The Unrelenting Earth by Kritika H. Rao

Author:Kritika H. Rao
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags:  
Publisher: Titan

22

AHILYA

Ahilya jumped to her feet.

The action sent a stabbing pain through her belly, down to her knees, making her gasp out loud. She moved across the bench regardless to grab Chaiyya’s arm even as the massive deathcage that held the falcon-yaksha rolled forward from the alcove.

“What in bloody rages are you doing?” she spat, her grip tight.

Chaiyya’s face was grim. She glanced around them, and Ahilya followed the woman’s gaze.

Several councilors had risen to their feet across the theater. Their mouths hung open in shock, their faces grown bloodless in the dim. The falcon cried out, a high-pitched sound that sent a thrill of fear through her. Outside of the deathcage, it could spread its magnificent silver-gray wings that would span a hundred feet, wings that would easily cover the theater end to end. Even imprisoned, the yaksha was monstrous. Seen in such close quarters, the creature looked much larger than it had in the jungle. How many yakshas had she seen in her life? Her knees shook as though she were a Junior Architect, first time out on an expedition.

“Do you understand?” Chaiyya whispered. “These people have never seen a yaksha before. They aren’t archeologists who are used to these creatures. To most of them, the creature is mythical. They barely believe that yakshas exist, let alone that the creatures can supertraject and that Nakshar has captured one.”

Ahilya blinked. “Captured? Chaiyya, the falcon belongs to Iravan, not us. Our agreement—”

“Was only until the Conclave meeting,” the Senior Architect completed. “Ahilya, look at them. They’re stunned. Displaying the yaksha now gives Nakshar much-needed goodwill. This trial has been a debacle for the ashram. Basav is practically ready to call for Nakshar’s subsummation.”

Ahilya bit her lip, frowning. Her eyes strayed to Basav who still stood in front of Iravan’s deathcage. The man’s eyes gleamed, reflected by the glowglobes, as he watched the yaksha’s cage roll forward.

A hot stab of fury shot through Ahilya’s belly, and she suppressed a choke. She had tried to prepare herself for the trial, but the questions had hooked into her, bleeding her emotions. Iravan had seemed ready to commit murder. She and Iravan had been humiliated, but it was Nakshar and the lives of all its citizens, architects, non-architects, sungineers alike, that had been weighed. Basav’s allegations and his assertions about Nakshar’s fitness to function independently had been another plank to fall, building the ashram’s funeral pyre.

Yet, how would displaying the yaksha now help? If the creature attacked, somehow getting past the deathmaze, Nakshar was as good as destroyed.

Unless…

Ahilya spun to Chaiyya in horror. “You’re sacrificing Iravan. You’ve already given up on him and the Ecstatics.”

“I’ve done no such thing.”

“Don’t lie to me, Chaiyya,” Ahilya hissed, and pointed to the mossy floor where black veristem had begun to flower into white at the Senior Architect’s words.

The woman followed Ahilya’s gaze. Her eyebrows drew together and she shook Ahilya off. “Fine,” she snapped. “I made a choice. My priority is Nakshar, Ahilya, not one architect, no matter how much I care for him.

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