Chapter 5: Egg Custard

Shiori said it plainly, to the wall.

"The Sword Saint keeps no lover."

Tomoe stood in the doorway of the hall in her bare feet and her borrowed robe.

"That's the fifth line," she said. "The one you wouldn't say."

"Yes."

Shiori's shoulders moved.

"It is the line the Council sent me here for," she said.

"I cannot keep a title that I cannot keep. They took it."

"I have only the oath left, and I will not break the last thing I own."

"They sent you away because you wanted someone?"

"They sent me away because I could not keep it," Shiori said. "It does not matter who."

The words sat in the cold air between them.

Tomoe wanted to cross the hall and shake her.

She wanted to say that a vow made to an eight-year-old was not a vow.

And that a Council who took a woman's name and put her on a mountain had no right to stay in her bed.

But Shiori's hands were white on the sword, and her face had the shut look of a person bracing for a blow.

So Tomoe took a different road.

"I'm going to make breakfast," she said. "You can eat or not."

"Tomoe..."

"And I'll sleep in the storeroom tonight. I don't want you to break anything on my account."

She went out before the saint could answer.

The storeroom was a narrow lean-to full of dust and sacks.

Tomoe swept it out, shook the rotted futons into the yard and found the least ruined one.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Exiled Sword Saint Hired Me to Cook, Not to Fight from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.