The Surviving Sky, page 11
If the temple was changing, then they were no longer under flight protocol. It meant the rescue was over. Then where was Oam? She tapped her citizen ring, her heart beating hard. Nakshar’s map hovered over her palm, the Architects’ Academy, the architects’ homes, the solar lab, all prioritized and under construction. Yet there was no infirmary where Oam could have been taken. Fingers trembling, she tapped at the ring again to compose a message to him, but the connection dissolved before she could complete it.
“Where’s Oam?” she asked, her voice cracking. “Why isn’t he receiving healing?”
Airav and Chaiyya didn’t look up, continuing their healing of Iravan. Senior Sungineers Laksiya and Kiana in their glittering yellow kurtas exchanged wary glances.
Bharavi put her arm on Ahilya’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. Oam never entered the ashram.”
“No,” Ahilya said, choking.
“Only you and Iravan returned.”
“No.”
“You know this already.”
“No, I don’t know,” Ahilya said, tears streaming down her face. “I don’t know. Please, Bha. He’s out there, in the jungle. Iravan trajected the both of us. I saw him rise. Maybe he entered the city from a different part. Maybe he’s in a different corridor. We have to look for him. We have to help him.”
Bharavi merely shook her head.
“He’s only a boy, Bha. Please. Please.”
Bharavi’s eyes were full of sorrow. She shook her head again. “I’m so sorry.”
“Or he must still be in the jungle,” Ahilya said, weeping. “Still held up by Iravan’s vines. Iravan had him. He had him.”
Bharavi pressed her shoulder, and the healbranch vines over Ahilya retracted. Ahilya let herself be led away. Behind them, Kiana and Laksiya’s soft conversation returned. Bharavi stopped by a leafy wall, and the leaves separated to reveal a glass magnifier. The Senior Architect pinched her fingers and spread them apart. The view expanded.
Ahilya’s words died away. There, underneath them, was the jungle.
In a way, from up high, the earthrage was even more terrifying. Ahilya heard it in her head, the gnashing of rocks, the rush of the storm, the whipping of the wind. The jungle appeared a dark, bestial creature, writhing and churning in its own madness, massive balloons of dust exploding into the earth. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. How long had Oam lasted in his armor? Had he been in pain? She hoped there hadn’t been pain.
“It all happened too fast,” Bharavi said, her arm still around Ahilya. “The earthrage began nearly on the heels of the landing. Maybe minutes after you and your team left. I’m surprised Iravan was able to traject in the jungle at all. In here, it was chaos. All the Maze Architects who had been sent off duty had to be called back. We needed to take off immediately, but we didn’t have enough architects ready. We didn’t even have flight architecture in place—we had to reuse Iravan’s landing design.”
Thick tears clogged Ahilya’s throat. She couldn’t breathe properly. She’d told Oam she’d keep him safe. He’d been scared. We shouldn’t be here, Iravan had said. We should be back in the ashram. What had she done? Had she killed her husband, too? She should have called the expedition off. She should never have allowed any of them to take such a risk.
Bharavi sighed. “This has never happened before. We didn’t even know the earthrage was happening until the first tremors. At the very least, the lull lasts a few hours. The shortest ever recorded was seven hours. But this?”
Ahilya swallowed. Her face felt sticky. She brushed her fist to her eyes, her chin. She knew this about the length of earthrages, but she couldn’t speak. Her chest hurt as she tried to draw in a breath.
“We thought you had returned,” Bharavi continued. “By the time your sungineer friend—Dhruv?—was able to tell Kiana about your absence, it was too late. We couldn’t risk waiting any longer, not in the jungle, at least. The best we could do was rearrange Nakshar’s architecture so we could hover safely, but it was a slim hope. Nothing survives an earthrage. We didn’t think…” Bharavi’s voice shook. “We didn’t think any of you would come back….”
Ahilya turned her eyes away from the chaos below to gaze at the Senior Architect. No architect explained themselves unduly to a non-architect; even Iravan would have kept his words restrained. Why was Bharavi saying all this now? Merely to comfort Ahilya?
Bharavi’s eyes were troubled. “Whatever Iravan was doing… I’ve never seen trajection like that before. None of us have. We didn’t feel him in the Moment. We couldn’t even keep track of all the plants he was trajecting. That… that’s very bad.”
Ahilya stared at her. “Wh-why didn’t you help him?”
“It couldn’t be risked. We can’t allow any jungle plants inside Nakshar, and he—all of you—were covered in those contaminants. Only Iravan knew what those plants were. We couldn’t, in good conscience, unlock the bark to help you.”
“And if it had been three architects out there? Could you have helped then?”
Bharavi shook her head. “Ahilya, it’s not about that. Our survival depends on such rules. We will always do what’s best for the ashram.”
But preserving architects was what was best for the ashram. That had always been the best for the ashram.
Ahilya turned away back to the magnifier, sickened and confused. She couldn’t make a clear thought. Was she doubting Bharavi now? The woman was her family. This was her own fault. She had failed. She had been the mission’s commander. She had let Oam die.
She blinked her tears back, trying to discern the jungle, but Nakshar had ascended too far now. Despite the magnifier’s enlargement, all Ahilya could see of the earthrage was the dust. She had waited at the city’s terrace only a few hours earlier, wanting to study these very dust patterns. Years had passed since then. Hysteria built in her, threatening to bubble out as incongruent laughter.
“So, it was Iravan who let us in?” she asked dully.
Bharavi shifted her weight. “Ahilya, it shouldn’t have been possible. He trajected your entry while simultaneously stripping his trajection of the jungle. That’s very advanced, even for a Senior Architect. He broke several known limits of trajection. But…” She drew a deep breath. “You’re here. You’re alive. And that’s what matters.”
Us, Ahilya thought. But not Oam.
The citizen ring felt heavy on her finger. She nudged the useless thing with a light hand, and Nakshar’s map blinked over her palm again, showing her all the architect areas under construction, while the rest of the city lay dark.
“Whatever happens now,” Bharavi said, “you have to remain calm. All right? Try and stay calm—”
“Why didn’t the alarm go off?” Ahilya interrupted.
Bharavi frowned. She looked past Ahilya.
Ahilya turned around. She heard the scrape of bark, the magnifier closed, and they stood once again in a temple separate from the jungle.
Kiana and Laksiya stared at her. Her question had carried into the quiet temple. From near Iravan, Airav and Chaiyya arose. Iravan struggled to sit up on the chair that had grown under him. His eyes were open but unfocused. Shadows stood out despite his dark skin.
Ahilya lurched over to him. “Are you all right?” she asked.
She grabbed his hand and pressed it to her cracked lips. He raised his eyes to her and squeezed her fingers, so gently it was a mere hint. Ahilya breathed deeply. He was injured, but he was going to be fine. He had to be fine.
Chaiyya and Airav had moved away when she’d approached Iravan, but now Ahilya turned back to them, her gesture protective of her husband. The councilors all stood in a cluster, watching her.
“Why didn’t the alarm go off?” she repeated, louder.
Kiana coughed and fidgeted with her wooden cane, leaning on it and straightening like she couldn’t decide. “We don’t know yet,” she said at last.
“You don’t know.”
“I assure you we’ll be looking into it closely—”
“Don’t you dare,” Ahilya said softly. “My apprentice is dead. Iravan and I nearly died. So, you will give me more than I don’t know.”
Senior Sungineer Kiana pursed her lips.
Ahilya glanced from her to Bharavi. “Why didn’t the alarm go off, Bha? I deserve an answer.”
Bharavi cleared her throat. “It should have,” she said slowly. “By our assessment.”
“Then why didn’t it?”
“It… it wasn’t sounded on time,” Bharavi replied. “We don’t allow anyone but a Senior Architect at the watchpost, and—”
Ahilya swung back to face the council architects. “So, it was one of you. Which one? Who was at the watchpost?”
The councilors glanced at each other, but no one said a word. Then Airav made a gesture, and from behind the rudra tree, a figure walked forward, trembling.
For a moment, Ahilya didn’t understand. “Naila,” she said, seeing her shake from head to toe. “No, but you’re no Senior Architect—you were supposed to be with me—”
She cut herself off. The muscles in her legs grew weak. It took a long time for her to turn to see Iravan straighten on his chair. Ahilya stared at him, feeling dizzy, horror and disbelief coursing through her. Her hand disengaged from his. Her feet staggered back.
Iravan locked gazes with her warily, shadows darkening on his face.
11
IRAVAN
The room spun. Iravan knew what was happening. He didn’t have enough blood in his head. He tried to focus on Ahilya, the one thing he had tried his best to hold on to during the horror of the jungle. She’s here. She’s safe.
But Ahilya’s expression changed as his gaze locked on hers. Her mouth fell open. Her fingers flexed, then tightened into fists.
He recognized those signs. He ought to know what they meant.
Iravan blinked. Something was escaping him. Something that had happened.
He gripped the arms of the healbranch chair with shaking hands, noticing the angry black welts burned into his skin. Trajection scars. That was bad. He had felt the rudra tree’s healing presence through a daze. Why hadn’t the scars receded? Oh, rages. His Two Visions had merged. He had become the magnaroot. He had tried to kill himself. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
They were all staring at him. The councilors looked watchful, wary. And Ahilya… She was backing away. He read fury in her stance… and something more, something he had never seen before, glittering in her beautiful eyes like an open wound, except darker, eviscerating—
Betrayal.
On the heels of the understanding came another. He was in danger, grave mortal danger.
But that was ridiculous; he was in the temple. His eyes slipped from Ahilya toward Bharavi and the other councilors, then back to his wife.
Pieces clicked in his mind, as though he had finally seen the obvious path to a difficult trajection. Images returned, of crushing Naila’s rudra bead, entering the jungle despite his misgivings, someone he had left behind, so many mistakes he had made—
Oh, rages.
“Ahilya,” he began, his voice hoarse. “Please, listen—”
“It was you. You sent her away—”
“I only wanted to spend some time with—”
“You threatened my expedition—”
“No,” he said quickly. “That wasn’t my—”
“You were supposed to be at the watchpost—”
“Yes, but—”
“You killed Oam,” she sobbed.
Her accusation hit him like a physical blow. Iravan recoiled.
I killed him. She was right. He remembered it now. He’d torn his own magnaroot armor off. He’d unraveled his own vortex of jungle plants. But in the end, in that moment of choice, he had chosen to save himself. He’d pushed himself and Ahilya into Nakshar with the last of his energy and let go—he’d let go—of Oam.
Iravan’s hands shook and tears blurred his vision. He blinked them back.
“I—I,” he began, but then he glanced at Bharavi, who shook her head emphatically. “I saved you,” he said.
Bharavi’s nod was nearly imperceptible.
Iravan tried to remember. He’d made the choice, between himself and Oam. That was right, wasn’t it? It’s what the council would say. He had followed protocol. Each person embodied the potential of an ashram, but the life of a Senior Architect was worth much more than any citizen. A Senior Architect sustained the ashram. Had there been another architect out there instead of Ahilya, Iravan would have had to save them. That was protocol.
“I saved you,” he choked out, trying to believe it. “If I hadn’t been out in the jungle, you wouldn’t have made it back to Nakshar—”
“This wouldn’t have happened if you had stayed in Nakshar in the first place! If you’d been here to sound the alarm!”
Iravan’s vision edged with crimson. The pounding in his head worsened. Bharavi’s face was inscrutable, but to him there was almost entirely too much expression there. She wanted him to say something.
“This is not about the alarm,” he mumbled. “This is about trajection. About interference. This is bigger than what happened in the jungle.”
Chaiyya drew in a breath.
Bharavi frowned.
Iravan regretted the words the moment he uttered them.
“How dare you?” Ahilya spat. “He’s dead, Iravan. He was just a foolish boy with a harmless infatuation. Were you jealous? Was that it?”
Iravan blinked at her. This was wrong. They shouldn’t be fighting. Not in front of these people. Not at all.
“Ahilya,” he began, but she cut him off.
“If you’d been at the watchpost, where you were supposed to be, none of this would have happened. If you’d sounded the alarm, we’d all have returned in time.”
Iravan stared at her. Her reaction, it was natural, obvious. Why hadn’t he predicted it? He opened his mouth, trying again, but Chaiyya beat him to a response.
“You’re right,” the Senior Architect said quietly. “You’re right, Ahilya. Please, calm. Calm.” The Nakshar-native woman, her long hair caught in a braid, held up her hands. “This is a grave error. You will have your justice. You have my word.”
“The word of a Senior Architect?” Ahilya said. “Regarding a non-architect’s life? I’m no starry-eyed girl, Chaiyya. I know how this world works.”
Chaiyya flinched. Ahilya pushed past her and strode away to the closest leafy wall, her body shaking.
The temple didn’t react to her. Like Nakshar itself, the temple could only be accessed by a Senior Architect or a key unless permissions were changed. Iravan prepared to traject—the thought made him nauseous—but the other architects flared blue-green underneath their robes, and the wall in front of Ahilya unfurled in a creak of branches and twigs.
Without a glance toward him, Ahilya marched away into the darkness.
In the wake of her departure, Naila hurried forward nervously. “Please, councilors, I have something to say—”
“Leave, Junior Architect,” Airav said. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“But I can explain what happened at the watchpost—”
“And you will. But this is a council matter for now.” Airav made a gesture, and the Junior Architect shot Iravan an anxious glance and hurried away, following Ahilya out the same wall. The trajecting light died out from the architects. Leaves curled closed behind the two women.
With them gone, something in the room changed.
A heavy silence descended over the temple.
All the councilors turned to look at Iravan as one. He collapsed in his chair, and his hands trembled as he lifted them to his head. The marks from the headlamp throbbed under his fingers. Someone had removed the broken sungineering equipment from him. All his rudra beads were gone too, his bracelets and necklaces, his citizen ring, everything that had marked him as the bearer of responsibility. Even an ordinary citizen wore more than he did right now. The only jewelry they’d left him was the bone-white healbranch bracelet he’d received on graduating to Maze Architect, and that perhaps because they couldn’t remove it.
Behind closed eyes, the images attacked him again. He felt the magnaroot piercing his skin, the yearning of death when his Two Visions had merged. Ahilya’s anger, the council’s reaction. It would ruin him, he needed her, oh fuck, what had he done—
A hand squeezed his shoulder. Iravan gasped, nauseous, and opened his eyes.
Chaiyya’s round face peered at him in concern. Plump and mild, the Senior Architect had always been motherly. She had been the one to formally induct him into Nakshar’s council five years before. She leaned in, asking him the same question she had asked then.
“Iravan,” she said gently. “Are things well with your marriage?”
Iravan was anticipating the question, but it still made him wince.
“E-everything is fine. But the last earthrage—it was so long. It’s been difficult for Ahilya. For the both of us. And now, for this to have happened…” He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “It shouldn’t have happened.”
He felt more than heard the others walk up and join Chaiyya around him.
When he glanced up, he faced all five of them. Seats grew under them in a circle.
Bharavi was the only one left standing. “This can wait,” she said. “Look at him. Hasn’t he been through enough?”
The others said nothing, merely stared at her. For a long second, Bharavi stared back, defiant.
Then she reluctantly lowered herself onto her fragrant rosewood chair, behind the others, directly opposite Iravan. He watched them, naked without his rudra beads.
Chaiyya rested a hand on her bulging stomach. “To be clear, are you accepting responsibility for all that has happened?”
