Page 84 of The Surviving Sky
“Bharavi!”
Arms still wide, she turned to face him. Deep in her eyes Iravan saw the blue-green light of trajection glowing like a kindled flame. Trajection didn’t change a person’s features, not like this, but she stared at him, inhuman, terrifying, magnificent.
“You don’t want to do this, Bha,” he choked out. “Think of Tariya. Think of Kush and Arth.”
Her expression spasmed briefly into one of deep, profound anguish before it was replaced again with her rapture. Underneath him, the ground roiled again, tremors rumbling like in an earthrage.
Iravan threw a horrified glance at Airav and Chaiyya. He could see his own cold realization reflected in their eyes. The Maze Architects were fighting Bharavi back; they had to be. Airav lifted a hand and made a swift cutting motion, and Iravan knew what he meant. Bharavi and the Maze Architects would rupture the rudra tree in their battle. The tree would splinter in half. The ashram would plummet from the sky.
Iravan turned back to Bharavi. Twigs gouged his skin. Dust and water scoured him. He closed his eyes, moving forward by instinct alone, supporting himself on the heavy branch he had picked up. It shook underneath him, it was all he could do to grip it, but Iravan pressed against her immense power, one shuddering step at a time. He reached ever closer, opening his eyes despite his tears.
“Bharavi,” he croaked. “Come back to us. Please. Come back tome.”
Radiant, she turned to him and smiled. She held out a hand, her gesture imperious.
“Remember who you are, Iravan,” she said, still in that unearthly terrible voice. “Let me show you. Manav was right. There is achoice—”
Iravan whipped the branch he held at her.
Shock flickered in her eyes; the branch collided with her head with a sickening crunch.
For a moment, she swayed there, the light fading from her.
The scourging wind stopped as the ceiling knit itself together. Airav and Chaiyya lit up with the light of trajection. Kiana and Laksiya unwrapped their arms from their heads, their gazes horrified, disbelieving.
Then Bharavi collapsed slowly, gracefully, almost like a feather, into Iravan’s waiting arms.
They stumbled down to the grassy floor together, her chest rising and falling, still alive.
Sobbing, Iravan gathered Bharavi to him and wept in horror of himself and of her, and the path they were condemned to follow.
28
AHILYA
It took Ahilya nearly twenty minutes to stop shivering after Iravan left. Dhruv had quieted but hadn’t risen from the floor, staring unseeingly in front of him.
“Listen to me,” she said, approaching him. “I’ll fix this, all right? I’ll fix this.”
The sungineer said nothing. He buried his head in his knees, beginning to shake. Dhruv had never screamed at Iravan in this manner; the two men had always been civil to each other, forced though their civility had been. Ahilya knew any chance of being nominated to the council had disappeared now for both her and Dhruv, but Iravan could ruin Dhruv’s career forever. Dhruv would be transferred to anothercity—andonce there, would be shunned. The sungineer trembled on the floor now, knowing this as well as she did, his hands clutched around the tracker locket. They had both come soclose—now,they had lost it all. Ahilya tried to rouse him, but he just shook his head and sank deeper into himself. In the end, she brushed a hand over his head, grabbed her solarnote, and walked away from the lab.
This was all a mistake. She had to find Iravan. She had to explain. She and Dhruv had been wrong to bring in the spiralweed. Of course they’d been wrong. Her body still shuddered in remembered terror of almost being swallowed by the hole in the floor, but Iravan had looked like he had been in battle, his clothes ripped in a thousand places, blood on his sleeves and collar. Was that why he had lost his control? Had the spiralweedattackedhim? She needed to apologize. She needed to tell him about her discovery of the interference in the jungle. Despite his outburst, her husband was a reasonable man, but his actions, what he’d done, how he’d losthimself—
Ahilya shivered. Everything had become so convoluted. She and Iravan had once spent countless days reveling in each other’s passions. How was it that today, on the day of her most important discovery, the two were estranged?
She took the long way to the temple. Rain thudded on the bark hedges and pathways of the ashram. The city morphed, thick foliage growing overhead in open-air spaces, but the movement was pained. Wind sluiced through the struggling leaves, sending chills through Ahilya. By the time she arrived at the temple, she was drenched and the storm outside had worsened. Ahilya flashed Iravan’s bracelet at a leafy wall. The bark cracked open. Cautiously, she strode in.
There was no one around. The tall rudra tree in the center obscured the Architects’ Disc in its boughs, but blue-green light shone down, dappling the chamber. Endless corridors radiated from the epicenter. Ahilya craned her neck, and a dozen dizzying levels overlooked her, rising in a circle, with lush vines curling down carved railings. The temple was a maze in itself. How would she find Iravan? Perhaps he was in a council meeting. He could be telling the other councilors about the spiralweed even now. She had just decided to enter one of the corridors when bells began chiming through the temple.
Trajection light grew brighter, dispelling the shadows of the chamber. As Ahilya watched, the Architects’ Disc descended halfway down the rudra tree. A ramp formed and chatting Maze Architects climbed down, their translucent robes flitting like gauzy wings over their brown kurtas and trousers. Another door opened beside Ahilya, and other Maze Architects entered, nearly twenty of them, making their way to the Disc. She was watching a change of shifts.
One woman, with a swaying gait and long wavy hair, detached herself from the group exiting the temple. Ahilya recognized her at once. Megha had been one of the Maze Architects who had vied for the very council seat Iravan now occupied. Once Iravan and Ahilya had spent hours discussing her skills, the competition she had brought to him.
“You there,” Megha began. “How did you getin—”The woman stopped and her heart-shaped face grew startled in recognition. “Oh,you’re—Oh.I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any disrespect toIravan-ve—”
Ahilya frowned, noticing then dismissing the insult.
“What are you doing here?” Megha asked.
