Page 20 of The Enduring Universe
He pushed with his everpower, but his strength was failing.
He broke.
12
AHILYA
The Moment shattered.
Ahilya sheltered under the tree, crouching as a gale whipped through the chambers of the Etherium. Chaiyya had dropped to the forest floor, writhing, her eyes rolled back into her head. Eskayra looked wildly toward her, reaching a hand as all sungineering blinked out.
Fissures opened in the clearing, another new city destroyed before it could begin, Ahilya held onto consciousness with a fingernail, as the foliage lurched suddenly, trees waving, a gigantic trunk swaying so close that she thought it might hit her. Eskayra cried out, throwing herself over Ahilya’s body, and Ahilya closed her eyes, breath heaving.
Between her brows, she saw the Virohi swoop around Iravan, consumed by their insane grief. She caught a startling image of them in her mind, reflecting her own face but burned and pock-marked, deep holes cut into her skin, black tears running down her cheeks. The Virohi had been damaged in Iravan’s attack. Injured and in pain, they would have no restraint. They would retaliate.
Iravan’s skin flaked, becoming gray. The blood in his body was freezing. The planet was rupturing, and so was he. She had been warned about this, that the Virohi were evil. She had brought them to this, not just humanity but the cosmic creatures too, in dealing out this fate to them. In that moment of startling clarity, Ahilya saw how deeply corrupted she had become.
Sap cracked and bled down trunks. Dust churned the jungle. Ahilya squinted, trying to see, but all was mayhem. Eskayra was yelling, and Chaiyya and the architects were lost to their terror. The non-architects in their expedition huddled together, as twigs scored their skin, and wind beat against them. Ahilya knew they only had moments before the full power of the storm hit them, before the ground under them caved. She saw herself, and she saw Iravan unmoving in the sky, cosmic creatures attacking him from every side. When the Virohi were done with him, they would turn their attention to the rest of the planet. All the consideration and life she had given them had been useless. They had gone mad, and soon they would raze the planet in a storm Ahilya had delayed for three months. Iravan was all that stood between them. And he was being destroyed.
Ahilya anchored in the tree, pleading,
Slowly, languidly, an attention overtook her consciousness, a gravity to it, a terrible old age.
Visions came to her of flying in the sky, of people living in her boughs, of purpose being embedded into her. Men, women, children, and creatures of all kinds grew and died within her limbs. She flew into the air, she landed in the jungle, she responded to the desires of life.
Awe filled her, bringing tears to her eyes. Iravan had once changed the permissions of all the core trees to obey her above anything else, and the core trees of the landed Conclave had amalgamated tobecome the vriksh. Now the tree was responding to her desperation, as it had ever since.
The vriksh’s attention—the consciousness of all the core trees of the Conclave—encompassed her. Roots spread their tentacles into her chest and heart, gripping tightly. Her back arced.
Determination surged through her. The vriksh recoiled like a branch whipping in the storm. Above Irshar, the Virohi continued to hammer at Iravan. She could see him, suspended mid-air, his feather cloak billowing behind him, arms spread out like a bird while smoke surrounded him, wrapping him in thick corded swarms. His panicked breathing echoed in Ahilya’s ears, his mind searching for escape—and behind it she felt his desire to be eradicated. This would not just be an end, this would be his final end.Theirfinal end.
Would it be so bad?Eskayra said.
Ahilya closed her eyes, bringing the power of all the core trees with her.
13
IRAVAN
Iravan fragmented.
He remembered a night under a star-filled sky.
G l i mm e r e d
Gone
E x p l o s i o n s
in shadows of light.
