Page 58 of The Enduring Universe
Around him, one by one Ecstatics started to glow as they entered the Deepness. Some of them frowned, others closed their eyes. Naila, of course, did not attempt anything. He could see the question in her eyes, of what he thought he was doing, but it was imperative they learned this skill. Everything that had happened—their entire future—hinged on this one thing.
In truth, holding this class at all infuriated him. He never wanted to teach anyone the everpower, and he had been counting on fulfilling his capital desire without needing to.
Yet the events in the jungle had taught him a brutal humbling lesson. There were forces that even he could not contend with. He could not shake it, the battle within himself, that somehow he should have let Ahilya die when the planet attacked—and that was what scared him more than anything else. That he could nottrust his past lives and what they were telling him. That he could not trust who he had become, who Ahilya had become, not when both of them were so corrupted in their own way. How ironic that after all this time his problems had remained the same.
Once he had been unable to tell right from wrong even as a Senior Architect, pressed by his promises to the council and his vows to his wife. Then he’d had Bharavi to counsel him. Now?
Iravan gazed at the students.
Now, he supposed, he had these untrained Ecstatics. If the temptation of everpower did not seduce them enough to stay with him, he did not know what would.
He began to stride through the gathering, noticing the stuttering blue-green tattoos on dark skin, as the others entered and left the Deepness in their attempt to combine their visions. Eyes opened and closed in frustration, and people were muttering on the impossibility of his ask.
Iravan opened his mouth to call out another instruction, when movement at the doorway caught his eye.
Ahilya entered, her gaze finding him instantly with the light coming off him. She did not speak, nor attempt to break into his mind, but he sealed his shield tight over his Etherium. He could not bear it, he knew, seeing into her turmoil and memories.
Would it even be her? Or would he see some version ofthem? After the events five days ago, he had paced within his chamber, willing Ahilya to wake up and summon him to her Etherium. He could still remember their phantom kiss—he’d indulged in a moment of weakness, knowing that she was corrupted by the Virohi—but if his goal was to separate her from the cosmic creatures, he could not allow her to infiltrate his mind again. The more she resembled them, the more his capital desire would weaken, infected by her closeness to the Virohi. It was enough that she was fine physically.That was all he needed to know. After that encounter in the vriksh, he had asked Dhruv to confirm that for him and shut his own Etherium down.
Yet looking at her now, Iravan was uncertain if the Senior Sungineer had been accurate in his report. Dhruv’s assessment must have been hearsay, for Ahilya looked dead on her feet, her tired gaze sweeping over the gathering before she made her slow way to the platform.
A chair began growing there in anticipation of her, and this time she took it, nearly collapsing onto it. Her skin looked ashy, and Iravan could tell even from here that she was having trouble breathing. Heartache so strong seized him that his hands curled into fists. He watched her close her eyes. He tried to calm himself.
It was disconcerting how much he wanted to comfort her. Was that a manipulation of the Virohi? Who would he be comforting, and would she allow him to? The fury climbed in him. This is what he had done to her. Him and the Virohi. A thousand deaths would not be enough to atone. Erasing them was only the beginning. If he could, he would choose to do this again and again, not for any other crime, but the crime of what they had done toher.
He tried to still the anger coursing through him. How would he go about purging the Virohi from her? For all he knew, the infection ran too deep, and there was so much he did not understand. Her Etherium that she’d dragged him into, unlocking their ability to speak to each other in their minds. The way the vriksh and the Virohi were connected. That mysterious energy in Irshar’s solar lab that he was certain had to do with Ahilya in some capacity. How strange that the only one capable of untangling these mysteries was at the center of it all. He was an architect—he built. But Ahilya was an archeologist, trained to see disparate pieces and make a cohesive narrative out of them. If there was anyone that could provide anexplanation, even the beginnings of one, it was her. It was, after all, one of the things that had brought them together in their days of courting. Would she be able to decode herself, while changes were occurring to her? The very thought of it spun his mind, like looking into an infinite mirror.
Others had noticed Ahilya. Ecstatics began to shift on their feet, perhaps expecting another confrontation.
Iravan gestured to Reyla and Darsh to continue the class. They were among the youngest here, but they were still the most experienced, now that both Pranav and Trisha were working with Dhruv. Reyla was a natural Ecstatic. She was the only one of them who had found the Deepness before finding the Moment. She had taught him how to braid his power in the Deepness in different ways, a move essential to the first assault on the Virohi with the bomb. He had already discussed the everpower with her, and how it could be similar to Ecstasy in some ways. The two were equipped to carry on this class, breaking down the steps to achieve everpower, even if they themselves had not mastered the evervision yet.
Leaving the children, Iravan strode over to Ahilya on the platform. Naila followed him, while someone brought them a bowl filled with ripe pears and apples, placing it on the table that had begun growing.
Ahilya acknowledged him with a nod. She looked sorely like she needed to eat, but though the words were in his mouth, to ask her to partake, to feed her if he must, Iravan resisted the urge. He sat across from her while Naila took the last chair. On his wife’s face, Iravan read his own tiredness, and for an instant, he allowed them both to rest. To stay with each other silently, just because they could.
Naila looked from him to Ahilya, then smiled. “Well, this is cozy,” she said, before helping herself to an apple. The sound ofher crunching into it grated on Iravan, but Ahilya threw the Maze Architect a small, wan smile.
“How can I help you, councilor?” he asked finally.
Ahilya’s eyes drifted back to the class where Reyla was speaking in her soft voice. She took in the Ecstatics, then focused on the roof. She seemed to be tracking the dust that swirled there constantly.
“What happened?” she asked. “Five days ago. That attack.”
“What do you think, Ahilya-ve?” he answered carefully.
Ahilya’s gaze cut to Iravan. “It’s the planet, isn’t it?”
Of course, she had worked it out. Why was he surprised? He nodded, once.
She leaned forward. “Is that why you’re teaching them this everpower? Do you think they can help?”
The truth was that he didn’t know. He didn’t even know whether these Ecstatics could learn the everpower. That skill had come to him after trajecting all the core trees of the sister ashrams into submission while still in the skies. The act of simply thinking about his chair in the Garden while talking to Nakshar’s Ecstatics when they’d named Irshar, the way the Conclave had formed, the bridges he had constructed during the crash, the shape Irshar had settled into when it landed, all these things had occurred simply because he’d desired them—nay, barely imagined them. He had begun understanding the limitations and possibilities of the power after his subsummation of the falcon-yaksha, but it had begun with the core trees.
Or perhaps it began with his unity with the falcon. If so, he still had to decode the method. Everything he’d learned, he’d learned on his own. His first Ecstatic experiences had occurred before he’d known the falcon existed. His first attempts with the everpower had happened without clarity. All of those had been chaotic, out of his control, and he had learned true control only on uniting,then finally subsuming the yaksha. But if everything was really a slow slope of understanding, could he not accelerate it for these architects? He’d had to discover all this on his own, but he was here now, and he could give them shortcuts. What else was the point of so much knowledge and power? It all began with them first finding a way to amalgamate and view their three visions as one thing, even if they did so briefly.
Ahilya was gazing at him, her brow crinkled. Iravan could feel her attempt to break past his shield, to look into his mind to unravel all this.
“They can help,” he said, an answer to her question.
