The Saint Who Healed Everyone and the Knight She Couldn't novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Latch

Brunhild did sit against the door, for about a minute.

She dragged the heavy table across the stone and wedged it under the latch.

Then she stood looking at it, as if she had never moved furniture for herself before.

Then she turned around and found Yui standing right behind her.

"The door is guarded," Yui said.

"By a table."

"That's the best guard in the fort."

Brunhild gave a sound that was almost a laugh.

Yui took her hand and led her to the narrow cot.

Brunhild let herself be led, with her sword left behind against the wall for the first time.

"Sit," Yui said.

Brunhild sat.

Yui poured warm water from the kettle into the basin and wet a clean cloth.

"What are you doing?" Brunhild asked.

"What I always do. I'm going slowly."

She knelt between Brunhild's knees and began to unbutton the white shirt from the bottom.

Her fingers were not quite steady.

Brunhild's hands closed on the edge of the cot, and the knuckles went pale.

"I haven't even touched you yet," Yui said softly.

"Do not stop," Brunhild said, the words coming out fast and rough. "Do not dare stop."

The shirt fell open.

By lamplight the long body was a map of old fights, black lines over the ribs and white scars over the belly.

Its stomach rose and fell too fast.

Yui wet the cloth again and laid it, warm, against the left shoulder.

She drew it slowly down the arm, over each thin black thread.

Brunhild shuddered, and a small noise escaped her.

"That is not pain," Brunhild said hoarsely. "That is the opposite."

Yui bent her head and pressed her mouth where the cloth had been.

The skin was warm and tasted of salt.

Brunhild's whole body jerked, then went rigid, and a hand came up and fisted in Yui's hair.

It did not pull.

It only held on.

"I have never," Brunhild said, in a cracked whisper, "been touched without someone wincing."

"I'm not wincing."

"I know. That is why."

Yui kissed the shoulder, the collarbone, the hollow of the throat just above the long black line.

She did not touch the line itself, only the skin around it, again and again.

Brunhild's breath came in pieces.

When Yui's mouth reached the breastbone, the hand in her hair tightened.

"Yui."

"Yes."

"Take this off." Brunhild plucked at the white tunic. "Please. I want to see you."

Yui stood and unfastened the tunic with quick, shy hands, and let it drop on the stone with the grey skirt after it.

She had never thought of herself as a body worth looking at.

She was small and soft, with round hips and a round belly, and she had always hidden them under her tunic.

Brunhild looked at her.

"Come here," she said. "Please."

Yui climbed onto the cot and into her lap, knees on either side, and Brunhild's big hands settled at her waist.

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