Page 29 of The Enduring Universe (The Rages Trilogy #3)

AHILYA

Help us, she echoed. Not her, but the Virohi, escaping erasure while their planet reacted in shock at what was occurring.

Help us, they echoed. Not the Virohi, but a memory of all of them, citizens chanting in sing-song, while unnamed versions of them sent out ineffectual desires to unknown entities in a fervent wish.

Help us, it echoed, not the memory, but this entity, condensed as a single woman carrying it all. Familiar trustworthy hands reached her, a scent of eucalyptus and firemint. She grabbed them, weakening.

30

IRAVAN

With his shields down, Iravan had no resistance when Ahilya pulled him into her mind in her frenzy. Within the strange forest, she lay on the ground, her eyes open, her skin impaled with glittering dark thorns that reached down from branches. Each thorn was a memory of the core tree, and each memory bloomed a dozen more, flooding her, assaulting her. Her eyes were unseeing. Ahilya screamed and screamed, and with her so did humanity.

The horrifying image jerked Iravan back into clarity. He found control, not of the place but of himself. He was an architect—he had been trained in holding onto multiple visions and keeping his sanity through it. He had been resisting the pull of her Etherium ever since she had sought him in Irshar’s solar lab, but now he stood in her forest while he flew in the air, attempting to escape the planet.

The forest shook, and between each vibration Iravan saw a hundred more memories impale her—memories of the trees, of himself, of the Virohi and all the citizens. Iravan reached down to his wife, moving slowly through each wave of assault.

Her pain was his.

Don’t, Mohini told him, and her eyes glinted like those of the falcon-yaksha.

Let it happen, Bhaskar said, and his laughter sounded like the falcon’s roar.

If the tree dies, so do the Virohi, Agni growled, and behind them the yaksha beat its wings.

But Iravan held onto himself by sheer will.

Because it was him, him, listening to his wife scream—not their wife, but his, and that meant something, despite everything.

And his desire—his—flared in rebellion.

The tree shook, and he fell to his knees, wrapping her in his arms, forming a shield of his intent around them both. It happened in the Etherium borne of his connection with her, but it happened in reality too—he could see it, a shimmering of air around her body while she knelt at the vriksh.

Ahilya wept, trembling, holding on to the tree and him. Iravan screamed against the voices telling him to let go. The planet raged around the two of them—and only them, a whipping of their hair, wind like jagged pieces of glass, rain that thrummed drenching them, mud that filled their mouths, choking them.

Iravan locked onto his desire, trajecting each element separately, turning the mud into dust so when he coughed and breathed, Ahilya did too. He trajected, changing sharp rain into soft dew drops that melted onto their skins. The wind turned into smooth caresses, no longer scoring them, and he and Ahilya gasped, while the planet tried to assert its dominance.

He trajected with the everpower, dizzyingly fast—

And lost his balance, in the manner of forcefully pushing a door that was already ajar. Iravan flipped in midair, trying to stabilize. Isanya had left him, and for a second he felt horror, to be alone while the past lives of his Etherium retreated from the danger, while the planet attacked him, and the consciousness meld occurred.

Then it registered.

The planet had stilled. The attack of the memories had stopped.

This was a testing, a resting. The planet was spent for now, a brief lull occurring.

He could see Ahilya, holding onto the tree, her arms limp, slowly falling by her side. Her eyes were unseeing. In the Etherium, she was light as air, collapsing into him, the thorns receding.

He tightened his hold, brushing her hair back, leaning to check on her.

But she was spent, losing consciousness already.

Her Etherium winked out, banishing him once again.