The Saintess and the Villainess

Chapter 102

Corvina liked to understand things and she liked to be in control.

Multiple people in the past had accused her of thinking of life too much like a game of chess. And maybe that was true, but she preferred it that way.

When she could see the world laid out in front of her like a game board with all its pieces set up in their proper places, reliably behaving according to the proper rules, exactly as expected, Corvina felt centered. She felt stable. She felt... safe.

Even when Anne had first come into her life and disrupted things, making her see herself and her goals in a new way, the game itself had been fundamentally the same. She had become, say, a knight on one side instead of a rook on the other, but she could still see the board. She could still make her moves and expect to see them play out in a certain way. She could still function.

But after these past few days it felt like the board had been overturned entirely and the pieces all jumbled up or thrown away. And now they were playing some unknown game with unknown rules—if it even had rules, which Corvina wasn't entirely convinced that it did.

It was awful.

With Anne and herself out of immediate danger, the physical and mental strain of it all was beginning to catch up with her. But she had to push through it somehow, no matter how distressed and exhausted she felt. She couldn't afford to show weakness, not in front of someone as important as the Goddess, and she had to understand. No matter how horrible the thing she was trying to understand was. She had to learn how to play this terrible new game.

When Cory left the room to answer her magic mirror, Corvina let her carefully maintained posture sag, just a tiny bit.

"Are you feeling okay?" asked Anne, her eyes full of such tender concern that it made Corvina's heart leap in her chest, despite everything. Anne began reaching out to her and then hesitated, pulling her arm back.

Corvina leaned forward across the gap between their two chairs to throw herself fully into Anne's arms, leaning all the way in so she was almost on top of her, nestling her face into Anne's shoulder, breathing in her scent.

This is real, Corvina thought. This feeling. Her body. My body. The way her chest pushes tighter against me as she breathes. Not semi-real, not partially real, not 'real in a relative sense.' Real. Real real real.

"Corvina?" Anne prompted, slowly running a comforting hand up and down Corvina's back.

"No, I'm not feeling okay," Corvina mumbled into Anne's shoulder. "I feel awful. I have a headache. I would kill for a cigarette, and I'm pretty sure I don't have any. I might look later. Or not. I don't know."

"I'm sorry," said Anne, and Corvina could feel the depth of her sympathy. So few people had ever shown her that kind of sympathy before, especially over something so petty as wanting to smoke when she couldn't. It was incredible. "If you want, I could—"

"Just stay here," said Corvina, her tone a bit more forceful than she'd intended. "Like this. Just for a moment. Please."

Anne didn't say anything. She just pulled Corvina in, tighter.

The close touch ran through Corvina like a cool breeze, clearing out all the worst of her tension and making her shiver. It felt like a miracle. And maybe that was just her exhausted mind grasping at any small comfort it could find, but still—here in the domain of the Goddess, this embrace felt like the most sacred, profound thing Corvina had ever experienced.

"Oh my!"

Corvina went stiff and pulled away from Anne immediately, crossing her arms in front of her—whether that was to comfort herself at the loss of Anne's touch or to prevent herself from reaching back out again, she wasn't quite sure—and turned to glare at the Goddess.