Page 92 of The Surviving Sky
He must have gotten to his feet. He must have entered the deathcage. The next thing Iravan knew, he was picking up the single source leaf of the spiralweed and trapping it again in the deathbox.
He approached Bharavi’s lifeless body.
She looked so tiny.
A million stars reflected in her still brown eyes.
Iravan picked her up in his arms and carried her to the stone slab. He closed her eyes.
Except for the welts around her neck, she might have been sleeping. Except for his self-absorption, she might have still been alive.
For a long moment, he gazed down at her. He tried to absorb the enormity of what he’d done. She would never advise him again. They would never argue.
But Iravan couldn’t muster any more tears. He had wept himself dry, holding on to Ahilya, bidding Bharavi farewell. All he felt was a terrible emptiness, a deep desire to sleep and never wake again. He bent down and kissed Bharavi’s forehead softly.
Then activating all the locks, Iravan turned and walked away, feeling a hundred years old.
31
AHILYA
On the morning of Bharavi’s funeral, Ahilya descended into darkness.
She clutched Arth to her, her eyes blurred with tears. Around her, Maze Architects shuffled and murmured to each other. Someone nudged her, and she turned around to see people clearing the garden path of the reclamation chamber.
Ahilya couldn’t see the pallbearers yet, not with the press of bodies, but she had a sudden urge to laugh. Bharavi’s funeral was occurring a day after her death, keeping to the traditions of Reikshar from where she hadimmigrated—andonly a few Maze Architects had been able to make it at such short notice, but at least the Senior Architect was receiving a funeral. Oam had gotten nothing; he had been left behind. A sharp pain arose in Ahilya. She suppressed a sob.
And then she caught sight of the four pallbearers carrying Bharavi’s body.
Ten-year-old Kush, who had grown taller in the last weeks, and a woman Ahilya didn’t know, presumably a native of Bharavi’s ashram, carried the rear ends of the pallet. In the front, leading the ceremony, was Tariya, her face glazed with tears. And next to her was Iravan, whose eyes were unseeing even as he marched.
Ahilya clutched Arth to her, choking, trying to inhale, but a hand had seized her lungs; she couldn’t get a full breath. The thicket disappeared from in front of her. All the fifty or so assembled Maze Architects melted. She was back on the terrace above the temple, unable to speak, unable to move, condemned to watch as Iravan murdered Bharavi.
She had tried to look away when the spiralweed had strangled Bharavi. She hadwantedto. Ahilya had moved toward the deathcage, but her legs had collapsed under her. She had sunk to her knees instead, paralyzed in shock, her tongue too heavy to make any sounds. The night had become cold, and Bharavi had screamed, calling out Iravan’s name, and Ahilya had watched in horror and fear, complicit in his crime, images of Oam flashing in her head as his vine snapped away from hers.
She embraced Arth closer, and her nephew whined, wriggling in her grasp. Ahead, the procession came to a halt. The pallbearers placed the pallet on an earthy platform.
Iravan stepped forward and began to speak.
Ahilya closed her eyes, fighting nausea. Disjointed words came toher.…“Thebest friend a man could askfor”…“thekindestmentor”…“rebornin a betterage”…
Revulsion and anger so great gripped Ahilya that she had to forcibly remind herself not to crush Arth. The fight nearly eight months before flashed in front of her eyes, the way Iravan had kissed her yesterday, the lies he’d uttered.Trust me, he’d said, before he’d proceeded to kill Bharavi.Trust me, but he had only wanted to send her away. The taste of him turned to ash in her mouth. Ahilya saw again, all the times shehadtrusted him and the consequences of doingso—thechasm he’d opened in the floor with her and Dhruv, the words he had said in the temple, after Oam.I saved you. If I hadn’t been out in the jungle, you wouldn’t have made it back to Nakshar.
Within the reclamation chamber, Iravan stopped talking. The woman from Reikshar picked up a basket from the floor and threw a few wood chips onto Bharavi’s body. Iravan and Kush followed, and Tariya scattered the rest. Cries of surprise echoed around the chamber as showers of white gardenias fell over the assembled from the canopy. Leafy vines grew from the soil, sheathing Bharavi in a gentle embrace. The Senior Architect disappeared into the earth in a final sacrifice to Nakshar.
Tariya began to wail then, an awful heart-wrenching sound that broke Ahilya’s heart.
Ahilya moved without knowing. One moment, she was watching her sister crumple, and the next she was by Tariya’s side, holding her, wrapping her arms around her. Tariya grabbed her, sobs twisting her body, breathless. Tears filled Ahilya’s eyes, too, and Iravan hurried toward them, raw dismay on his face, but a stab of fury flashed through Ahilya, piercing her grief. She clutched Tariya to her, protectively, against Iravan’s reach.
He blinked and drew back in confusion, but the next second, Tariya had pulled him into the embrace, too. Iravan wrapped them both in his arms, the boys between them.
Ahilya disengaged immediately, leaving Arth with Tariya. She took a few steps back, her chest heaving up and down, close to hysteria. Iravan’s brow creased as he studied her, but at Tariya’s sobs, he turned to her.
“She loved you very much,” he said abruptly. “It was the one thing she always returned to. You and Kush and Arth. Right to the very end.”
Fresh tears ran down Tariya’s face. She patted Iravan’scheek—agesture so like what Bharavi woulddo—motherlyandloving—thatAhilya’s stomach clenched in hot fury. Iravan gripped Tariya’s hand with both of his, the sorrow in his eyes almost sincere. Ahilya’s entire body trembled.
And in that moment, she saw, very clearly for the first time, as she stood there in the clearing reclamation chamber, how her marriage had always been a lie. How she had never known this man who was her husband.
