Page 5 of The Enduring Universe
“Building what? A weapon?”
“I don’t know. I think he is looking for an alternative to Irshar and the Garden too.”
Iravan stirred, and then he was looking directly at her. Just for an instant, his silvery eyes hollowed with guilt and regret. Iravan stared at her, and unbidden images flashed in her mind, of when he had kissed her while she held him after Bharavi’s Ecstatic attack; when he lay spread-eagled while she took care of him in the habitat; when he shielded her after she lost their child. She saw both of those men together, the Iravan of her past and the one in her present, who could see the very same things she was seeing.
He flinched as her memories and longing washed over him.
His jaw trembled then hardened. He tilted his head as though in acceptance of a punishment, and sudden rage grew in Ahilya at his gesture, at this convoluted path he was taking to make amends. If he wanted, the two of them could atone for all they’d done by working together, find ways for life to flourish, even back away and let someone else take charge for once. They could have a future. They could have peace between themselves. They could havelove.
Yet he chose this senseless war. He chose to fight her, alienate humanity, and destroy the man he had once been, all because he wished to save them from something they had already accepted. How could he be this blind to his own devolution?
Look at what you have done to us, she thought savagely.Look atus,Iravan. Do you remember what we’d wanted once? Children? A home? What about amends tome?How dare you let yourself go down this path? Howdareyou?
Iravan blinked as though he could hear her.
They stared at each other for a long moment.
Her thoughts skittered around her mind, images of her and Iravan preparing to speak at the Conclave; throwing their wedding garlands around each other, promising to travel the same path or none at all; the both of them believing the best of each other and of humanity, once. She couldn’t take it, the loss that engulfed her on beholding him like this.
Ahilya collapsed their connection, her breath catching in a soundless sob.
The sounds of the muttering architects returned to her. Eskayra still watched her, chewing her lip., the Virohi called.
“Enough,” she said, half to herself. “I need to calm my mind before Chaiyya gets here. We all have our duties.”
“Remember yourself,” Eskayra said, squeezing her hand. “Remember you are not alone. We are here.Iam here.”
Ahilya nodded. Her mind still full of Iravan, she braced to find a version of herself to hold onto.
2
IRAVAN
The shock of the connection with Ahilya rippled through Iravan. Bharavi, Nakshar, the children he would never have, flickered in his mind. He shivered, trying to stabilize.
These encounters with his wife were always sudden and out of his control. He had become better at concealing his reactions, but the pain Ahilya had shown him today, the rage, pulsed under his skin, flooding his veins, itching. He willed himself to silence, letting the stillness of the jungle seep into him.
Under a large banyan tree, darkness ate away at his silvery light. Trees stood like sentinels in the shadows, vines hanging off them, motionless. Shafts of dying sunlight illuminated a trunk with gray moss, and a heavy carpet of undergrowth. Iravan had cleared a very precise quadrangle in front of his rock where lush grass grew. Slowly, still reeling from Ahilya, he began trajecting again.
Soft earth flew upward in a gushing waterfall that solidified into the likeness of a carved door. Wood shards scraped into the shape of a thousand jasmines. Iravan flexed his fingers, and the carvings on the door bloomed into true flowers that released an intoxicating scent.
The everpower flooded him. He called the use of it trajection, but it was not that, not truly. He had no language for it yet. When he alone wielded it, what did it matter what it was called? He understood this power beyond articulation. He wielded it as naturally as breathing. In the act of subsuming the falcon-yaksha, inbecomingthe yaksha, Iravan had forsaken trajection and embraced this new everpower, one so intimate that itwashim. He did not intend for anyone else to ever get such dangerous, intoxicating control that could shift the planet should he desire it.
He did not desire it. Not now. Not yet.
Iravan desired to build. So he cosseted the remains of the architect he had once been—and more dust flew in a small contained tornado, leaves and earth gently swirling and combining with substances sucked from deep within the planet. The structure in front of him took shape, a shrine, a temple, a grave for what he had lost.
Had Ahilya seen this? The thought shamed him, as though he had shown her a weakness. In that itself was a quiet grief. Since when had being weak in front of Ahilya become a bad thing?
Grief was too painful.
He clung to the other emotion, for shame, at least, was familiar.
It had been three months since he had last seen his wife outside the Etherium. He had gathered—stolen—hundreds of architects and nearly all the sungineers from the landed ashram of humanity. Neither he nor Ahilya had said a word to each other as the exodus occurred. Instead, he had bowed to her in solemn gratitude for allowing her citizens to leave. Even if he had given her little choice, he owed her that much respect as he contradicted her wish.
She was no longer just a councilor. She wasthecouncilor, the only one who could control the architecture of Irshar. The only one who stood in his way.
Tiredness overwhelmed him. He missed her so much that itached.I am getting old, he thought, rubbing his eyes.I need it to end.
