The Surviving Sky E-Book

Kritika H. Rao

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 706

Beschreibung

Enter a lush world of cataclysmic storms, planet-wide jungles, floating cities and devastating magic in this explosive new science fantasy, perfect for fans of N.K. Jemisin, Tasha Suri and Martha Wells. High above a jungle-planet float the last refuges of humanity—plant-made civilizations held together by tradition, technology, and arcane science. In these living cities, architects are revered above anyone else. If not for their ability to psychically manipulate the architecture, the cities would plunge into the devastating earthrage storms below. Charismatic, powerful, mystical, Iravan is one such architect. In his city, his word is nearly law. His abilities are his identity, but to Ahilya, his wife, they are a way for survival to be reliant on the privileged few. Like most others, she cannot manipulate the plants. And she desperately seeks change. Their marriage is already thorny—then Iravan is accused of pushing his abilities to forbidden limits. He needs Ahilya to help clear his name; she needs him to tip the balance of rule in their society. As their paths become increasingly intertwined, deadly truths emerge, challenging everything each of them believes. And as the earthrages become longer, and their floating city begins to plummet, Iravan and Ahilya's discoveries might destroy their marriage, their culture, and their entire civilization.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Praise for The Surviving Sky

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

1: Ahilya

2: Ahilya

3: Iravan

4: Ahilya

5: Iravan

6: Iravan

7: Ahilya

8: Iravan

9: Ahilya

10: Ahilya

11: Iravan

12: Ahilya

13: Iravan

14: Ahilya

15: Iravan

16: Ahilya

17: Iravan

18: Ahilya

19: Iravan

20: Iravan

21: Ahilya

22: Iravan

23: Iravan

24: Ahilya

25: Iravan

26: Iravan

27: Iravan

28: Ahilya

29: Ahilya

30: Iravan

31: Ahilya

32: Ahilya

33: Iravan

34: Ahilya

35: Ahilya

36: Iravan

37: Ahilya

38: Ahilya

39: Ahilya

40: Ahilya

41: Ahilya

42: Iravan

43: Ahilya

44: Iravan

45: Ahilya

46: Iravan

47: Iravan

48: Iravan

49: Ahilya

50: Iravan

51: Together

52: Ahilya

Glossary

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also Available from Titan Books

PRAISE FOR THE SURVIVING SKY

“Enthralling and highly imaginative. The Surviving Sky is a richly crafted story set in a fascinating world… I loved the protagonists and their relationship, fraught with tension and secrets, ambition and desire.”

SUE LYNN TAN, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OFDAUGHTER OF THE MOON GODDESS

“The Surviving Sky is a fast-paced, fascinating novel wrapped in philosophy and spirituality. Rao’s debut will dazzle many.”

FANTASY HIVE

“Rao weaves a tale of broken love, redemption, and the Hindu concept of samsara in her magical and mind-bending debut… this heart-pounding cli-fi adventure will leave readers breathless.”

PUBLISHERS WEEKLYSTARRED REVIEW

“This Hindu-inspired sci-fi fantasy is a transcendent debut, full of cosmic magic and set in an exquisitely glorious and treacherous world. Such a daring ecological and metaphysical endeavor is perfect for fans of Wesley Chu and Brandon Sanderson.”

LIBRARY JOURNALSTARRED REVIEW

“Kritika H. Rao crafts an inventive and cerebral debut, reimagining South Asian culture in a wonderfully different world. A story about love, duty, power, as much as it is about fascinating lore and costly magic.”

R. R. VIRDI, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OFTHE FIRST BINDING

“Breathtakingly inventive, The Surviving Sky is a twisty, cerebral journey. . . This is a book to get lost in.”

TASHA SURI, AUTHOR OF THE BURNING KINGDOMS TRILOGY

“The Surviving Sky is a high-octane science fantasy with heady, cerebral ideas and a lushly imagined world, whose story centers on a 30s-ish married couple—very unusual for fantasy! There is nothing else out there which is quite like it!”

SUNYI DEAN, AUTHOR OFTHE BOOK EATERS

“A reading experience that is incalculably enjoyable, creatively built, thoroughly immersive, and just like a majority of concepts in Hindu philosophy, thought-provoking and incredibly hard to distill.”

FANTASY BOOK CRITIC

“A unique blend of sci-fi futurism, eco-fantasy mystery, and intriguing spirituality. . . truly unlike anything I’ve ever read. Extremely original and thought-provoking… I utterly loved it and couldn’t put it down.”

SHANNON CHAKRABORTY, INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE DAEVABAD TRILOGY.

“Intensely imaginative and heartbreakingly human… Filled with both startling revelations and the intimate portrait of a struggling marriage, this is a story that is hard to put down.”

ANDREA STEWART, AUTHOR OFTHE BONE SHARD DAUGHTER

“The Surviving Sky weaves a compelling web of wounded hearts and warped duty… Fall from its floating city’s edge into a storm of emotions!”

MELISSA CARUSO, AUTHOR OFTHE OBSIDIAN TOWER

“The Surviving Sky is a prodigious gift best slowly unwrapped. Nakshar is an enigma of a city, as rooted and protective as its people; its stakes feel cosmic yet intimate… Rao has offered us a world like no other.”

SUYI DAVIES OKUNGBOWA, AUTHOR OFSON OF THE STORM

“This wildly imaginative book explores a fracturing world through the deeply painful lens of a fracturing human heart. At times brutal, often beautiful, The Surviving Sky offers a thrilling glimpse into a flawed society scrambling to survive… Don’t miss it!”

LUCY HOLLAND, AUTHOR OFSISTERSONG

“Sentient forests. Flying cities. Lost histories. Power, rivalry, love, and exile. The Surviving Sky is a cornucopia of wonders… Combining the best of Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris and NK Jemisin’s The Broken Earth, The Surviving Sky is an immersive and original epic fantasy.”

GAUTAM BHATIA, AUTHOR OFTHE WALLANDTHE HORIZON

“The Surviving Sky is utterly creative, a heady and mysterious tapestry of love, duty, and discovery… Add in a slow-burn romance and Rao’s exploration of human drive, desire, and consciousness—andThe Surviving Sky is sure to stay with readers long after the final page.”

H.M. LONG, AUTHOR OFHALL OF SMOKE

“With lush prose, compelling characters, and a wonderfully built world, The Surviving Sky has everything I hope for in a novel. This is a book for anyone who has ever loved and longed for the natural world around them.”

JOSHUA PHILLIP JOHNSON, AUTHOR OFTHE FOREVER SEA

“In this brilliant, gorgeous debut, Kritika H. Rao’s The Surviving Sky weaves a kaleidoscopic environmental plot with relationships that feel very real indeed… This is a story unlike any I’ve read before, an epic adventure through fantastic landscapes and heartscapes.”

FRAN WILDE, DOUBLE NEBULA AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OFUPDRAFTANDRIVERLAND

“Brimming with fascinating lore and dangerous magic, The Surviving Sky is an evocative debut that will sink its roots—andthorns—into your heart.”

CHELSEA ABDULLAH, AUTHOR OFTHE STARDUST THIEF

“Immersive, inventive and intense, at once both universal and wholly South Asian, The Surviving Sky is a debut destined to live many lives. Let it grab your heart with its spiked, slithering vines!”

SAMIT BASU, AUTHOR OFTHE CITY INSIDE

“The Surviving Sky dares to imagine a boldly unique fantasy world and succeeds in spades. Lush and evocative, this flying jungle city will draw you in, and the characters anchoring the story will keep you reading to the very end.”

ROWENNA MILLER, AUTHOR OF THE UNRAVELED KINGDOM TRILOGY

“The Surviving Sky has some of the most intricate and inventive worldbuilding I’ve ever had the pleasure to lose myself in, coupled with a story that both examines exactly what it means to be human while daring to ask: what if we were more?”

ANNA STEPHENS, AUTHOR OF THE GODBLIND TRILOGY

“The Surviving Sky’s characters struggle passionately to balance communal survival and individual ambition, exposing the private strain on a marriage. Teeming with detailed world-building, this debut is perfect for fans of original science fantasy.”

E.J. BEATON, AUTHOR OFTHE COUNCILLOR

“Some books reach right into your brain and give it a good shake, and this expansive science fantasy, with its wildly inventive worldbuilding and characters who feel desperately real, shook mine in the most delicious way. Highly recommended!”

SAM HAWKE, AUTHOR OF THE POISON WARS

“With worldbuilding and magical metaphysics as alive as the emotion on the page, The Surviving Sky devastates and resurges… The protagonists navigate the love and fury of a fraught marriage, class struggles, and layered secrets as thick as the jungle itself.”

ESSA HANSEN, AUTHOR OFNOPHEK GLOSS

“Daringly inventive and uncannily enthralling… While storms and strange ecology shape the world, the characters’ personal cataclysms are grounded in the compelling struggles of the human heart.”

CASS MORRIS, AUTHOR OFFROM UNSEEN FIRE

“Precise, exquisite, and jaw-dropping. The world is rich and alien and wonderfully new, grounded by characters so familiar they ache. I loved every page.”

DAN WELLS, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR

“A vivid, verdant fantasy world rife with ethereal magic.”

M. J. KUHN, AUTHOR OFAMONG THIEVES

“Rao examines reincarnation, consciousness, duality, and power… This intriguing blend of science fiction, fantasy, and climate fiction captures the apocalyptic turmoil of N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy and the conflicted lovers of Tasha Suri’s Burning Kingdoms series with a magic system that will appeal to fans of Brandon Sanderson.”

BOOKLIST STARRED REVIEW

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The Surviving Sky

Print edition ISBN: 9781803361246

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803361253

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First Titan edition: June 2023

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

© Kritika H. Rao 2023.

Kritika H. Rao asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

For you, wonderful reader, of whom I first begandreaming when I knew writing books was what Iwanted to do.

1

AHILYA

The bracken didn’t react to Ahilya as it should have. She tried again, drawing her desire for the leaves to part to a single point. “Open. I want to see.”

It was unnatural—eeriealmost—how defiant the plants were. It was as if her limbs refused to move despite the command of her mind.

She stood alone on a wide curving terrace of her airborne city, Nakshar. An hour earlier, a dozen citizens had flocked to the promenade, seeking a final look at the open skies before Nakshar landed in the jungle. Ahilya had yearned for solitude, unwilling to conduct her study in front of them, but now she gazed at the empty bark benches, the shady trees, the soft moss floor. Everything looked the same. Then why did the bracken wall behave so differently? It had been waist-high earlier, a mere parapet, but now it towered over her, growing rapidly. Tendrils curled into tight, thorny balls. Branches squeezed together, twisting in intricate lattices. The entire structure hardened as though to deny her. And none of it responded to her desire to see beyond the city.

Ahilya jogged alongside the wall until she found a small gap in the leafy growth. There, below thick clouds within a twilit sky, waited the earth’s surface. She unslung the satchel from her shoulder. Eyes on the gap, she rummaged until she found her telescope, then dropped the bag gently by her feet.

Ahilya pressed the telescope to her face so hard, it pinched her skin. The image focused just in time for her to see another dust explosion. Her breath quickened. There was a pattern to the dust, a shift she had theorized once. For the first time, she was viewing the epicenter of the fading storm. Her hands itched to take her tablet and stylus from the satchel to draw the patterns, but there was no time. The leaves on the city’s wall were morphing too fast, she’d just have to commit the explosion to memory—

Dark green shuttered her vision. Ahilya lowered her telescope and peered through the foliage, but the wall was relentless again. “Come on,” she muttered. “What is wrong with you? Open up a little bit, at least.”

“Nakshar’s plants won’t respond to non-architects anymore,” an amused voice called out.

Ahilya spun around.

Naila stepped off an ascending wooden pedestal that had emerged from a hole in the floor. She was dressed in her architect’s uniform: an embroidered green kurta reaching her knees, flared over narrow, pleated trousers. Her long translucent robe wafted in the breeze. Thick black beads looped around Naila’s neck; more beads—bracelets and rings—clinked around her wrists and fingers, held together by thin glassy optical fibers. The Junior Architect was perhaps twenty-five, nearly a decade younger than Ahilya, but the rudra beads indicated more responsibility for their flying city than Ahilya would ever be granted. All Ahilya owned was her obligatory citizen ring.

“Ordinary citizens no longer have any control over the architecture,” Naila repeated, striding forward.

Ahilya forced a smile. “Great, you’re here. I think I saw something—this incredible pattern of dust that might reveal the source of the instability down there. Will you open the wall for me? I want to sketch it.”

“You want to draw…dust?”

“I want to draw dust during landing,” Ahilya corrected. “It’s the best way to understand earthrages.”

“Oh, I can explain those to you,” Naila said, flicking a lock of dark hair behind her. “They’re cataclysmic storms—”

“Yes, thank you. I’m trying to understand why they happen at all.”

“Because of a disruption of consciousness—”

“No, I meant, why did earthrages begin in the first place—”

“They’ve been around as long as we have—”

“How did—”

“Really, Ahilya,” the Junior Architect said, sniffing. “These questions have already been answered. And these dust patterns you want to draw—the architects have studied those for years.”

Ahilya turned back to the wall. She had asked the architects for their drawings, but they had summarily rejected her requests, citing their records as privileged architect information, a slap on the face she had never received before. “Right. Fine. Thanks for that,” she said. “Could you open this, please? I might still be able to get a few rough sketches.”

“I can’t—”

“Sure you can. You’re an architect, aren’t you? The plants literally shift at your behest.”

Naila gave her an unimpressed look. “That’s very reductive. How can you be married to a Senior Architect and not know the intricacies of trajection?”

“We try not to talk about it, lest we begin arguing about how we see the world,” Ahilya said. Her voice remained mild. The workings of plant manipulation had always been too esoteric for her, but the truth was that ever since her husband had been promoted to the council, the two had stopped talking about each other’s pursuits altogether. Her fingers scrabbled at the leaves. “Please. You don’t have to open it all—just enough for me to see.”

“I can’t,” Naila said, exasperated, as though dealing with a child. “Now that there’s finally another lull in the earthrages, and now that we’re finally landing, the temple architects have enforced higher limits on the architecture. That’s why non-architects don’t have any control—”

“But you’re—”

“Yes, I know, but I’m a Junior Architect. Anything that doesn’t align with the temple’s guidance is almost impossible to do, especially by me. And they’re closing the city. Look around you. I’d be trying to fly against a windstream.”

Ahilya released her hold on the wall. Loose leaves glided down onto the moss floor—but the floor wasn’t moss anymore; it was transforming into bark. The benches and trees were gone. From all sides, thorny bushes rushed toward them, eating the curve of the terrace in their hungry approach. Even the bracken wall had extended, entrapping the terrace in a dome. Leaves and stems crisscrossed in a hundred different layers as the foliage tightened. Darkness would fall in seconds.

Ahilya’s brows furrowed. Nakshar had always been a flat city flying in the sky. Its architect-formed hills, with massive trees that housed the library and schools and homes, usually spanned acres. Checkered fields grew on the edges, and rainwater was harvested in rocky pools and waterfalls. She had never heard of the architecture changing so completely.

“Relax,” Naila said. “The council will release permissions beyond the temple again as soon as we land. Non-architects will be able to mold the architecture, and this part of the terrace will transform into an entry point close to the jungle. Shouldn’t affect your expedition.”

Ahilya frowned and stepped away from the wall, the dust patterns she’d wanted to study forgotten. There was something in Naila’s casual words, a message she did not understand. She glanced at the unresponsive architecture, studied Naila’s insouciant stance, thought about the easy assurances. A prickle of worry climbed the back of her neck.

She had lived in Nakshar all her life, but matters in the city had been changing recently. Hardly anyone paid attention, but Ahilya had kept track. First, it had been the suppression of the architects’ records. Then the fight to get her expedition approved. Now this? Control was being taken away from the citizens slowly and subtly, one way or another; a dangerous pattern.

The weight of this realization grew, pressing her shoulders down. In the end, wasn’t that what life in the flying cities was really about? The lack of autonomy she and others like her had over their own lives? Ahilya’s expedition, her dealings with Dhruv, the vacant council seat she was eyeing—everything she had done all her life was to balance this inequity, but things were coming to a head now. She could feel it.

She cleared her throat and returned her attention to Naila. “Why was the design changed?”

“I told you. They’ve enforced higher limits—”

“Yes, but why?”

The Junior Architect tilted her head and studied her for a long second. Then she smiled.

“For architect reasons,” she said coolly. “Why does a historian care to go into the jungle?” she added, asking her own question. “Aren’t there detailed accounts of our histories in the libraries?”

Ahilya flinched. The questions were calculated insults.

Naila knew Ahilya was an archeologist, not a historian. She knew any histories of the world were her histories, architect histories. She knew why Ahilya explored the jungle—life had begun there, and Ahilya’s entire research was to find a way to return to it again, to find survival on land instead of in architect-dependent cities in the sky.

This was a deliberate attempt to bait her. Either that or Naila had learned nothing from the documents Ahilya had provided to prepare for the expedition. It was likely beneath the Junior Architect to take any instruction from a non-architect. Refusing to indulge either attempt to shame her, Ahilya snapped the telescope shut and dropped to her knees to place it back into her satchel.

If only they would tell her. Naila had mentioned the recent earthrage as a reason behind this new design, and based on that alone, Ahilya could have helped the architects, shared information about what she discovered, even studied something for them.

But she was a non-architect, a pretender. What use was an archeologist in a civilization that had only ever known flight? Ahilya had practically invented the term. They were not going to tell her anything. The Junior Architect was simply reminding her of her place.

Ahilya pushed aside her strain with an effort, closed her satchel, and rose to her feet. In the few seconds it had taken her to repack her instrument, the terrace had closed entirely, so that she and Naila stood face-to-face on a square of bark. Thorny bushes enveloped them from all sides, obscuring any view.

“So, where are Dhruv and Oam?” Ahilya asked, referring to the other two members of her team.

Naila tilted her head. “They’re in the temple. With the rest of the citizens.”

“Why? I told them to assemble here.”

“Iravan-ve. He insisted the temple was the safest place until Nakshar had fully landed.”

The respectful suffix attached to her husband as an architect, but never to Ahilya as an archeologist, grated on Ahilya. Her hand curled tightly around her satchel. Iravan had abandoned her for seven months, and now he thought to give orders to her team without her knowledge? All of her restrained irritation bubbled up, tightening her throat.

“And they listened?” she said. “Even Oam?”

“Oam tried to protest, saying you needed us here. And Dhruv—well, I don’t think Dhruv wanted to go toe-to-toe with a councilor.”

Oam was only as old as Naila. Iravan would have intimidated the boy with a glance. As for Dhruv—ever since his last few inventions had failed, the sungineer had become wary of disturbing the council. Ahilya’s closest friend he might be, but Dhruv wouldn’t openly oppose Senior Architect Iravan.

“I see,” she said.

“Iravan-ve requested you go to the temple, too. That’s why I’m here. I’m supposed to bring you there—”

“Bring me?”

“Escort you,” Naila said. “Request you. He didn’t demand it—”

“But he might as well have,” Ahilya completed, her teeth gritted.

Naila shook her head in furious protest. “No, no, not like that. It’s a matter of safety. No one should be out here.”

Ahilya remained rooted. The dome above was a mere handbreadth away now. Sharp-pointed leaves reached so low, they tickled her ears, but the instant they made contact with her skin, the pinpoints shed themselves. Instead, the stem budded softer leaves. Ahilya smelt the warm, sticky sap of regeneration.

If she didn’t move soon, she’d be entombed in a layer of foliage. Nakshar’s living architecture would sheathe her in her own personal wooden armor. That had been Ahilya’s plan, for her and her expeditionary team. Rage Iravan and his raging interference.

“I’m staying here,” she said, voice cool. “You can tell Iravan-ve that.”

Naila extended a robe-covered arm upward toward their cocoon. Her skin, like Ahilya’s and most natives of Nakshar, was terra-cotta brown. Naila’s veins, however, began to glow an iridescent green as she influenced the vegetation around them. A thousand tattooed vines and creepers grew on her arms underneath the translucent sleeves of her uniform’s robe. Some of the leaves touching Ahilya retracted.

“Please, that is really not wise.” The condescension had left Naila. “I know this design. It’s ellipsoidal, like a sunflower seed. We’re in the outermost shell. This is where the greatest impact will be. That’s why everyone was asked—requested—to the temple, to Nakshar’s core. You received the instruction through your citizen ring too, didn’t you? I know you did.”

Ahilya rubbed a thumb over her single rudra bead. “It flashed and rang a few hours ago. But I know the city will provide an alternative.”

“At great cost. The architects in the temple will have to divert unnecessary trajection to keep you safe here. You’re risking the reliability of the entire construction. Nakshar could crash into the jungle instead of landing safely.” Naila jingled the rudra beads on her wrists as though to emphasize the burden of her responsibility.

Her words and actions were typical architect manipulation, but Ahilya had spent more than a decade married to a Senior Architect. “Is that really true, Naila?” she asked quietly. “Because I asked the temple about this. I was told I could wait here.”

“That was before Iravan-ve altered the landing design. Your old permissions don’t apply anymore.”

Ahilya clutched her satchel. Of course. She should have guessed Iravan had been behind the design’s change. Still, she could not help the abrupt anger and shock throbbing under her skin.

Iravan knew why it was important she leave right away. Without the data from the expedition, Ahilya could forget about being nominated to the council. But, of course, he had never fully thought her capable of being a councilor. Was that why he had done this? Because of the vacant council seat? Iravan was on the council but he had his own plan for the vacancy. One that involved Naila.

She studied the Junior Architect, the suddenly nervous gestures, the newly feigned concern, the barely veiled contempt. Naila had sounded logical with her warnings about safety, but there was more there, an undercurrent of unbending dogma lacing her words. Architects were so used to the world submitting to them, they could never see how terrible it was that civilization was designed to be architect-dependent in the first place.

Ahilya wouldn’t have begrudged it so much right at this very instant if it weren’t for everything else with Iravan. The beginnings of a headache formed behind her eyes, at the thought of giving in now, acquiescing to his silent call for obedience. His attempt at maneuvering her was so feeble, it was almost insulting. She felt suddenly tired, outrageously defeated.

“You should go,” she said. “Go be safe.”

“I can’t abandon a citizen to potential danger,” Naila said, her voice incensed. “If I leave you, it’ll go on my record as endangering Nakshar. I’m a Junior Architect. I can’t afford transgressions.”

“Nice try,” Ahilya shot back. “I know you’re well on your way to becoming a Senior Architect one day. Wasn’t that the real reason Iravan gave you a key to accompany my expedition? To add the jungle to your field of experiences so he can nominateyou to the council? I hardly think he’ll hold you accountable for my stubbornness.”

True to her profession, Naila switched tactics at once. “Well, then, consider. I can’t disobey a Senior Architect. If you don’t come with me, Iravan-ve will question me. Perhaps even forbid me from accompanying the expedition altogether. And then where will you be? No architect, no expedition, remember?”

Ahilya stared at her. “They teach you how to influence people as an architect, too?”

Naila smiled, a tightness to her mouth. “No, we gather that on our own. Can’t maneuver anything beyond a plant, but I suppose the principles of trajection remain the same.”

Against her will, Ahilya felt a strange morbid amusement. It was almost impressive, how skilled Naila was. None of the other Junior Architects the council had provided to her for previous expeditions had displayed such an effective change of strategy so quickly. No wonder Iravan had picked her to be his protégée. In Naila’s quick-thinking and casual arrogance, Ahilya detected glimmers of Iravan’s own personality. She sighed and clutched her satchel close to her. Her nod was curt.

“Hold on,” Naila murmured. She closed her eyes and opened her palms in front of her. Her veins flared again, the iridescence making Ahilya’s eyes water. A dozen dizzying patterns of vines formed and died on the architect’s skin.

For a long moment, they remained motionless.

“Well?” Ahilya said. “Are we going?”

“We are going,” Naila said, cracking open an eye. “We’re descending. Can’t you tell?”

Ahilya blinked.

Their little nest looked no different. The canopy was still touching their heads, thorns on all sides, no wind of passage. Were they falling downward toward the city’s core? Or was Naila changing the plants around them, outside of their nest? Perhaps the nest wasn’t passing through a tunnel; it was destroying and reconstructing itself, using the plants of the city to undulate them through the architecture.

Ahilya’s head spun. Contrary to what she had said to the Junior Architect, she did know some things about trajection. The power was inborn; it could not be learned. Even though under ordinary circumstances, Ahilya could ask the city’s plants to react to her desires, that was a charity provided by the architects who allowed their energy to flow through the foliage for the citizens to use. Ahilya had no true control. Only architects could directly influence a plant’s consciousness, forcing it to change form.

Yet for Naila to do it this way, in such an invisible manner…

Either the Junior Architect was more skilled than Ahilya had credited her with, or the architects had learned new tricks in the time since Ahilya and Iravan had held a proper conversation.

“How are you doing this—” she began.

The nest jerked. Ahilya’s knees buckled.

“Sorry,” Naila panted, steadying her. “Rougher than I intended. Trajecting is harder outside the temple, this close to the landing.”

“I suppose you could have brought me with you without waiting for my permission, and I wouldn’t have known,” Ahilya said reluctantly.

Naila threw her another amused look. “Architects aren’t tyrants. This way.”

Her fingers twitched, a waving gesture. The leaves in front of them separated to reveal a small courtyard. They stepped through and new bark closed behind them.

In the distance, vast tree trunks collapsed as though crushed by a giant hand. Foliage folded into itself, then tightened into stony bark. What had once been apartment complexes in trees—schools and playgrounds and homes—all changed as Nakshar coiled in on itself. When Ahilya glanced behind, bark chased her footsteps. Small florets became hard seeds. Supple ferns developed rough calluses. Needles and cones grew where a moment earlier there had been languorous sprays. The courtyard morphed in front of her eyes.

She had no idea where she was. Nakshar’s architecture was called a maze for a reason. Even in ordinary flight, everything except for the city’s fixed landmarks grew and changed. A path was provided for citizens by the trajection coursing through the plants—except Ahilya no longer had any influence over the architecture. She hurried after Naila’s blue-green light. It was one thing to be cocooned on a terrace that would become the best entry point to the jungle; entirely another to be encased within an unknown layer of the city. Sweat coated her upper lip at the thought of how little power she had.

She had lost measure of how much distance they’d covered when they reached another wall and Naila’s iridescence flared again. The wooden wall transformed into a doorway. They stepped into a narrow, shadowy passageway. Bark closed behind them.

Naila slowed, her breath releasing in a huff. The Junior Architect grinned and gestured for Ahilya to precede her.

First came the scent: the rich, heady smell of moist earth. Then the lilting sounds of excitement and laughter. Tiny sungineering glowglobes, like stars trapped in plants, emerged from the foliage to guide Ahilya’s way as she strode farther in. Ahilya squinted as her eyes adjusted to the swelling brightness.

A narrow archway beckoned at the end of the passageway, from where tiny white buds hung down in curtains. Ahilya’s breath caught in her throat. Jasmine was her favorite. Could that be Iravan’s doing somehow? But no, not after the way they had left things the last time together, not if his punishing silence were any indication of his feelings. She was being foolish.

For a long moment, Ahilya hesitated, staring at the jasmine. Her heart hammered in her chest; she recalled his expression, how he’d walked away from her, how angry he’d been. All the dread and outrage and confused love she had nursed for seven long months bubbled within her.

Ahilya took a deep breath, parted the fronds, and stepped into the light.

2

AHILYA

She emerged onto a crowded narrow balcony, its wooden railing visible beyond congregating bodies. Most citizens were standing, but interspersed were healbranch chairs, specially made for those who needed them. Behind Ahilya, the archway transformed into bark in a telltale creak. Naila had deposited her in a gallery full of familiar faces, but hardly anyone noticed Ahilya’s arrival. The Junior Architect had disappeared, likely to fulfill her role in the landing. Ahilya began to pick her way through the crowd, murmuring greetings to the families of other architects. Vihanan waved at her, a man with alluvial dark skin like Iravan’s, indigenous to the city of Yeikshar. Reniya smiled, her toddler clutching her saree with a chubby fist. The woman’s eyes ran down Ahilya’s clothing, then grew wide.

They were dressed in their finest kurtas and sarees, no doubt in anticipation of greeting their architect spouses who had been on shift in the temple. Ahilya’s attire, a harness over a kurta and tapered trousers, stuck out like a weed in a tulip field. With a headlamp perched over her hair, and a compass around her wrist instead of bangles, she was more suited to an expedition in the jungle than a long-awaited landing. Ahilya pasted a smile on her face, avoided their gazes, and wove her way through the crowd. Most of them had grown up in Nakshar with her, but over the years all had devolved into mere acquaintances. Her own fault, of course; her pursuits had made her an oddity. Ahilya swallowed her rising shame and averted her eyes to the rest of the temple, visible through the gaps in the bodies.

The temple was oval-shaped, with fifty balconies circling from the floor to the ceiling, each full of chattering citizens. At the very center rose the rudra tree. The trunk mushroomed as wide as twenty people standing shoulder to shoulder. Countless aerial roots, like slender branches, hung down to the floor. Iravan had often remarked on how Nakshar’s core tree was worth years of study, and for a moment, Ahilya agreed. Ethereal blue-green light flickered and gleamed in the top stories, making the tree appear mystical.

She squeezed through the crowd until she found her sister Tariya fidgeting on her chair, right by the gnarled railing of the gallery.

“Finally!” Tariya said. “Where have you been?”

Ahilya’s older sister was shorter than her and beautiful. Her raven-black hair tumbled down her shoulders in glossy curls. Her skin, though the same brown as Ahilya’s, seemed to glow. Her big kohl-lined eyes were shining with happiness. Tariya shifted restlessly on her seat, her baby asleep in her arms. “Here, hold him,” she said.

Ahilya found Arth thrust toward her. Her nephew’s weight was awkward; she squirmed, trying to ease the position, shifting her elbow, then her shoulders.

“I can take him,” a soft voice said. Tariya’s older son Kush edged through the press, gathered Arth, then returned to where the other children stood together in a rumble of noise.

Tariya called out a caution, then glanced up at Ahilya. “What took you?” she asked. “Can you believe it? The ashram is finally landing.” She straightened the pleats of her saree around her waist and readjusted the bindi on her forehead.

Nakshar, maze, city—there were many words to describe the airborne structure in which they lived, but none was as pretentious as ashram. The term meant a hermitage, but the architects had appropriated it to imply more—the city’s community, its people, a shared sense of purpose. Ahilya had once found it charming, but over the years it had become just another architect manipulation. She had stopped using the term altogether, her arguments with Tariya about it another point of difference between them. Yet Tariya looked so radiant this evening, her happiness rare and precious. Now was not the time to correct her.

“You look lovely as ever,” Ahilya said instead, smiling. “Bharavi won’t be able to keep her eyes off you.”

“She had better not. I’ve something in mind for the two of us to do every day, for as long as this lull lasts.” Tariya finished adjusting her saree and reached up to give Ahilya a hug but stopped as though only now noticing her. Her sister groaned, and unfastened Ahilya’s wrist-compass, uncaring of the fragility of the instrument. “Really, Ahilya. Does Iravan like you looking like this?”

Ahilya caught Tariya’s hands before she could do more damage. “I like me looking like this.”

“But don’t you know what landing means?”

“I finally get to go into the jungle for my expedition?”

“Your architect husband gets to be off duty. You get uninterrupted time with him. You don’t have to be stuck in the library anymore, studying something obscure—”

“I’m sure we’ll see each other once I’m back,” Ahilya said.

Her irritation bubbled close to the surface, but she had learned to contain it with Tariya. Fighting got them nowhere. Ahilya had to remind herself that it had not always been this way with her sister. Tariya’s despair had developed ever since their parents had moved away to a different city. It had affected her more than she was willing to admit. Ahilya leaned over the railing, hoping to spot Oam or Dhruv, swallowing the scorn in Tariya’s words. Amongst the thousand citizens, it was impossible to discern the only two people who had any faith in her research.

“I can’t wait to see Bharavi,” Tariya continued. “Her last visit was ages ago, and only for a week. The boys miss her. I miss her.”

Ahilya drew back. “Bharavi came to you during the flight?”

“Of course. Why—didn’t Iravan visit you?”

Ahilya shook her head. “Each time you said you spoke to her, I assumed it was through the ring.”

Her finger rubbed her single rudra bead. Everyone in Nakshar owned a similar bead, provided as a sign of their citizenship. With it, architects could contact the city’s population in times of need. With it, citizens could view Nakshar’s morphing architecture to know which areas were safe, which under construction. Over the years, the citizen ring had been embedded with several permissions, but it had been created originally for its messaging capabilities, and that was still its primary function.

“I didn’t realize Bharavi actually left the temple to visit,” Ahilya said, frowning.

“Of course she did. Several times.”

“I thought they were both on duty. That they were busy.”

“They were busy, but Bharavi had her breaks, same as Iravan and all the other architects. He didn’t visit you even once?”

Ahilya shook her head again.

“Did you speak to him at least, through your ring?”

Ahilya said nothing. Right after the earthrage was announced, she had transmitted a message saying she wanted to reconcile, but Iravan hadn’t responded. For seven months, Ahilya had disconnected every other note she’d composed. She’d spent long nights in her library alcove, burying her pain and confusion in her work, returning home only to sleep, a home where everything reminded her of him. Each time Tariya had asked about Iravan, Ahilya had murmured a casual response and changed the subject. How could she explain her marriage to Tariya now without betraying herself and Iravan? She knew her husband; this was his way. They had been down this road before, with his angry silences as cutting and eloquent as his words.

Tariya touched Ahilya’s elbow in concern. “Did you two have a figh—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ahilya said.

“But—”

“Please, Tariya. I get enough of this from the rest of Nakshar—all of them watching my marriage, judging my research, whispering about my plans for the city.”

“Maybe it’s time to listen, then,” Tariya replied, a tone of exasperation entering her voice. “Time to set aside your childish ambitions, especially if it’s affecting your marriage. Ahilya, this thing you do—trying to change history—at what cost?”

Ahilya jerked her elbow away. The last time she had seen Iravan, spent after their intimacy, they had argued about her childish ambitions too. Oh, he had been too artistic to frame it like that. He had begun slow, propping himself up on an elbow, his fingers feather-soft on her stomach.

“Ahilya,” he’d said. “We’re ready, don’t you think? We’ve been ready for a while, surely.”

“Ready…” she’d murmured, too relaxed to probe.

When she could no longer sense his touch, she had opened her eyes to see Iravan sit up. Sunshine danced on his skin, bright then shadow-dark. He ran his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “I want a child, Ahilya,” he said. “Someone to fill this growing chasm inside me…” He laughed bitterly, gazing down at his hand over his heart. “Don’t you feel it? Don’t you want one anymore? You did before.”

Of course she wanted one. She had always wanted one.

“Why now?” she asked instead, sitting up. Her heart beat faster. They had avoided speaking of this, knowing it would end in an argument. For him to bring it up now, again, when they’d stolen a moment of peace—

“Why?” he asked. “Why not? What are we waiting for? Ahilya, we’ve been married eleven years.” He reached forward to stroke her hair. “You can give this to me… to us. If it brings us happiness, why won’t you make that choice?”

“Because happiness is not your reason for wanting a child, is it, Iravan? Not really.”

His hand had fallen away from her. He’d stared at her as she scrambled for her clothes.

“There’s more to this,” she said. “This has to do with the demands of the council. With an architect’s arbitrary material bonds. Is this about making a child for a child’s sake?”

“If making a baby helps convince the others that my commitment to Nakshar is irrevocable, why is that so terrible?”

“I won’t make a child to please the council, Iravan. You shouldn’t want something so precious for architect reasons.”

“Is that what you think? That it’s the sole reason I’d want a family? Rages, Ahilya, I want to be a father. Why is that so hard to believe?”

Ahilya fumbled as she began clothing herself, disbelief making her movements inelegant. She had to admire his finesse. He had waited until she was satiated to bring this up. “Architects and children—” she said. “My parents—the way they were, with me and Tariya, but we weren’t born with the ability to traject like them—we were never enough—her despair, because of them—she doesn’t admit it, but it worsened—they could never accept—”

Iravan cut across her. “I don’t think like them—”

“Maybe not right now. But how long before you resent the child for not being like you? Before you’re disappointed that it’s like me?”

“This is ridiculous,” he snapped. “When have I ever indicated you’re not my equal?”

“When you started keeping secrets from me,” she said, rising to anger despite herself. “When you became a Senior Architect and councilor. It began five years ago, Iravan.”

Iravan’s voice became hard. “This isn’t about me. This is about you. Everything you do is tied to your resentment because you weren’t born with the ability to traject. Your research, your reluctance to have a child—and now you suspect my reasons simply because I’m an architect?”

“I’m not an idiot, Iravan. Do you seriously expect me to believe you have no other reasons for wanting a child? No pressures from the council?”

“You’re projecting your own insecurities—”

“Yes or no?”

Iravan threw his hands up, his rudra beads chinking. “All architects abide by the directions of the council. If my profession bothers you so much, why did you agree to marry me at all?”

“Because I loved you,” she said. “Because you loved me—”

“I still do!”

“And because you were different from other architects. You didn’t think normal citizens any less worthy before. Our ideas of the world were the same. Iravan, you were supposed to do better by us. That was the plan. That’s why we worked so hard for you to become a Senior Architect. So you could change things.”

“Rages, I’m still like that, Ahilya.”

“Are you?” she’d asked sadly, her anger melting all at once into weariness. “Then why is it that when there’s a council seat available, you’re angling to nominate Naila, a Junior Architect, instead of a regular citizen?”

“It’s not that easy,” he’d protested. “Only those who make a significant contribution to the survival of the ashram can be nominated to the council. And Naila is well on her way to that. It doesn’t mean I think non-architects any less—”

“I think it does,” she said, quietly. Her heart felt heavy. Now, after all the arguments, they had finally come to it. “You’ve changed since you became a Senior Architect, Iravan. Since you became a part of the council, with all its secrets and rationales, above the rest of us. You don’t like to admit it, but now I embarrass you. You look down on me and the rest of us who can’t traject—maybe you always have. Our stories, our lack of history, our very lives in this architect’s world, those mean nothing to you. Perhaps you don’t even think anything is wrong with the way our civilization exists. And I’m not about to make a child until you figure out what’s right.”

Iravan’s eyes glittered. His handsome face darkened in dawning outrage.

He’d stood up then.

Snatched his clothes and walked away.

With the earthrage announced hours later, she hadn’t seen him since.

Tariya was still throwing half-concerned, half-irritated glances toward her. Ahilya sighed, reached for her sister’s hand, and squeezed. Tariya’s lips twitched. She squeezed back.

In front of them, the rudra tree began to vibrate. The crowd oohed and aahed; several people clapped and cheered. A large ring-shaped platform—the Architects’ Disc—became visible on the tree’s topmost stories. Atop it, the shapes of a hundred glowing Maze Architects grew distinct, revealing the source of the ethereal blue-green light. Tariya gripped Ahilya’s hand in excitement. Somewhere on the Disc, along with the other two Senior Architects of Nakshar, Iravan and Bharavi orchestrated the Maze Architects. Ahilya tried not to look too closely.

With the appearance of the Disc, the temple became denser. The gallery Ahilya was on crept closer to the rudra tree. The city that had spanned acres in the sky during an earthrage shrank, became smaller, stronger.

Pressure built in her ears, but before it could hurt, she inhaled and worked her jaw. The sharp scent of healbranch entered her lungs. Green tendrils sprouted from the woody railing and wove themselves over and under her hands; roots twined between her legs, arms, and waist, over to her neck, holding her steady. Ahilya closed her eyes, imagining what Nakshar must look like from the outside, an oblong tangle of roots, leaves, and branches, tied and tightened in a hundred different layers, plummeting toward the jungle below. She could almost feel its controlled hurtle, the snap and break of the trees as it crashed through the jungle like a comet. She breathed deeply, fighting the sense of overwhelming vertigo and turbulence. The will of the city grew inside her, all the citizens, attuning their consciousness, to keep everyone safe, and then—

Stillness.

The city hovered briefly.

A moment of weightlessness.

Exhalation.

Nakshar dropped the last few feet gently, and Ahilya felt the thud. She opened her eyes. Dim green light burst through the foliage, as the bark carapace gave way to roots and leaves again. Nakshar began expanding, grounding, reknitting itself. Vines and shoots untangled, stretching and integrating with the city’s new design. Ahilya inhaled deeply, relieved despite herself as all the vines holding her dissolved back into the railing.

The rudra tree in the center shot up, tall and slender now. The temple floor softened into a grassy courtyard with rock pools tinkling between bark benches. Chatting, smiling Maze Architects in their embroidered brown kurtas and trousers poured out of the Architects’ Disc, shucking off their translucent robes, relief evident on their faces. Only a few Maze Architects remained on the Disc as it soared toward the canopy, high enough so even the blue-green light of trajection was no longer visible.

Ahilya opened her mouth to speak, but she was alone on the wide gallery. Along with Vihanan, Reniya and the rest, Tariya had already started down the winding ramp that now connected the gallery to the temple’s new courtyard, her chair dissolving into the ground. An excited babble of conversation arose, then faded, as citizens created pathways beyond the bark walls to leave the temple. Now that they’d landed, the council had evidently allowed the plants to respond to everyone again.

Ahilya’s neck prickled. She turned and dipped her chin.

There in the courtyard, looking up at her, stood her husband.

Her eyes met Iravan’s over the distance. He’d divested himself of his translucent robe, but the rest of his Senior Architect uniform, a white shin-length kurta over tapered white trousers, shone amongst the brown of other ordinary Maze Architects. His sleeves were rolled back, a dozen rudra bead bracelets covering both wrists. She knew there were more beads underneath his clothes, necklaces and arm-bands, far more than other architects, each bead holding special permissions. Iravan’s skin was too dark to tell any patterns from afar, but there was no concealing the blue-green light that pulsed on his sinewy arms and stony face. His entire body seemed bathed in light from within.

Ahilya stared at him, the way he held himself, tall and proud, his thick salt-and-pepper hair tangled, longer and grayer than it had been before, his jaw tightening the way it did when he was trying to control himself. Her husband’s almost-black eyes glittered back at her. He made no move to climb the ramp. They stood for a long moment, staring at each other. Ahilya’s chest tightened; she couldn’t get a full breath.

A cough sounded behind her.

“Dhruv and Oam have left for the meeting point,” Naila said. “Did you want to… I can tell them to wait if you want to visit—”

“No.” Ahilya broke the gaze first. She turned to the Junior Architect. “Let’s go.”

3

IRAVAN

In the usual manner of trajection, Iravan’s vision was split into two.

In the first, he stood in the growing courtyard, clenching and unclenching his jaw, staring after his wife as she walked away from him. His fingers twitched. His feet stirred. He breathed erratically, wanting to follow her, forgive her, submit to her. Iravan forced himself to stillness.

He had searched for her from the Architects’ Disc. The instant the ashram had landed, he’d leapt off the Disc and hurried to where the Junior Architect had brought her. Seeing Ahilya had frozen him in his tracks. She was so beautiful, tendrils of hair escaping her knot, those big eyes glittering with fierce intelligence. He’d waited for a sign, a lift of her lips, a softening of her gaze, anything. He’d waited for her to take a step.

And she’d walked away.

His heart thudded in his chest. Longing warred with rage and regret. The courtyard filled with the welcoming families of other architects. Children sprinted past clustering adults to jump into their parents’ waiting arms. Lovers spotted each other, faces breaking out into smiles; others embraced and kissed, voices laced with relief. Within his first vision, Iravan stood silent and alone.

Within his second vision, he existed as a dust mote suspended in an infinite universe.

Golden lights gleamed in every direction, endless and breathtaking.

The universe was the Moment: a motionless reality reflecting the consciousness of the plants that comprised the building blocks of Nakshar. Each frozen star in the Moment was a plant’s possible state of being.

Infinite such states existed for every plant, yet Iravan knew each one as well as he knew himself. Within this star, the water lily existed as a fully ripened bloom, frozen forever. In a star farther away, the ironwood was suspended in eternal decay. Birth through death, countless potentials twinkled. Iravan drifted through the Moment, surrounded by life.

Nearly fifty dust motes inhabited the universe with him, each an architect fulfilling their duty to stabilize Nakshar.

As Iravan watched, some of the dust motes generated constellation lines and wove between the stars. The lines intersected and locked, connecting different stars. Nakshar’s architecture unfolded around him in a complex maze.

Iravan smiled. This was something that non-architects could never understand. Nakshar’s living architecture was more than just a maze of plants. It was the intersection of lives, of promises, of intent. It was elegance and beauty and harmony.

Here was the temple, shaped like a warren of corridors. Further ahead grew the library, its loops indicating private alcoves. Iravan meandered through the lines of the solar lab. He drifted beyond the spaces of the infirmary. He swooped over bridge renditions, ducked under gazebo arches, slid over shapes of playgrounds. In his second vision, there was peace. Peace and belonging.

In his first vision, he stood in the temple courtyard, staring at where Ahilya had disappeared.

“Iravan,” a woman’s musical voice called out. “Your landing design was successful. You can leave the Moment now. The architects on the Disc know what to do.”

Bharavi strode toward him still enveloped in her translucent robe, though like the other architects assembled in the courtyard, her skin no longer glowed with the light of trajection. Her eyes were narrowed in displeasure. Off-duty architects hurriedly made way for her.

The Senior Architect stopped right in front of him and crossed her arms. A slim woman with dark chin-length hair and rosy brown skin, Bharavi was short, reaching only to Iravan’s chest. Somehow that didn’t deter her from looming over him. Closer, the wrinkles on her face were more pronounced, the shadows dark and heavy under the eyes. He probably looked much the same.

“Did you hear me?” she said. “You can stop now.”

Iravan trajected.

As a dust mote, he sailed over the stars until he reached Nakshar’s perimeter. The outer maze, where the ashram bordered the jungle, was a tangle of disconnected lines. Iravan watched a dozen dust motes hover there: the Maze Architects on duty, currently trajecting from the Architects’ Disc. The motes generated fresh constellation lines, connecting disparate stars, but the lines shattered before they could snap together in place.

Iravan frowned. He recognized the dust motes, Megha and Gaurav and Kriya among them. His superior skill and ascension to the council had created a natural distance between him and them, but they had once been nominated to the same council seat he now occupied. Each was a competent Maze Architect. Then why were their constellation lines shattering? The lull in an earthrage, and the subsequent landing, should have made trajection easier.

He leapt into the fray, generating his own constellation lines, exerting the force of his desire to influence the plants of the ashram. Iravan connected the star containing the briar bush, looped around the redwood, and fastened his lines to a hundred other stars in a complex net-shaped pattern. A dozen dust motes reached toward him, extending their own simpler lines. His constellation lines vibrated almost to their breaking point, fighting him, denying his will. Iravan focused his entire being into the action. He spun and wove between the motes, twisting and turning—

The outline he’d created snapped into place. Several thousand stars connected. Another part of the maze unfolded and settled. The dust motes soared, cheer and gratitude in their zipping streaks.

Iravan grinned. Here was a place where he was needed, where he was necessary. His breathing eased. He left the hovering motes and began to drift within the Moment again.

In the temple courtyard, Bharavi drummed her foot. “You’re not listening to me,” she said.

“Trajection was hard this time, Bha,” Iravan said. “Don’t tell me you didn’t feel it. The Disc needs all the help it can get.”

“Your landing design was new. A period of adjustment for the Maze Architects is expected.”

“My landing design was simple. And still our constellation lines kept crumbling. That wasn’t because the Maze Architects weren’t familiar with the design.”

“Maybe everyone is just exhausted because of the terribly long earthrage we’ve had,” she said.

Iravan gave her a level look.

Both knew the length of an earthrage didn’t matter. The rationale behind strict shift duty was for an architect to never overextend themselves; it was so the ashram could sustain flight forever. The lull was a mere opportunity for Maze Architects to traject with ease. During lulls, all plants of Nakshar became easier to traject, the closer they were to the jungle. It was why the council had decided to land.

“It wasn’t exhaustion,” he said flatly. “I’ve watched the Maze Architects since the time the earthrage was announced. Viana made so many mistakes I had to send her back to the Academy. Karn struggled with basic patterns to the point of tears. It’s a sign. The plants—they aren’t responding to us as they once did. Trajection is getting harder. The Disc needs my help.”

He paused within his second vision.

He had been patrolling the outer maze, assisting the Maze Architects. But there, behind the glow of a gigantic star, hovered… something. He’d noticed it before, through all the months of living in the temple, hidden behind his every trajection. At first, he’d thought it a dust mote, just another architect whom he didn’t know well enough to recognize in the Moment. Yet unlike other motes, the particle didn’t spin around the stars. No constellation lines were attached to it. Instead, it undulated like mercury, silvery and molten, throbbing like a heart.

Iravan approached it. The particle pulsed, approaching closer.

He stopped. The particle stopped.

He darted to the left, and it darted, mirroring him.

What are you? he thought, startled.

Bharavi shifted her feet. “Iravan, are you saying you didn’t leave the temple at all during the flight?”

He barely heard her. Slowly, very carefully, he drew closer. The particle lingered, pulsing. He saw himself in it, although it was not his face he saw, not within the Moment. Instead, he perceived his…echo. Like he had fallen into a mirror to see his own eye reflected a hundred times over, until any image became meaningless. It felt like a—

Resonance, he thought. He could find no other term for it.

“Bha,” he said in a low voice. “There’s something in the Moment. Something strange.”

She uncrossed her arms and tapped at one of her rudra bracelets. A hologram arose over her wrist—Iravan’s picture next to a roster of names. It hung there for an instant before it collapsed. Bharavi dropped her hand.

“I see you signed up for watchpost duty,” she said. “Wasn’t it Chaiyya’s turn?”

He waved a hand to shush her.

The Resonance swayed in front of him, silvery, liquid. He retreated, and the Resonance retreated. He floated back another step, and the Resonance did the same.

Then, in rapid blinking flashes that made Iravan think of a wicked grin, the Resonance spun and darted away, shooting through the universe.

Bloody rages, he thought.

Iravan dashed through the Moment, trying to keep his sight on the undulating particle. They whirled through the lights, zooming past constellation lines, startling dust motes. He sped past an architect, felt their indignation. He attempted to cut the Resonance off, but the particle stopped short and streaked back the way it had come. Iravan cursed again and wheeled around, swooping over a star, leaping past long lines of the maze. There was a familiarity in the particle’s movements, like he ought to know what it would do next.

He rounded a golden star and pulled up in front of the Resonance. It drew up, alarmed and amused.

Ha, Iravan thought. He hovered, waiting to see what it would do next.

Bharavi pressed a hand to his shoulder. “Tell me. When was the last time you saw Ahilya?”

The Resonance attacked.

Iravan had a horrified glimpse of fury rushing over its mirrored surface before the particle collided into him.

The stars of the Moment winked out.

He was tumbling through blackness.

He was falling endlessly.

In the temple courtyard, Iravan stumbled into Bharavi, his mouth dropping open. The universe wiped out, all stars gone, just the sensation of plummeting down a black hole. He opened and closed his mouth, trying to make words, staring at Bharavi. His stomach lurched, and he leaned over, heaving.

“What’s wrong?” she said at once. “Did your Two Visions merge?” She gripped his shoulders, holding him up.

He choked, shaking his head. Shooting a glance around them, Bharavi steered him away from the bustle of the courtyard and closer to the base of the rudra tree, where there were no other architects.

In his second vision, Iravan jerked and came to a standstill within an infinite velvety black hole. He spun around in tight panicked circles, scanning for a light, any light, hunting for a dust mote, a star, the Resonance, anything—

The Resonance slammed into him.