Page 212 of A King's Oath

Protection. Every time.

No.

It couldn’t be.

That could be somebody else’s daughter.

Not even Ava’s.

It could be Kresha’s…

Or a friend’s?

Or…

Samarth took a deep breath. It didn’t work. He closed his eyes and moved towards a flower bed, away from the main path where children and parents were beginning to leave the club. Hehid like a coward and sat down on an embankment, catching his breath.

He wetted his lips, closed his eyes, then tried again.

A deep breath. Two deep breaths. Down to his stomach. Then out.

He opened his eyes. He could leave here right now and forget he ever saw her. Or he could go and meet her before she left. Find out if… there were so many possibilities, each scarier and more torturous than the other. If she was married and that was her and her husband’s daughter? If she was a single mother and that was somebody else’s daughter. Or…

Samarth shot up to his feet and began striding towards the pen. His head cleared of the momentary fog. He reached the fence and found the pen now empty of kids, only ponies. Delacour was nowhere to be found either.

“Salut,” he called out to the instructor.“Où est cette fille qui… essayait de faire galoper son cheval?”[85]

“La Galopine?” He scoffed, amused. “Elle est allée avec sa mère au parking.”[86]

Mother.

Samarth took quick steps back, turned and sprinted towards the parking area. He had signs pointing him towards it, in the direction opposite to where most parents were taking their kids. He ran faster, praying she hadn’t left.

He rounded the clubhouse and screeched to a halt. The parking lot was empty except for one car under a lemon tree. Ava stood with the door of the backseat open, her daughter in her arms, her head in her neck. She was frowning, fidgeting inside the carwith one hand, holding the girl on her hip. Ava didn’t look so tiny anymore. Samarth stumbled back, that sight knocking him bodily off.

Her hair wasn’t as short. It flowed down to her upper back, swishing with her every move. In a camel-coloured coat and soft boots flecked with dust, she hadn’t changed. Except she had. There was something older in her eyes as she kept looking into her daughter’s face and cooing. Something stronger.

And in that moment, everything else — the mountains, the vineyards, the ache of illness — disappeared.

Only two things remained.

Ava.

And the child who had felt far too much like him with that straight silky hair in a ponytail and the wind of her galloping horse still in his lungs. He broke into a sprint again, this time calling every ounce of patience.

Jai Dwarkadhish.

“You can’t pretend to sleep every time,” she scolded in a cooing voice.

“I’msleeping…” the little girl’s soft, breathy voice was indeed sleepy.

Ava hitched her higher on her hip but her little head bounced undisturbed on her shoulder. She must feel so heavy to her. Samarth quickened his footsteps.

“Fu…” Ava was whispering to herself, some metal buckle in her hand as she messed with a child’s car seat.

“Ava.”

She whirled, the belt of the buckle hitting him square in the chest. What hit harder was the shock, scorn and then strangeness in her eyes. Her eyes went big, round. Like the little girl’s. Samarth flicked his gaze to her, but her face was resting tight in the crook of Ava’s neck, her back going up and down in deep, sleeping breaths.

---