The Surviving Sky, page 14
“What exactly is the investigation?” Dhruv asked.
“Another farce from the council?” Ahilya said, before Iravan could answer. “Because it seems pretty clear why the alarm failed. A Senior Architect didn’t do their job.”
Iravan didn’t wince, not visibly, but she could see behind his dark eyes the ghost of a shadow. “I think there’s more to it,” he said, frowning.
Ahilya laughed, a scornful sound. “They put you in charge?”
“I volunteered. I thought,” he bit out, speaking over her as she opened her mouth, “that if I’m not on shift, it might give us time to spend together. Seeing as how we’ve been apart for so long and don’t trust each other. A bad way for a marriage to be, don’t you think?”
Dhruv shifted his feet and turned his gaze to the ceiling.
Ahilya’s cheeks burned. Iravan had always been good at turning her own weapons against her. She had pushed him to it, but he had provoked her too, and they continued to spiral, round and round endlessly. How had they fallen this far? When had they become like this? Did they even have a marriage now? The grief and anger thrust higher; suddenly, she couldn’t think clearly. In her mind, she saw him sprawled on the grass again, flickering as though malfunctioning, returned from the earthrage. She saw him strip himself of his vine, redirect it toward herself and Oam. I had a duty of care, she had whimpered. No, he’d replied. I did.
“I’m trying,” Iravan said, “to reconcile, Ahilya.”
She studied him, still not speaking. Vaguely, she wondered if she was being too unforgiving, not allowing him to explain, to rest.
But this was Iravan. Iravan who had held her expedition hostage. Who hadn’t owned up to his fault with the alarm. Who had chastened her with detachment for seven months because of a stupid fight. She wasn’t being nearly harsh enough, and the anger returned to her, for his words now, for his attempts at reconciliation.
Ahilya looked away to the sparkling phosphorescence on the walls, transported back to eleven years before, when Iravan had asked her to wed him, when they’d taken their vows in the temple and promised to go on a path together or not at all. There was no interest in each other’s work now, no common journey in life, no shared dreams about the future. Iravan’s promotion to the council had ripped the bark off the tree that was their marriage. The last few months had hollowed the wood, and the sap of shared experiences that had coupled them so tightly had separated. All that remained was the seed of affection nearly dead.
Was there any point in reconciliation? She should end it now, before it became any worse. She should free them both, leave Iravan to dwell in his duties, and her to her powerless guilt.
Ahilya opened her mouth to speak the words, but Iravan anticipated her, reading her as only he could, the shadows behind his face becoming deeper.
“Think of it this way,” he said, giving her a watery smile. “You telling me how wrong I am, arguing constant opposition, will help the objectivity of the investigation. If we find out why the alarm failed, the perpetrator would be punished harshly. You’d get justice for Oam.”
Ahilya froze.
The perpetrator would be punished harshly. Iravan would be punished harshly.
They would demote him. For all she knew, they could excise him, cut him away from the most precious thing in his life, his trajection. It would be justice, but more than that—it would be absolution from her relentless guilt.
Her gaze darted around the alcove, the lowering canopy, the blooming jasmines, the blue-green twinkles in the foliage. Once, she had encouraged Iravan to be his best and pursue his dreams, but as long as he was a Senior Architect, there would be no going back to the way things had been. Yet in one stroke, Iravan was offering her the chance to vindicate Oam and rebuild their marriage even at the cost of his title. All she had to do was say yes. The word dangled in front of her like a ripe fruit, tempting, delicious, poisonous.
Ahilya’s gaze locked on her husband. He sat on his wheelchair, clenching and unclenching his jaw. He wanted her to join him, badly, desperately, but why? What did he have to gain?
Iravan was no fool; he had seen an advantage, something he wasn’t telling her, some way to keep it all, his position, his reputation, his marriage. She could join him on the investigation like he so clearly wanted, but if her reasons were different, were they allies? So often, even on the same path, the fulfillment of one’s desire had been the ruin of the other’s. Perhaps, then, they were adversaries. The thought summed up their marriage so succinctly, so perversely, that Ahilya almost laughed out loud.
Iravan stared at her. “Will you come with me? Please?”
After all the traps, and all the machinations, it came down to one simple question: did she love Iravan enough to attempt reconciliation?
“Please?” Iravan asked again.
Was he—was their marriage—worth saving?
“Yes,” she said, surprising herself. Iravan’s chest dropped in deep relief. She glanced at Dhruv, but he only looked curious. The wave of grief and anger in her mind retreated slightly, to be replaced by something else. Opportunity. Opportunity for happiness—perhaps, if they were lucky—but certainly for more. “I’ll help you,” Ahilya said, her palms sweating. “But on one condition. You nominate one of us to the council seat.”
Iravan recoiled. Shock, admiration, and calculation flickered in his eyes in rapid succession. “With you, me and Bharavi,” he said at once, “it would practically be nepotism.”
“I said one of us,” Ahilya said coldly. She gestured to Dhruv, whose mouth had fallen open. “I leave that up to you.”
Iravan glanced from her to Dhruv, then back at her. Her words were simple enough, but all three of them knew what she was asking.
Nomination was no easy affair of a councilor picking a name from the candidates who applied. Each councilor could nominate only one person and, in doing so, became their candidate’s most vocal champion, placing their own reputation on the line. Iravan had taught Naila, wanting to raise a Junior Architect, so he may prove himself. In nominating Dhruv or Ahilya, a floundering sungineer and a misfit archeologist, he’d be sabotaging his own career. Yet for Ahilya and Dhruv, a nomination would be clemency. Even if they didn’t win the council seat, Kiana could hardly transfer Dhruv after such an honor, and Ahilya, for all her recent failures, would be allowed to remain an archeologist.
Iravan’s face was inscrutable but he was thinking rapidly, looking for a way out. “It’s not that simple,” he said. “I have an obligation to nominate a candidate who is best for the ashram. This is why the council waits five years before making such a decision—it is to give a fair chance to anyone who wishes to join it, for candidates to mature their ideas on Nakshar’s survival and present them to a councilor—”
“We know this. We have been working on our ideas far longer—”
“They have to be likely ideas. Serious ideas. With a high probability of success. You’d still have to present your theses for survival. Without those, I wouldn’t be allowed to nominate you—”
“Then perhaps you should consider helping us,” she said coldly. “Those books are a good beginning. Sharing more records would be to your benefit.”
A slight crease formed on Iravan’s forehead.
And all of a sudden, Ahilya could remember every argument the both of them had ever had about the vacant councilor position. Airav, Bharavi, and Chaiyya would nominate their own candidates, each of them an architect. Laksiya and Kiana would undoubtedly pick sungineers from the lab. Ahilya and Dhruv already knew the names of their most likely competitors—but with what Ahilya proposed right now, she was not merely taking away a nomination from Junior Architect Naila. She was taking it away from an architect.
For the first time in Nakshar’s history, the decision would equate the number of architects and non-architects up for a vacant council seat. It would create shockwaves, marking a change in the city’s administration. It would show a Senior Architect’s willingness to have a civilian occupy an architect’s position, a serious relinquishing of control, if there ever was one, which would have repercussions for future nominations. Even if Ahilya and Dhruv did not win the councilorship—and they most likely wouldn’t—Ahilya was asking for a change in the city’s future, immediately.
She knew Iravan could see all this. But she’d trapped him in his own game. The very people he scorned—he’d have to uphold them in all his eloquence, a greater challenge than he’d anticipated.
Ahilya held her breath, watching these very thoughts fly through Iravan. Grudging approval settled on his handsome face.
“Help me solve this,” he murmured, “and we have a bargain.”
“Agreed,” she said at once.
Dhruv exhaled audibly. Iravan nodded and skimmed his wheelchair around.
For an instant, Ahilya couldn’t believe what she had done. Her heart throbbed in her chest like she had been running. This had been a coup, and she’d won, against a Senior Architect, against Iravan. Disbelief made her lightheaded; laughter formed on the edge of hysteria, and she blinked once or twice to clear her head.
Iravan was already leaving the alcove. Dhruv raised a hand in farewell. Still enveloped in a haze of unreality, Ahilya nodded to the sungineer and followed her husband out the library alcove, her heart pounding rapidly.
13
IRAVAN
Iravan shifted as the thick, knotted branch that formed the landing firmed under his wheelchair. Ahilya followed and the alcove closed in a whisk of bark. Their shared alcove had been grown in one of the highest boughs of the fig tree that formed Nakshar’s library. Three stories below, in the heart of the tree, the main hall appeared through gaps in the long leaves. Citizens clustered by the rock pool at the center, filling their clay jugs with crystal water and bringing them back to the smaller branches that were shaped as benches. Iravan considered descending through the fig tree’s depths, past the open-air hall and the public spaces of the lowermost tiers. Bharavi would have recommended it; Nakshar would see him and Ahilya together.
But then he glanced at his wife, at her trembling shoulders and unseeing eyes.
Iravan swallowed and took the branch that spiraled outside the tree.
Neither of them said a word. Ahilya brushed a strand of her long black hair behind an ear. Iravan breathed deeply as the rich scent of sandalwood wafted to him. Once, there had been comfort in that soft scent: home, security, Ahilya. Now a yearning seized him, and with it a challenge.
He had not thought his state on the wheelchair would move his wife into forgiveness—she knew him far too well for that. Yet her maneuver with the nomination had been so ingenious, it was almost diabolical.
Nomination was not merely a test of the nominee; it was a test of the councilor. Power in the council came from fruitful decisions, from gambles one took that paid off in the long run—it was why Iravan had selected Naila to be his protégée; to have her rise to councilor from a Junior Architect would have given him more sway than an increment of small decisions. But nominating Ahilya or Dhruv? The two had contributed nothing to Nakshar’s survival. The nomination was doomed to fail; it would deplete his carefully built goodwill, irrevocably weaken his position.
Besides, was it right? A stable council directly impacted the solidity of a city. Councilors made most decisions together, either by majority vote or by unanimity. Ultimately, a council maintained a delicate alignment between the trajection of architects and the desires of non-architects—an alignment that flight and survival itself depended on.
Which meant that more than anything else, the councilorship was about fit. Both Ahilya and Dhruv had shown only disdain for architects throughout their careers. The sungineer at least was a safer choice; sungineers by their very nature had to work with architects. But Ahilya? Her entire research was to make architects redundant. Would it be fair to Nakshar to nominate either of them? Were they capable of hard decisions to keep the ashram in flight?
Iravan pressed a hand to his neck to assuage the sharp pain that had settled there. Under him, the massive, gnarled branch smoothened into a ramp, then grew creakily into wide steps for Ahilya. The design was old, inefficient. Why hadn’t the Disc Architects created permanent stairs? Or, better yet, replaced all stairs within the ashram with ramps? Nakshar lay flat, spanning acres. With so much space, inclines would be easy, and trajection could be conserved instead of being wasted back and forth on conversion. This was what it meant to be on the council: thinking of minute decisions that affected their world. Were Ahilya and Dhruv capable of factoring such things into the implications of their own research?
To Iravan’s surprise, Ahilya frowned at the branch and stepped beside him to share the ramp. She couldn’t know about matters of architectural efficiency—perhaps, then, this action was a small sign of forgiveness. He studied her but said nothing. Together, they descended the tree’s thick limbs.
Finally, Iravan’s wheelchair sank into the earth.
They’d emerged onto the very playground their shared alcove overlooked. Wispy white clouds scudded above them. The playground was smaller than any in Nakshar’s latest designs. In a few hours, grass would cover the field, swings and bars would rise between trees, and slides spiral in gentle loops. The children would find it before the day was done, but the structure was a compromise, easy, nondescript, created so architects didn’t tire themselves to maintain its constellation lines. Iravan opened his mouth to tell Ahilya this, but she shambled next to him, her shoulders slumped, hair a dark curtain that hid her face. Her eyes had looked swollen in the library, the tear tracks clear on her cheeks.
Iravan stopped the wheelchair. What am I doing? he thought abruptly. The nomination, the investigation, even Nakshar’s architectural designs, those were his games. She needed comfort. A stab of self-loathing cut through him, making him flinch. He lifted a hand toward her, but she kept walking.
Iravan sighed and scrubbed his face instead.
Ahead of him, Ahilya paused and turned slightly, her eyes dull.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “This is not how I wanted to do this. I can’t seem to get it right. With you. With us. If you don’t want to come, that’s—that’s fine. The judgement of the council will still be fair. They made a healbranch promise.” He clenched his fists so she wouldn’t see his trembling hands. If there are signs, any at all, another indication of a failed marriage, an Examination could happen. “Are things forever broken between us?”
Ahilya was silent for so long, turned slightly, gazing at him, that he was afraid she hadn’t heard him. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “You abandoned me for seven months.”
Iravan winced. “I… I was wrong to do that. It… shouldn’t have happened.”
The apology rang hollow. Iravan clutched the nape of his neck where a sharp pain had settled. For seven months, his anger had felt right, it had felt honest, yet Ahilya’s feelings had become collateral damage to an action born out of neither logic nor love. What kind of a man did that make him? What kind of a husband? The two paths opened behind his brows again, ever present, relentless, one toward his wife and the other toward this hateful person he was revealing himself to be.
“You should have saved Oam before you saved me,” she said, her voice cracking.
“I wasn’t going to leave you to die, Ahilya.”
“This guilt. Nothing is worth it.”
“What of my guilt?”
“You should have left when I told you to,” she said.
“You should have returned when I asked you to,” he answered.
They stared at each other. For a second, he saw the both of them the way they had been once, laughing together on their wedding day. Ahilya’s eyes had danced as she’d placed the marriage garland around his neck. He had swept in and kissed her, claiming her for himself forever. They had been happy once; they had touched each other endlessly, their hands entwined, the constant nudges and embraces. His fingers twitched now, wanting to feel her, to comfort her, but her naked pain stabbed his heart, and Iravan broke the gaze first. He skimmed forward on his wheelchair and Ahilya started to walk again.
“Oam’s fathers,” he began, awkwardly.
She swallowed and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “They want to move to a different city. Kinshar or Reikshar.”
“I should have gone to them,” he said, his head hurting.
He had told Bharavi as much, during all the last week of recovery, when she had come to visit him, but the Senior Architect had settled herself on the edge of his bed in the sanctum and set her mouth in a hard line.
“No one needs to know an architect was out there in the jungle,” she’d said pointedly when he’d raised the idea of making a personal apology.
Iravan had sat up despite his aching limbs. He had not been able to shake the image of what he’d done—of how he’d let go of Oam, how he’d pushed himself into Nakshar with the last of his energy. The guilt was too much—it was affecting his recovery, he knew.
“This isn’t about the reputation of the architects, Bha,” he’d said. “It’s about the right thing to do. I had a duty of care.”
“What do you think will happen, Iravan?” Bharavi shot back. “You think broadcasting your role in this will relieve your guilt? No one knows except the council and Naila—”
“So, your solution is to let Ahilya carry this burden alone? To let the boy’s parents think his death is her fault? That’s your advice?”
“Airav gave you three weeks,” Bharavi said, unfazed. “You’ve spent one of those recovering, and let’s not overestimate the progress you can make in the other two. Laksiya will provide the council’s condolences to Oam’s fathers. You need to forget what happened in the jungle and focus on your investigation.”
