Page 17 of The Surviving Sky
“I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” she said, and this time her voice was pitched loud enough for everyone to hear.
The other three paused their murmuring.
She took another step back. “I’m sorry, Iravan. You don’t know our expedition, you have not been prepared, and frankly, I’ve no time to explain it to you. Naila is more than capable of trajecting out in the jungle. We can talk about this later. Leave.”
For a moment, Iravan stayed unmoving. His face was calm, but his eyes shone with fury and humiliation. He would never create a public scene, she knew, not Senior Architect Iravan. Shameful triumph rose in Ahilya;rage himfor forcing her to behave this way. She turned away, infuriated with the both of them, when from the corner of her eye she saw him cross his arms, straighten his back, and plant his feet firmer on the ground.
“Junior Architect,” he called out. “I believe I gave you a key to the boundary?”
Naila glanced from Ahilya to him. “Yes, Iravan-ve,” she whispered. She unlocked a rudra bead from her bracelet and hurried over to him.
Ahilya’s breath caught in her chest. She stared at thekey—itwas more precious than any other rudra bead in the world, a means to go outside the city that she had begged and fought the council for. With necessary permissions embedded into it, the key was a physical approval for her expedition. Ahilya might be the expedition’s leader, but the temple always gave the bead to her accompanying architect. She watched in rising horror as Naila’s trembling hand placed it on Iravan’s upturned palm.
Iravan’s hand closed. He crushed it.
Woody flakes and glass circuitry fell gently to the earth.
Ahilya felt Iravan’s cold gaze on her.
For a second, they stared at each other silently, the copse churning with the tension in their gaze.
Then Iravan turned back to Naila. “I have another engagement for you. Something better suited to your talent, I should imagine.”
He withdrew one of his many rudra bead necklaces and detached a single black bead. It looked no different toAhilya—perhapsa tad larger than mostothers—butNaila gasped.“I…I’m not ready,” the Junior Architect said.
Over by his sungineering equipment, Dhruv frowned.
“If you’re ready for the jungle, you’re ready for this,” Iravan replied, and smiled.
The kindness in his smile took years off his face. It cut through Ahilya like a knife. She stumbled back a step away from them. Iravan reserved those smiles for when he shared in other people’s joys. When was the last time she’d received such a smile? She couldn’t remember.
Iravan placed the rudra bead in Naila’s palm. He closed his own palm over it, and a tight pattern of interlocking branches grew on their hands. After a moment, the blue-green light dissipated.
“Go,” he said, releasing Naila. “They’ll expect someone at the watchpost soon.”
A smile of disbelief crept onto Naila’s face. She attached the bead to one of her bracelets. Within minutes, she had shucked off the equipment Dhruv had given her. Without as much as an apologetic look, the Junior Architect disappeared the way Iravan had come, still riveted by whatever the rudra bead had meant.
In the silence that grew with her departure, Iravan turned to Ahilya. “It looks like you’re short an architect.”
Ahilya’s heart beat a tattoo in her chest. She shook in cold fury. “You don’t know what you’ve done. Without that key, we have no permission to leave the city. It’ll be weeks before I find another Junior Architect. There would be no point to an expedition. The yaksha will have moved on by then.”
“You might need someone who doesn’t need permission to leave the ashram, then. ASeniorArchitect.” Iravan spread his hands, the gesture unsympathetic. “As it happens, I’m quite free.”
Ahilya glanced at the others by the knot of trees. Oam was glaring at Iravan, but Dhruv met her eyes unblinkingly. Sweat beaded the sungineer’s forehead. His hands shook as he reached for his spectacles. In his nervousness Ahilya read her own anguish.
It would have been easy to smuggle the spiralweed in with Naila, but with Iravan? Dare they attempt it? Yet without the jungle plant to aid the battery he was building, Dhruv would be forced out of Nakshar’s solar lab. Ahilya herself would have no chance at the council if she postponed the expedition. Her best friend, her research, herpride…with his one action, Iravan had threatened to takeeverythingaway.
Iravan’s hands curled by his sides, clean of the rudra bead he had discarded. He stood emotionless, waiting for her to speak.
“Very well,” Ahilya said coldly. “Dhruv will resize Naila’s gear for you. And then weleave.”
5
IRAVAN
Iravan fell in with Ahilya and Oam as they progressed through the outer maze. He didn’t traject; there was no need to yet. All the plants here were still guided by the Disc Architects in the temple who dispersed their trajection energy for citizens to use.
Even so, he noticed the temperament of the foliage. The farther they continued from the ashram proper, the wilder the maze became. Tall, unkempt grass climbed up to his waist. Vines crept on the floor, reaching up to grab his ankles. At one point, Iravan had to physically stop a branch from whipping the headlamp off him. He remembered the trouble the Maze Architects had on the Disc. Perhaps they were still struggling with this part of the ashram.
