Determined to bridge the gap between them, Megha followed him toward the shoreline. When she found him momentarily gone, she looked at the low-hanging, sturdy branch of an ancient banyan tree. To calm her nerves, she climbed onto a thick vine and began to swing back and forth, the breeze cooling her face.
When Aryavardhan returned and saw her using the sacred tree as a playground, his jaw tightened. "Get down from there," he commanded. "That tree is not a toy."
Feeling her old stubbornness return, Megha simply kicked her legs higher and flashed him a defiant look, ignoring his warning as the vine swept her through the air.
Aryavardhan didn’t argue. He simply gazed up at the banyan trunk with focused, quiet intensity. Suddenly, the vine felt less secure. With a strange, organic creak, the branch seemed to pull back, its fibres tightening as if the tree itself were drawing a breath.
The swing vanished beneath her. Megha let out an undignified yelp as she tumbled through the air, landing with a soft thud and a puff of dust on the forest floor.
The silence that followed was broken by a sound Megha hadn’t expected: Aryavardhan was laughing. It wasn’t a cruel laugh, but a deep, genuine sound of amusement at her ruffled pride. Megha sat up, brushed the dirt from her clothes, and felt her face burn a bright, angry crimson. The "shadow" of Krishnapriya, watching from the sidelines, felt a pang of nostalgia—she remembered that look on Megha's face all too well.
Megha scrambled to her feet, her face flushed with heat. She brushed the dirt from her robes with her dagger, the steel glinting as sharply as her temper. "You think this is a game?" she snapped, her voice trembling with indignation. "To snap a branch and drop me like a child? You have insulted me, Ascetic."
Aryavardhan’s laughter died down, but the light in his eyes remained—a calm, maddeningly serene spark. "And what of the insult to this land?" he countered, his voice steady. "To enter a sacred grove without the leave of its guardian is the mark of a trespasser, not a guest. You entered my place of work uninvited; the tree simply mirrored your own lack of discipline."
His tone was stern, yet that lingering ghost of a smile made him impossible to read. It drove Megha to the edge of her patience. She stepped into his space, her finger pointed at his chest. "If you are truly the master of this island, then prove it. Stop hiding behind tricks of the forest. Fight me. Let us see if the Commander of Vardhana is as powerful as his arrows suggest."
Aryavardhan looked at her for a long moment, his gaze seeing far more than her anger. "A warrior is forged in spirit before they are tested in steel," he said quietly. He didn't draw his sword; instead, he held out his massive bow toward her. "Prove you are fit for the duel. Take it."
Megha didn't hesitate. She had trained since childhood; she had mastered the mace, the spear, and the sword. She reached out and gripped the wood with both hands, ready to wrench it from his grasp.
