Page 12 of The Surviving Sky
Excision.
Free from the focus of trajecting, a picture conjured itself in Iravan’s mind, of architects he had seen excised. Their grief had different expressions, but all of them had one thing in common. They had been cut away from their trajection. It was the ultimate punishment, reserved for Ecstatic Architects.
“Are you threatening me?” he said, his voice cold.
“I’m warning you.”
“No, you’re grasping at weeds. Last I checked, I was part of the council, a Senior Architect. And a Senior Architect can traject whenever they want.”
“A Senior Architect knows the limits of trajection. A Senior Architect understands why a healthy family life is an indicator of tight material bonds. A Senior Architect is smarter. Or have you so quickly forgotten Manav?”
Manav had been a Senior Architect and councilor not five years earlier. Iravan had excised him personally, and Manav’s position had lain vacant ever since. Iravan’s babbling about the Resonance, his feud with Ahilya, his concern for the Maze Architects, all took on a darker note. He stared at Bharavi, and she stared back, relentless: his friend, his confidant, and, if he were ever so wretched, his executioner. She was too damned watchful for his own good.
“Are these lessons you need to relearn?” she said. “Because I could ask the rest of the council to vote on having you tested for Ecstasy right now. Is that what you want, Iravan?”
“No,” he said. “No, I don’t.”
Bharavi’s hand pressed into his arm again, the grip hard. “If I’m noticing these patterns, others are too. My responsibility is clear. Please don’t give me a reason to tell them what I’ve observed. Whatever is going on with you and Ahilya, fix it.” With a final cautionary glance, she swung around and joined her family.
Two paths opened in Iravan’s mind between his brows, one toward Ahilya, and the other toward his own intuition. The call of the second path was almost too seductive to ignore, tempting him to return to the Moment, to seek the mysterious Resonance,solveit. Yet he could not bring himself to disregard a direct instruction from Bharavi. She had been his mentor; she had nominated him into the council; she was his most vocal supporter. Iravan thought of how Ahilya had walked away from him. He remembered how he had left her. The anger, the hurt, the outragedrighteousness—theyreverberated through him again, warring with the memory of the Resonance.
Is that what you want, Iravan?
With a sigh, he turned his back to the Architects’ Disc and approached a wall. The philodendron opened, reacting to his desire. Clenching his jaw, Iravan guided the plant to weave him the fastest way to the outer maze and to his wife.
4
AHILYA
The others were already waiting by the time Ahilya and Naila arrived at the outer maze. The Junior Architect had trajected a path directly from the temple, yet the two had needed to stop for Naila to switch her uniform for attire more suitable to the jungle. She wore a shorter kurta now, much like Ahilya’s own, and her long wavy hair was tied into a sensible knot. They hurried into the outer maze together, toward Dhruv and Oam, pushing past thick brambles.
What had earlier been a terrace of Nakshar now resembled a shady copse, complete with towering trees and soft, cushiony moss. Evening sunlight fell in translucent shafts of green. From high in the branches, the birds of the city twittered and squawked. It might have been peaceful, but Ahilya froze in her tracks, her heart throbbing in her throat, startled at its familiarity.
The clearing resembled far too much the very grove she and Iravan had fought in all those months before. For an instant, she remembered the jasmine curtain at the temple’s entrance, the way he had stared at her, so cold and unyielding. Had he built the outer maze? It would be so like him, this wordless sign, this dark apology. Ahilya’s breath grew quick and uneasy, as though she had unexpectedly come face-to-face with him. Guilt weighed her body down.
Material bonds were crucial to an architect’s trajection, and a healthy marriage was a visible sign of those bonds. Ahilya had walked away from Iravan knowing that. It was an action born out of cold fury, but in her mind’s eye, she could still see him snatch his clothes and leave after their argument. He’d punished her with silence for solong—whatwas her small rebellion compared to his? They went around in circles, each of them furious with the other. She couldn’t remember anymore if things had always been this way. Her stomach churned in confusion and anger.
“Ahilya,” Dhruv called out, breaking into her thoughts. “Over here.”
She blinked and looked away from the thicket toward him. Tall and lanky, with wire-thin spectacles, Dhruv appeared the consummate sungineer. His yellow-striped kurta gleamed in the last shafts of sunlight. He pointed at the shiny devices in the bag by his feet.
Ahilya swallowed and approached him. Naila had already joined the group, turning this way and that, adjusting the harness Dhruv placed over her, but the last member of the expedition stood leaning against a tree, watching the proceedings with casual amusement, his own harness loose and hanging off him.
“Oam needs help,” Dhruv said. “See to him, please, while I finish with the Junior Architect.”
Ahilya took a deep shaky breath. The familiarity of the copse, the memory of her fight with Iravan, the growing twilight, all of it conspired to shape her misgivings. But she couldn’t afford to be distracted. The expedition was what mattered now. She had waited too long, fought too hard.
She nodded at Dhruv and forced herself back tothisthicket, to focus on seeing it for what it was, not what it reminded her of. Next to the sungineer, Oam greeted her approach with a wicked smile. Of a height with Ahilya and only as old as Naila, Oam spread his arms wide, as though inviting Ahilya to embrace him. He still wore his nurse’s scrubs from the infirmary, but his braided curls were tied in a concession to the expedition. As Ahilya reached for his harness, his grin grew wider, too familiar to be respectful.
Ahilya bit back the creeping humiliation of her circumstance and returned a tight smile. She couldn’t foolherself—Oam’seagerness with the expedition had more to do with his infatuation with her than her research. But in time, he would become her first true apprentice, Nakshar’s second archeologist. Her work would continue beyond her lifetime. She ought to be grateful the council had allowed him to accompany her at all.
Oam dropped his arms as she tightened the harness around him. His fingers brushed against her satchel. Before Ahilya could react, he pulled out her solarnote, beginning to swipe through it.
Irritation bubbled within her, but she took a deep breath, calming herself. She had meant to give Oam the tablet in any case within the jungle; his entire job in this excursion was to sketch the elephant-yaksha they were tracking. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw the images on the glassy screen flicker, pictures she’d drawn herself on previousexpeditions—thegorilla-yaksha’s massive shoulders, the wolf-yaksha’s menacing gaze, the tiger-yaksha lapping water from a pond.
“Are you ready?” she asked, buckling the straps on his shoulders tighter. “It ought to be exciting.”
“I’ve never seen one before,” Oam said by way of reply.
