The Village Girl

Chapter Seventeen - [Seetha]

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Aaryan waited until after we made love that night to tell me that he would be leaving for battle within the current week. I was infuriated. In fact, I yelled at him. Maybe it was because my emotions were extremely sensitive right now, as they often were for a day or two after my bleeding stopped.

Or maybe I was actually just mad.

Despite telling me that my only excuse to leave would be if I was mad at him, he did not let me leave. He was stronger than me, so his heavy arm held me tight at my waist, even after he fell asleep.

So I gave up trying to leave but didn't fall asleep though.

I was just lying there, in his arms, staring up at nothing.

I know he kept telling me not to worry, and I was trying, really, but every time we had this conversation, it seemed that something new was added to my lengthening my list of things to worry about.

Pushing the heir thing aside... his mother was reading my letters? Why was she reading my letters if not because she did not like me?

The Queen of Chandraba did not like me.

My Mother-in-law did not like me.

How could I not be concerned?

And now Aaryan was leaving? And not simply to quell off some small rebellion, but to help a random nation fight a war that we had nothing to do with?

I turned me head and looked at him.

What if something happened to him? What if he got hurt?

He had told me he was leaving as if it was nothing. Like he did not fear it at all Even now, he slept so peacefully, as if uncertainty and danger was not right at his doorstep.

That was the thing about Aaryan. He always looked so mean and angry, frowning all the time, looking like a man who had seen horrible things, a man who did not fear battle because he had been in it thousands of times.

But when he slept, he looked so... vulnerable. The creases between his brows vanished, his lips looked fuller and from this close, I could see that his eyelashes were longer than they looked when his eyes were open.

The best part though, was that time from the moment he woke up until he left the room for his day. It was my favourite time of day to be with him. Right when he woke up, he was often in some different world. It was like the real world hadn't hit him and he was still in that peaceful sleep state, except awake.

This was when he looked the most calm. He would touch my face, tracing my feathers, sometimes absent mindedly. Sometimes he would run his fingers through my hair. Sometimes he would just smile.

Other times we would talk, and at this time of the day we would always talk about nonsense. His voice would be deep and still a little sleepy and he would be telling me about something as unimportant as some small trinket that he lost as a child, or an odd stranger he had met on his travels... something he had never thought of until that very moment.