Kissed by Chaos

Kissed by Chaos (32) - Goodbye

Kissed by Chaos 

Chapter 32 - Goodbye

The coldness of the stone wall under my back seeped through my clothes as I leant against it. My body sagged with tiredness. The events of the day had been too consuming to notice that I was suffering from a serious lack of sleep.  Despite the colourful array of exotic food that was brought before me every meal, I had only eaten small bites here and there. Waging a war with one of the world’s most powerful creatures was taking its toll on my body.

Raafi was standing only a few metres away, finishing up his conversation with a group of men from the army. They eagerly nodded their assent to something Raafi had said and finally bowed their heads in farewell.  Raafi breathed a heavy sigh and turned to me, trying very hard to reassure me with a smile.

“I’m sorry, but you look terrible,” I said as I once again noticed the dark circles under his eyes that had apparently taken a liking to his face. 

“If you can believe it, I look much better than I feel,” he replied with a weak laugh. With an even heavier sigh, he rubbed a hand over his face and frowned up at the dark sky peeking in through the windows. “Wow – is it really that late?”

With a shrug I replied, “I have not been keeping track of the time either. What I am sure of, though, is that today has been an unbelievably long day.” With each moment that was passing, my body insisted more strongly that I needed rest. But my almost ridiculously sensible mind urged me to recall my mother, who ached with worry and fear in a room somewhere. “I suppose I should go…” I began, but stopped as Raafi took a step closer to me. Instantly, my heart skidded to a halt, only to begin pounding a moment later.

He cupped my face in the warmth of his hands and breathed, “Wait… for just one moment.” There was no one around to see us – we were well out of sight of the guards and the men of Mirzan’s army. The advisors had retreated to the dining hall for a belated supper. Yet I still could not shake off the feeling that Raafi should not be touching my face at all, should not even be looking at me in this way. Seeing the concern cracking through King Hamza’s face and seeing for myself the beautiful Princess Amira had reminded me that there was a whole future set out for Raafi. I could not be the one to mess it all up for him.

I took a step back and a startled expression spread across Raafi’s face. “Y-you should rest,” I mumbled. “I have to go-“

“Why, Claire? Have I done something to offend you?” he asked, a genuine look of hurt on his face. I could not help but reconsider all my sensibilities. Was it really worth it to be so level headed when in a day I could be dead and buried in the ground? I did my best to shake the thought out of my head and gritted my teeth.

“Raafi, you belong to a whole different world. You are meant to save Amira, and then you two are meant to get married-”

Raafi’s eyes darkened with a flash of anger. “Please, do not join the long queue of people waiting to tell me what I am meant to do. What if I do not come back tomorrow? What if I do not survive?”

I tried to swallow the rock that had lodged itself in the middle of my throat. “You can’t say that-”I said hypocritically, fully aware that I had been thinking the same just a second ago.

Throwing up his hands in exasperation, Raafi exclaimed, “And why can’t I say that? You know that it is a possibility that we cannot hide from.” His voice suddenly dropped to a whisper. “I do not wish to spend the last few hours of my life in regret… in yearning for something that I may never have.”

All hopes of clear thought disappeared from my mind. All I could do was wonder at how I was standing so very close to him without shattering into a thousand pieces. That, and wonder dumbly why his eyes were watering with the rawest kind of vulnerability and pain I had ever witnessed. Before I could try and decipher his words, Raafi lifted my chin with one gentle finger to force me to look at him.