Page 75 of The Surviving Sky
“Ahilya, if we tell him about this now, it will behisvictory. But if we wait until official nomination, then we’d receive the credit, we’d outdo all other candidates. That’s what we set out to do. That was our goal!”
“So, you want to wait forthree months?”
“Why aren’t you more excited forus? We both have a chancenow—Iwith long-range communication and you with your yaksha habitat. Rages, we have such a fantastic chance now at that council seat, we might as well be in competition witheach other. This is a victory for all non-architects. Why won’t you see that?”
“Because Iravan is on a clock. What happens if we don’t tell him and he never discovers this? Or if we wait until after his trial? Suppose they demote him? Suppose theyexcisehim?”
“So?” the sungineer challenged. “I thought that’s what you wanted. You’ve had a problem with him being a Senior Architect, being an architect at all. Might it not help your marriage if he’s just a regular person? Isn’t that why you agreed to help his investigation?”
“No—That’snever—No—”
Dhruv gave her a pitying look. Ahilya knew what he was thinking: that Iravan had already charmed her. A heaviness settled in her stomach. Disturbed, she closed her mouth.
Iravanwasa charmer; she could see what he’d done with the invitation to the investigation and the unasked gift of the rudra bead. He had seduced her, manipulatedher—butwas that wrong? It was who Iravan was. He didn’t do it to be deceitful; he did it to be efficient. His ability to maneuver his circumstances was what made him such a talented architect. He literally shaped the world around him to fit himself.
Yet underneathit—athis mostrelaxed—herhusband was a blunt man. In the company of an elite few, his layers shed themselves; his honesty became thorn-sharp, almost hurtful.Thatwas who he was around her. Dhruv could not understand. Where was her loyalty if someone like him could so easily question her marriage?
Outside the solar lab, the gentle rain became a furious downpour. Dhruv returned to a desk, flipping through his notes, but there was something in his manner, a hostility she had never noticed before, in the set of his shoulders and the grimness of his face.
Dhruv had never shown such opposition to her methods before. He had beenunhappywhen they’d discovered the habitat on the tracker locket. They’d begun arguing about Iravan at once, but for the first time, Ahilya had a true chance at the council seat, the only thing standing between her and it, the pieces that Iravan could provide. Yet Dhruv did not want her to involve her husband. Could it have more to do withherthan Iravan? Could it be that, for the first time, her friend was seeing her as athreat—amere archeologist becoming a councilor over a sungineer, a woman with no precedence, no support, no allies?
The thought made her sick to the stomach, in thinking it and the seed of truth behind it. A wave of loneliness washed over Ahilya, and she felt sullied, as though she had done something wrong, but it had been justified in some insidious way. What was happening to her? She had suspected Bharavi, Iravan, now Dhruv.I can’t go on like this, she thought, dangerously close to tears.Not without Iravan. I need him.
She blinked back her distress and strode up to the sungineer. “Dhruv, listen to me. We can’t keep this to ourselves; you know we can’t. Even if we take Iravan out of the equation, suppose we never tell anyone we found an interference with trajection. Suppose the interference ruins Nakshar’s architecture. We’re dooming the ashram with our silence. You can bear to do that?”
The sungineer turned away from his notes and grabbed her shoulders. “Ahilya, we don’t even know what this is. This thing in the jungle, it’s blocking trajection goingdownto thejungle—wedon’t necessarily know it’s blocking trajectioninsidethecity—”
“You’re arguingsemantics—”
“I’m not,” he said, releasing her and beginning to pace. “I’m being careful. You can’t lie to me,Ahilya—Iknow it’s not Nakshar you care about. You want to help Iravan do whatever he’s convinced you to do.”
“Rages, Dhruv, of course I want to help him. He’s my husband! You say it like it’s a bad thing.”
“Because you’re notthinking. What happens if we tell him and it’s not related to his investigation at all? He’ll realize we’ve been making side deals, smuggling plants in. He’ll have to report us. You want that to happen?”
“He might not report us,” she protested. “He might see why we chose to smuggle plants, especially if we tell him it was to make a battery.”
Dhruv rolled his eyes. “Please. You want to appeal to his better nature? You’ve seen how he speaks about the sungineers. You know he thinks we don’t do enough. Besides, he’s a Senior Architect. He’ll be duty-bound to punish us. What do you think he’ll choose, between saving Nakshar and saving us?”
“It’s not as simple as that,” she said, shaking her head. “Iravan will do what he thinks is right. He’ll stand by us if we convince him; he’ll be our greatest ally through this. He’s coming around to our side, Dhruv; he gave us his nomination already, he gave usresources—”
“A decision he made under duress because you forced his hand. If you give him this information, you think he will still support us? When he has power over us again? What if he’s in a position where two of his beliefs go to war with each other? What will he choose then?”
“Hewill—”
Ahilya stopped talking. Both she and Dhruv turned toward the doorway, where the wall split open to reveal Iravan.
Her husband stood there, soaked. His damp white kurta clung to his skin. His salt-and-pepper hair was spiky from the rain, and his eyes glittered, either wet or too bright. Iravan strode in right through the forcefield of the deathchamber, unstopped. The forcefield wouldn’t have blocked anything as substantial as a human body, but it was as though he had brought in a thundercloud with him.
“Iravan,” Dhruv said. “You’re out of the wheelchair.”
“We were just talking about you,” she began, deciding to tell him everything.
“Were you?” Iravan replied coldly.
His skin lit up with the light of trajection. The windows in the invention chamber boarded shut. Dhruv closed his notebook, a wary look in his eyes. With his glowing light, Iravan was the brightest thing in the room, and Ahilya noticed what she hadn’t before. Iravan’s clothes were full of tiny cuts, threads fraying from the edges, dark red stains on the collar and sleeves. Blood.
She closed the distance between them and lifted his arm, feeling his cold skin.
