Page 12 of She Who Was Severed (The Ashen Chain Trilogy #1)

The cell’s barely larger than a prayer alcove. Walls stained with moisture. Floor uneven. A cot bolted to the stone with legs corroded from old blood or something worse. A bowl of steaming gray sits in the corner. I don’t check if it’s food.

I sit because standing feels performative. Because pacing would make it real. Because I know the cuffs will flare again if I so much as gesture wrong.

The cot creaks. It sounds like bones shifting. I stretch out one leg, slow and careful. The metal of the cuffs warms with contact against my skin. Not painfully. Just enough to remind me they’re there .

The chain doesn’t stir.

Not even to protest.

I stare at the opposite wall. Scratched with lines that might be tally marks or madness. Symbols I don’t know. One faint rune repeats just above the cot’s headrest—carved deeper than the others. A name maybe. Or a prayer.

The silence isn’t clean. It sticks to the inside of my ears. I can hear my breath, my pulse, the drip of condensation from somewhere overhead. My body aches—not from yesterday, but from everything that came before.

This isn’t punishment.

It’s pause.

Time stops here. That’s the point.

Eventually I eat. The gray isn’t as bad as it looks. But there’s no salt. No flavor. I chew it like penance and swallow it like dust.

I try to stretch, but without the chain’s pull, without the faint burn of form pressure tightening my tendons, my body feels unstrung. Like I’ve been scooped hollow. Like I only ever made sense when something else was curled inside me.

I lose count of how long I’ve been under.

The lights outside the cell don’t shift. The air doesn’t move. I sleep, but only in fits—jaw clenched, muscles twitching, skin hot where the chain used to rest.

And then—

A sound.

Soft. Not close. Not mechanical.

A scrape. Beyond the far wall. Followed by a voice:

“You’re quieter than the last one.”

The words hit strange. Not cruel. Not curious. Just matter-of-fact. Like the speaker’s commenting on the weather. Or their favorite form of decay.

I don’t respond at first.

The voice hums. Gravel-thick. Amused. “Let me guess. First day? ”

Still I say nothing. Silence has weight here. And I don’t trust this voice to handle mine gently.

The voice shifts. Just slightly. “You Severed?”

I lean forward, elbows to knees, cuffed hands loose between them. “What’s it to you?”

A rasping chuckle, low and small. “Means I was right. You’re the Ash-born.”

My stomach flips.

The name doesn’t carry volume—but it carries weight. Like blood dropped in still water. Like the sound the chain makes when it’s hungry.

“Say that again,” I whisper.

There’s a pause. Then: “Didn’t mean to scare you. Just… been a while since the Chain stirred.”

I push up, cross the cell. The walls press close. I press one ear against the furthest edge, the stone there colder than the rest.

“You said the Chain stirred.”

“Before you came. Felt it in my teeth. Behind the eye. Hurts in a way you don’t forget.”

I shift slightly. My temple throbs—dull, persistent, the echo of the place where the second link pulses when it wants to remind me I’m not done yet.

“You’ll feel it,” he says. “Soon.”

“Who are you?”

“They took the name. Like they take everything. Call me Ash-rag, if it helps.”

It doesn’t.

But I don’t correct him.

The tone in his voice isn’t brittle. It’s worn smooth, like someone who’s lived with pain long enough that he’s stopped negotiating with it.

“I’m not what you think,” I say. Not a challenge. Not a lie.

“No,” he agrees. “You’re worse. ”

I don’t pull back from the wall.

Because I don’t want to hear more.

But I don’t want to hear less.

I sit back down. The cot doesn’t creak this time. Like it’s adjusting to me. Like I’ve earned the stillness.

The quiet presses against my eardrums.

My tongue tastes copper. The bowl of food goes untouched. The cuffs don’t glow. The chain doesn’t twitch.

But deep inside, under the stillness, under the suppression, something stirs.

Not magic.

Memory.

Not mine.

The Chain’s.

I close my eyes. Try to fall forward into sleep. I don’t expect it to come. But it does. Quick. Hard. Like being dragged under by something that recognizes me.

Just before I slip, I whisper a single word.

“Ashmere.”

And the chain hums once—so faint I almost miss it.

As if to say:

You’re close.

Now wake me properly.

- x -

The key turns slowly.

Not loud. Not urgent. Just deliberate metal, teeth against lock, like whoever’s on the other side knows exactly how long they’ve got and refuses to be rushed.

I’m already upright by the time the door opens—back straight, hands braced against the edge of the cot, pulse steady by force.

I expect another guard. Another bowl of grey heatless food.

Maybe a priest with a question that’s not really a question.

It’s Kellen.

He steps in without fanfare. No escort. No ceremonial firelight. Just a shadow-framed figure in a rain-dark cloak, boots tracked with mud and ash. His hair’s wind-tangled, like he moved fast but didn’t want anyone to know. There’s no part of him that looks rested. But he’s here.

And somehow, that still counts.

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t wait for permission. He crosses the room in three strides, leans his back against the opposite wall, and slides down until he’s seated beside me on the stone. Elbows on knees. Shoulder brushing mine. Like he’s always been allowed.

Like the chains on my wrists don’t matter.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” I say.

He doesn’t answer that. Just exhales. A breath full of too many words he’s not letting out yet. When he finally does speak, it’s low. Measured.

“I sent word to my father. Filed a writ with the council. Petitioned for review. Legally. Formally. I signed it in blood if that helps.”

“It doesn’t.”

He huffs something close to a laugh. “Didn’t think it would.”

There’s something wrapped in cloth resting in his hands. It takes me half a second to recognize the shape, but when I do, my throat tightens. He offers it out.

“I brought it back.”

My path manual .

Wrapped just as I gave it to him—edges aligned, cloth still knotted twice, like a tether I didn’t want to fray. He didn’t open it. I can tell by the way the corners haven’t shifted. The way he still holds it like it doesn’t belong to him.

“I said keep it safe,” I murmur.

“And I did,” he says. “But it’s safer with you.”

I take it. Not fast. Not gently. Just… carefully. Our fingers brush in the pass. It shouldn’t mean anything. But it does. Enough to remind me that I’m not just scars and speculation. I’m still flesh. Still here.

I crouch low and slide the bundle beneath the cot—under the cracked mattress, angled into the shadows. Not hidden well. Just well enough that someone would have to want to find it.

Kellen doesn’t offer help. Doesn’t comment.

He watches. Quiet. Intent.

Not like he’s memorizing what I’m doing.

Like he knows it’s not his to interrupt.

I sit again, back where I was. Our knees bump. Neither of us moves.

“You shouldn’t have come,” I say softly.

He shrugs once. “Doesn’t mean I won’t.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“I know.”

The silence between us tightens. Not with tension. With familiarity. Like neither of us trusts it, but neither of us wants to be the first to leave it behind.

He reaches into his cloak and pulls out a folded square of cloth. Thick. Dark. Warmer than anything I’ve been given since they locked me below. I don’t ask where it came from. I just take it. My fingers brush his again. This time, they stay.

He meets my eyes. Steady. Intent .

Like nothing I’ve done—not the fight, not the trial, not the chain—has made him look away.

“Do you think they’ll listen?” I ask.

He doesn’t flinch. “Not for a long time.”

The honesty hurts more than I expect.

“But I’ll make it cost them when they don’t.”

And that hurts worse.

Because I believe him.

He settles beside me. Legs stretched out now, palms braced behind him on the stone. I lean into the warmth of the cloak. Let my head tip until it rests on the wall just behind his shoulder. I don’t ask for more. I don’t need to.

We stay like that.

Breathing in time with nothing but each other.

Long enough for the cold to ease. Long enough for my pulse to stop trying to prepare for pain.

Eventually, the light outside the cell door shifts. Silver now. Cold-veined and patient.

Kellen stands.

I don’t.

I watch him from where I sit—bare feet pressed to cold stone, hair damp with sweat, cuffs still cinched tight around my wrists. I probably look like a girl half-broken.

I almost laugh.

There’s no probably about it.

And yet he still looks at me like I’m whole.

Like I haven’t fractured a dozen times since the chain took root.

Like he’s not bracing for the moment I break again.

Like he remembers something about me I’ve already started to forget.

Like I’m still worth betting on .

He crouches down once before he leaves. Braces a hand on the cot. Lets his forehead brush mine—just a breath, not a claim. Then he leans in and presses the softest kiss to the hinge of my jaw, just beneath my left ear.

Not my lips. Not my cheek.

There.

The spot no one else thinks to touch.

The place only he ever found.

“It’s not a goodbye,” he murmurs.

“It never is,” I whisper.

Just a promise I’ll feel long after he’s gone.

Then he goes.

No words.

No promises.

Just the soft click of the door as it seals behind him.

I close my eyes.

The cell doesn’t feel smaller. The cuffs don’t fade. The chain doesn’t stir.

But I breathe easier anyway.

I don’t believe in mercy.

But I believe in him.

And right now, that’s enough.