Page 224 of A King's Oath

She ran and Samarth followed her, escaping the conversation that was following him like a shadow. The moment he left the shade of Brahmi, it would be upon him.

“Watch me gallop!” She shouted at him over her shoulder and kept running, mallet swinging.

“I’ll be right here, don’t forget to give me a clap!” He hollered back. She raised a thumbs up. Samarth stopped at the end of the fencing, kids already gathering at the mouth of the stables, working through the drill of pony care and stable etiquette.

“What do you want from us?” Ava’s quiet, firm words echoed close to his shoulder. His head turned and bent. There she was, her head close to his bicep, her eyes again impassive.

“Ava,” he turned his body towards her. “I don’t know where to start talking. What to even say to you except…” he swallowed. “I am a father. Afather! You gave me this and didn’t even…” he shut his eyes. Took a deep breath. Then opened them again — “I cannot blame you. I do not blame you after how I treated you. But… now that I know this, I cannot turn away and forget that I saw this, saw you, saw her.”

“Then turn away andremember. But do it far away from my daughter and me. She is a chirpy, happy girl. She talks to flowers if I let her…”

“Like you talked to the walls of our class?”

“Look, Samarth, she is not one of your musical chairs. You cannot play with her and then run away to your throne claiming either-or. And if you do not listen nicely, I will start acting not-so-nicely.”

“What is not-so-nicely.”

“I know how to get a restraining order.”

He stilled.

“I am her father.”

“Go prove it. It’s a long-drawn battle out there. You have the money and the means, so do I. She will suffer, but maybe that’s your SOP.”

“Enough.”

Her mouth snapped shut. He had held every negative emotion inside him, guilty to the peak of his nose. He had drank down every drop of this poison. He wasn’t a saint though. But looking down at this sweet sweet girl who was now just a tough warrior, the gumption in his chest circled back down.

He exhaled. “You are the type of person who can’t even make her enemy suffer, forget daughter, Ava. So do not issue these empty threats to me. I know you.”

“I am not the same girl you knew.”

“You think I haven’t changed in the last eight years?”

She gaped at him, tongue-tied.

“All I ask is that you listen to me, sit and let me talk. Let me tell you what my compulsions were. Why my intentions were. My…”

“I do not owe you a single second of my time.”

“You owe me more than your time, Ava. You have been keeping something that is half mine for eight years without telling me.”

Her eyes widened.

“Pay up,” he commanded.

“Pay up what?”

“What is owed to me.”

“What? Seven years with me so she gets to stay seven years with you?” She scoffed.

“Oh, but don’t you know I am a Gujarati? I play on interests. She gets to stay with me. And you too.”

“Just get lost, Samarth. Fuck off!”

“Pay up, Ava,” he stepped closer to her, seeing rage and tension and heat burn in her erstwhile emotionless eyes.

---