Page 151 of The Surviving Sky
Iravan vaulted over behind her, and the scent of firemint overpowered Ahilya.
She gripped feathers with both her hands, and he closed his own over hers. His legs wrapped around hers, the breathing ragged in hischest—
The yaksha uttered a scream. It strode toward the opening in the wall. Trees separated in front of them, through Ecstatic trajection. The bird opened its wings,and—
It launched itself into the air.
Ahilya gasped and laughter escaped her. Iravan laughed too, a roar of surprised delight, and the flight pushed her back into him; they cleared the trees and ascended into the blue sky. Land fell away as the falcon climbed higher, its wings beating twice before it began to glide. The sungineering locket around her neck began to chime. Iravan’s locket pressed into her shoulder, both the halves signaling to each other, using the power of Ecstasy.
Wind rushed at her, making her eyes water. The jungle below was a vision of green and brown, dust still ballooning as the last waves of the earthrage settled. A single oasis of calm lay amidst thegreen—theepicenter of their feat, the habitat. Dust balloons radiated out from it, and Ahilya thought abstractedly of how she had thought to study these very patterns so long before, standing on Nakshar’s terrace. There was still so much left to understand about those cataclysms, a study like she could never have imagined even existed.
Eventually, a shape became visible in the sky.
Clouds obscured it, but there was no mistaking the giant hovering oblong structure. Nakshar.
Iravan didn’t make straight for it. Instead, he nudged the yaksha to glide around the city. Nakshar whipped in and out of clouds, in front of them and then to their left. The ashram was ellipsoidal on one side,and—Ahilyagasped—attachedto another flat city on the other. Ashrams traded with each other all the time, but she had never seen anything like this before. Reikshar had evidently come to Nakshar’s rescue.
They drew closer. The patterns on Iravan’s arms changed, and leaves grew around them, extended from the ashram. The falcon moved in a haze of cover. Ahilya couldn’t see anything except snatches of bark and sky. Moisture pricked her face. Tears.
The falcon landed with a gentle thump. Iravan trajected, and the leaf cover lessened. Ahilya flung one leg around so she was sitting sideways on the falcon. She stared at her husband, and he stared back. The blue-green light had leached out of Iravan’s eyes. He looked like he always had, his salt-and-pepper hair slightly too long, his almost-black eyes drawn in sorrow. Ahilya wanted to say something; there was so much to clarify, so much she wanted him to understand, that this was not in punishment, it was in necessity.
Iravan’s mouth turned slightly up. He understood. Of course he did.
He leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers, in a whisper of a kiss.
“Perhaps this is not goodbye,” she murmured.
“You are my family,” Iravan growled. “And you carry the possibility of my child. It isnevergoodbye.”
Then his hands encircled her waist, and he lifted her up and lowered her down to the ground that rose to gather her. Ahilya stepped back, away from the falcon.
The bird flapped its wings, once,twice—
Iravan raised a hand infarewell—
And then they were gone.
For a long time, Ahilya remained standing on the strip of green Iravan had trajected. She couldn’t see him or the falcon, but her hand clasped the sungineering locket hard. Only when the locket went cold and silent did Ahilya turn away from the open sky and begin walking towards the city proper.
There were questions, of course.
The citizens of Reikshar didn’t recognize her, but that was hardly surprising. Nakshar had merged with the other ashram, and people from Reikshar had welcomed the citizens of Nakshar as their own. Someone brought her back to the temple, and there was a flurry of activity while Ahilya sat silently in front of the rudra tree sapling, waiting for a councilor and what they had in mind for her actions with Airav. She had been gone less than a week, she learned; they thought that her attempt at finding Iravan had failed, that she had hovered in her orb for a few days and returned. Some people stared at her, muttered about her recklessness, about her heroism. Ahilya waited, not bothering to correct them, her hands curled around her satchel.
It was Chaiyya who finally came to her. The Senior Architect trajected, and healbranch grew around Ahilya, wrapping her arms and legs. For long minutes, Chaiyya examined her. Then she sat back in bemusement, no doubt wondering how Ahilya’s wounds had healed if her clothes looked so ragged.
Ahilya broke the silence. “You survived. When I left, you’d said Nakshar had only days.”
The Senior Architect nodded tiredly. “Reikshar came to us a few hours ago, but we survived the days before that becauseof…well, because of you.”
Ahilya drew back, surprised.
“The battery you forced us to use,” Chaiyya said. “Its counterpart here generated enough power to sustain the ashram until Reikshar made it to us.”
“Airav,” Ahilya asked. “How is he?”
Chaiyya pressed a hand to her waist. She had days perhaps until her delivery. “Airav hasn’t trajected since then. There are costs to the battery, though we don’t yet know if his situation is temporary. He’s conscious but hasn’t yet been able to enter the Moment. I’m trying to heal him.”
“I’m sorry,” Ahilya said softly.
