Page 46 of The Enduring Universe (The Rages Trilogy #3)

AHILYA

As his hands relaxed for an instant, Ahilya finally saw her husband.

He was on his back, only his eyes visible, as fingers and limbs held him down, each of his past lives crowding him, suffocating him. She saw the terrified whites of his eyes, the whimper as he tried to inhale, the pathetic scrabble of his fingers as men and women pummeled him, trying to take control over his body. Each of these people looked familiar, and Ahilya realized they were the very ones she’d seen in the carvings he’d created. Finally, she understood his message. Those carvings had been for her, to warn her, to beg her for help.

She screamed, his name echoing around them, and the men and women turned back at the sound, their gazes silvery and emotionless. Ahilya knew that they were infected. The falcon was controlling them, warping their desires to its own, and in turn they were holding Iravan down, choking him with the same infection.

Iravan’s fingers on her throat twitched, pressing harder. She could see the will it took him to fight them in his silvery eyes. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and in that instant, he looked like he had always been, before he’d found the Resonance, before he’d become aware of the falcon-yaksha. She knew he held onto his lucidity by a fingernail. Any second these past lives would subsume him again, pushing their desire down his throat, choking him until all that he exhaled would be their command.

She trembled in both visions, watching this utter loss of himself when his journey was supposed to purify him. She knew she was seconds away from death.

It was too much. It was too horrifying. She and Iravan saw each other, and she tried to show him that she still loved him. That she understood. That she did not blame him.

Leaves rained down in her Etherium like a downpour of grief. Each one a memory, each one a thorn that had once impaled her.

A strong memory was essential to hold onto a sense of self.

For the architects, as for herself.

Ahilya jerked, seeking a strong memory of the both of them, and the vriksh responded. A single leaf fluttered toward her open palms, and within it she saw herself and Iravan embracing. Ahilya crushed the leaf and the flakes trembled in her hands. With all of her will, she released those flakes into the air again—and they soared toward Iravan, still held down by the ghosts of his past lives. Fragments drifted to him, and he inhaled them, ingested them. She saw his throat move in a swallow. His fingers loosened around her throat, but Ahilya gripped him, and inhaled the leaf-fragments too. Lights sparked behind her eyes, carrying her, and—