where she’d lost Oam, where she’d likely lost Iravan. Tears leaked down her face as she fell headfirst. Ahilya closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, but her insides jangled as the nest dove like a comet. Her hand clutched the tracker locket in her fist, and she thought,I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. She was helpless. She couldn’t traject, she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t do anything.
The pod flipped in the air again, upright; Ahilya’s hair whipped around her like in a windstorm, the tracker’s chiming grown louder. Burning bile gurgled in her throat. She choked, opened her eyes, and saw through thebranches—dust,earth, great clods of debris, flashing and cutting away. She wasinthe blast zone of the earthrage. She covered her head with an arm, sank her face toward her knees, and gasped out in desperation, “Protect me!” Beyond the terrifying sounds, an unearthly cry echoed, like a bird screaming,and—
The orb smashed into the jungle.
It rolled, its branches exploding even as more grew to replace them. Ahilya’s head spun. Fear gripped her heart. She couldn’t move; was this death, some kind of horrible awareness, what was happening, what washappening? Her ears rang; she opened her mouth to retch but nothing came out. Outside the pod, the earthrage roared like a furious creature in pain.
She sat there, still harnessed to the orb, her breath wheezing, cold sweat drenching her, body trembling. The battery underneath her grew cold.
Finally, Ahilya opened her eyes to unmoving darkness.
The pod had stopped rolling.
She was upright.
She lowered her arm, and her fingers scrambled at the wooden harness.
“Release me,” she whispered. The branches retracted from around her chest and waist.
As though her words had been a signal, the pod itself began to dissolve. One second, she was in a shattered orb made of branches; the next, the ruined branches burst, fizzling and scattering around her into nothingness.
Ahilya lurched to her feet, fell, and stood again, her knees shaking. She blinked, but green sparkles blurred her vision. She took a deep, shaky breath, almost a sob. She could see nothing ahead of her, just a dim green light that fuzzed into green dust, the more she stared at it.
She shouldered her satchel and wrapped her free hand around the tracker locket. It no longer blinked or chimed. Heart in her throat, Ahilya stumbled toward the glittering green light.
