The Village Girl

Chapter Thirty Two - [Aaryan]

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Love,

Lucky

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Lord Sairan, as expected, was no match for us. It seemed the the rebel forces which he was relying on was not as strong as he had anticipated. We had defeated him within two days, captured him and his son, tried them and executed them.

When my father arrived to the west, he was disappointed with what had happened but as I had planned, we reinstated the younger son Kannan as the new Lord of his family. The plan was to have a battalion of our Aathikaran forces to be in the West at all times. The men of the Western Fort were also charged with keeping an eye on this family as well, making sure they were not going to do this nonsense again.

Some time had passed after we defeated them and we were spending some time tying some loose ends up at Lord Sairan's home.

I was in a room, reading through the agreement that we had made with Kannan, when my father walked into the room. "Aaryan, we need to talk," he said.

I looked up at my father, feeling like I knew what he was going to say.

He sat across from me and looked at me carefully, trying to think of the right words before he spoke. "You seem to be spiralling."

I raised a brow. "What?"

"Do not play dumb," my father said. "You are the smartest man in this entire kingdom and you know it. So you know exactly what I am talking about."

I frowned, grabbing the mug that I had and sipping some tea.

"I understand you have a deep resentment towards your brother but you do understand that your actions were extreme, do you not?"

I was still frowning, thinking of what Seetha had said to me that night after it happened.

Her claim that I didn't do it because of my 'resentment,' as my father had called it, but because of my disappointment. Because of my love for this brother who was constantly disappointing me. When she first said it, I couldn't even fathom the thought, but then I thought about it all night. And I realized that she was right.

I did not resent my brother.

I was tired of being disappointed.

And of course, it was unfortunate that my father was unable to see the same thing that Seetha could see.

"I do not resent Aarun," I said. "And I said the same thing to Seetha... you cannot get me to apologize, because I do not regret doing what I did."

My father was still frowning. "And this?" he continued. "You just destroyed an old ally–"

"Who committed treason–"

"They have been challenging the throne for decades," my father said. "Your anger comes from his words, not his actions."

"They were colluding with the rebels, father."

"And he insulted your wife."

I narrowed my eyes.

"Your anger comes from the fact that you cannot stand people insulting your choices. You cannot stand when people oppose you and your decisions," my father said, sternly. "You know as well as I do that you cannot expect to rule like that."

"You are wrong–"

"Listen to me," he said. "People will continue to question your decision to marry a village girl for the rest of your life. They will oppose the idea of having her as their queen. They will insult her, call her horrible things, and worse, maybe even try to hurt her. They do that with regular queens, so you must expect he would do the same to her. She could do a thousand wonderful things yet the fact that she is a village girl and she is possibly unworthy will always haunt her.

"This will last forever and if you kill every single one of them, then you will not have a kingdom to rule anymore. You need to stop getting angry and you need to rule in a way that makes people trust you, not fear you."

"People do trust me," I said. "I have spent my whole life working towards that."

"Then don't let your anger ruin all that you have built for yourself," he said. "And if that does not make you rethink your actions then at the very least think about whether or not Seetha would like the way you are acting. Will your wife be proud of your actions here?"

My brows furrowed as I looked away.

"You need to stop acting so impulsively," he said. "I agree that Sairan needed to be punished, but we could have handled this without killing him. Killing him will cause resentment within his family. They may support you now, but as time passes things will change. This is what happens when you act–"

The door flew open, surprising both my father and I. I stood up, pulling my sword out of its sheath, assuming it was an attack, but the man at the door was the messenger I had assigned to Seetha after my mother revealed she was reading her letters.

The look of urgency on his face made me panic instantly. "What? What is it?"

The man collapsed onto the floor into a bow. "I apologize for barging in!" He shouted, still low in his bow. "I came as fast as I can! The Princess's father sent me to tell you that she is in labour!"

My eyes widened. "What..."

Now my father stood too.

"I came as fast... as I could... but this point," the man continued, struggling to breathe. "She may have already... given birth!"

I looked at my father. "I need to leave," I said.

My father, who looked unbelievably shocked and seemed as if he had forgotten the seriousness of what we were talking about, nodded. "Yes... yes... we need to get ready to go. Soon."