Page 87 of The Surviving Sky
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AHILYA
Their voices drifted up to Ahilya almost instantly.
“—given instructions,” Kiana said. “The lab is gathering reports from the rest of the ashram.”
“Thank rages you stopped her when you did, Iravan.” Chaiyya’s voice sounded heavy. “A few more minutes and the rudra tree would have split.”
There was a tense silence. Ahilya pressed herself back to the wall. She had climbed down to the last step. Carefully, she peered around the corner and saw four shadowy shapes, illuminated by sungineering glowglobes. The councilors stood in what looked like a curving corridor. As Ahilya watched, another shape joined them.
“She’s asleep,” Airav said, and he sounded exhausted. “But she will have to be excised tonight. She trajectedthrougha deathchamber. I don’t know how well even the deathcage will hold her, despite the layered forcefields. I have at least a dozen architects maintaining those in a chamber below the garden. I dare not have them guarding her face-to-face lest she find a way to traject them. I’ve never seen so much power.”
“Her family,” Chaiyya said, clearing her throat. “We should send for them. Tariya and theboys—andAhilya—”
“No.” Iravan’s voice was quiet. Hard.
“They’re Bharavi’s family,” Chaiyya protested, horrified. “They have a right to see her before her excision, to comfort her.”
“I am her family,” Iravan replied. “I will comfort her.”
There was another deep silence. Ahilya’s heart clawed up her throat. In her mind’s eye, she imagined Iravan staring at the others, silent and still, unwilling to move.
“The excision,” Chaiyya began. “Who willperform—”
“I will,” Iravan said.
“You don’t have the strength in the Moment,” Airav said. “Notafter—”
“Don’t test me, Airav,” Iravan cut in softly. “Not tonight.”
The silence that greeted his words was tenser than any before. Ahilya shivered despite herself. Iravan’s voice had been calm. He’d said his words without anger or rancor, but there was a naked threat underlying his tone. The man who had wept at Ahilya’s shoulder only minutes before had disappeared.
One, two, three heartbeats passed.
Then Airav said, “Very well.”
A note of finality and regret steeped the Senior Architect’s voice. Sweat broke out over Ahilya. A bitter taste entered her mouth.
The shadows moved, coming back toward her. Panicked, she slipped out of the stairwell and ran on light feet in the opposite direction. The bark closed behind her, but she had no way of knowing: Were they going back into the temple proper? Would they come down the corridor? A few feet away, she pressed herself against the leafy wall. Tendrils reached over her slowly, then faster, responding to her petrified desire to hide. In seconds, Ahilya was covered in soft, thick leaves.
Two shapes came toward her, murmuring in low voices.
“—pact, maybe for the best,” Airav was saying. “We won’t know until later.”
“A pact isneverfor the best.” Chaiyya sounded troubled. “There are other ways, better ways. And for him to carry it out, the way he is? Laksiya isright—he’sstill adanger—”
“We will just have to keep aneye—”
“But if it’s true? We’ve lost Bharavi already. We can’t lose him too, Airav. We justcan’t.”
Then the two passed Ahilya, their footsteps fading, voices receding.
Ahilya broke through her leaf cover and jogged in the direction they had come from, toward Iravan. The two Senior Sungineers must have left for the main courtyard of the temple, for there was no sign of them. Keeping to the wall, Ahilya hurried forward. She glimpsed the white of Iravan’s kurta disappear into another stairwell, then bark closed behind him.
Once again, Ahilya began her count. She made it to five before impatience and nervousness got the better of her. Using the rudra bead bracelet, she opened the wall again.
This time, the staircase led upward, curving over and over. Ahilya could hear Iravan’s tread above her. As quietly as she could, she followed, keeping to the wall. Her husband was alone, but all her instinct told her to be silent. There had been something in hisvoice—inhisface—Andhiswords…Why send Ahilya to Tariya but refuse Tariya from comforting Bharavi before she was stripped away from her trajection? Why send Ahilya at all, when it should have been one of the councilors to break the news of Bharavi’s Ecstasy to her family? No, that had been a distraction. A way to get rid of Ahilya, no questions asked.
