Page 15 of She Who Was Severed (The Ashen Chain Trilogy #1)

“You’re carrying something,” the priest says.

“I’m not giving it up.”

“I’m not here to take it,” he replies, and something in his tone isn’t lying. “I’m here to remind you what it means.”

I should walk away. I don’t.

He raises his left hand. Fingers steady. Veil script beginning to glow as he speaks.

“Grief,” he says, “is the chain that binds us to what we failed to protect.”

I brace, weight balanced over the balls of my feet. The chain coils again.

“You are not broken,” he continues. “You are bound by pain. That is a sacred state.”

I take a step back. Small. Enough.

He keeps going.

“Release what is false. Let go of what was forced on you. Unburden your path.”

It’s not a spell. Not like the ones I’ve learned to dodge. This is older. Slower. Meant to heal. A Veilmarked cleansing, one of the rituals they whisper through the courts when magic frays too deep.

The chain doesn’t like it.

Not even a little.

It doesn’t hiss, doesn’t rear. Just—strikes. A single coil lashes forward, silent and clean, and slices through the ritual mid-cast. The veil script shatters in the air. The priest reels back, arms up, robes catching the swing.

His wardstone lights up too late. The chain loops around his throat, not hard, just enough to bind the glyph stitched beneath his collar. One twist. One pulse.

He drops.

Not dead. Thank the gods.

The chain recedes. No violence in the movement. Just decision.

I don’t speak. There’s nothing to say.

He breathes. A harsh sound. His veil flickers like something shorting out. His hands twitch once in the dust. He mutters a name—I think it’s mine.

I step back. Another step. The distance helps. A little.

Then I turn .

And I run.

The chain doesn’t chase, doesn’t restrain, doesn’t rise. But it hums, slow and steady, like it’s filing the moment away for later. The warning lives in my spine now, not my mind. I don’t think the Chain cared what the priest meant to do. It only recognized one thing:

A threat.

And threats don’t get second chances.

- x -

The Veilmarked priest is far behind me by the time I stop.

I don’t know which corners I’ve turned down.

The last few streets are a blur—broken steps, a knee I must’ve slammed into stone, the sharp pull in my ribs that hasn’t stopped aching since the alley.

All of it distant now. The chain has gone quiet again, but there’s a tension in the way it lies against my skin, like it’s still listening for another threat.

I don’t go somewhere safe. Instead, I head to where answers wait. Or where they should.

I take the same path I used before—around the perimeter, past the statue that doesn’t look like anything anymore, then down the slope where the drain collapsed into soil.

The stone underfoot is slick with moss. My boots slide once.

I catch myself against the outer wall, breath flaring hot in my throat.

The cloak sticks where the chain cut through it earlier, but I don’t stop to check the wound.

My hand finds the seam in the wall like it’s muscle memory. Rough over smooth. Stone where there shouldn’t be .

I press.

The gate doesn’t resist. It remembers me.

Inside, the air carries too much weight. Damp paper. Old ink. Dust that hasn’t moved in years. No wards greet me. No light. I keep one hand against the wall as I go.

The shelves crowd low near the back wall, where the ceiling dips and the supports bow inward like they’re tired of being believed in. The air feels thicker here. Quiet in a way that carries weight.

Last time I came this deep, I found the Ashen Chain Path Manual—left like it had been waiting.

I scan bindings. Most are ruined—leather split from glue, scrolls collapsed into themselves, labels long since bled to smudge. One by one, I pass them. No magic hums. My chain doesn’t stir.

Then my hand stops.

I don’t know why.

The volume is nothing special—dull spine, cover cracked, no visible markings. I’ve never seen it before. But the moment I touch it, the chain shifts.

Not sharply. Not possessively.

Just… aware.

I ease it open.

There’s no title page. No index. Just crumbling script and half-translated diagrams. Nothing useful.

I flip forward. Then back. Faster now. Parchment cracks under my fingers. The spine complains with each breath.

Still nothing.

But tucked deep between two pages—barely wedged, almost forgotten—a scrap. Folded once. Singed along the bottom. I draw it free, careful not to tear what’s left.

One word waits in the center.

Ashmere.

The chain doesn’t hum.

It listens.

Drawn in a hand that didn’t expect to last. Not annotated. Not explained. Just left.

The chain presses against my back like it’s breathing with me. I don’t get time to read the rest. Someone’s coming.

Footsteps—measured, deliberate. Not rushed. The kind of weight I’ve learned to recognize even when I don’t want to.

The air shifts. I smell him before I see him. Iron-ash. Charred resin. Heat curled at the edges like something freshly struck from flame.

I tuck the scrap into my cloak’s lining, close the book as quiet as I can, and turn just as he enters the outer room.

Kellen.

His voice is soft when it lands. Not hesitant—restrained. “You came back.”

He looks worse than I expected. Damp hair. Shirt laced wrong like he didn’t notice. No armor, no polished Flameborn front. Just a man half out of breath and too tired to pretend he isn’t angry or afraid.

I don’t answer him.

He steps closer, stops before the inner shelves. He looks like he wants to say ten things at once and doesn’t trust himself to say even one.

“I thought you were gone.”

I meet his eyes. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Neither should you.”

He pauses, and then adds, “I tried. I sent word. Petitioned everyone I could reach.”

I nod. “I know.”

He flinches, like hearing it doesn’t make it hurt less.

“You should have waited. ”

“I couldn’t.” I lift the manual slightly. That’s the whole explanation. We both know it.

He glances down at my side. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m alive.”

He moves again, just one step. I can see his hand twitch like he wants to reach for me but doesn’t trust it.

“Freya—”

“No,” I say, voice firm. “Whatever it is, don’t say it. It won’t change what comes next.”

His mouth opens, closes. Then something in him breaks past the edge. “They’re going to hunt you.”

“I know.”

“They’ll strip your name out of the records. They’ll erase you.”

I nod again, slower this time. “They’re already doing it.”

“I won’t let them.”

I look down. Not because I don’t believe him—because I do.

“You can’t stop them all, Kellen.”

“I’d try.”

And I believe that, too. Which is the problem.

His hand lifts, almost to my arm. The one wrapped in chain. He stops just short, fingers hovering like they remember something he’s afraid to touch again.

Something creaks overhead. Not loud—but enough to pull our attention upward. A stair tread maybe. Or a shift in the floor above. Whatever it is, we both hear it.

Kellen doesn’t move.

Neither do I.

Then, quiet—measured, like he already knows what it’ll cost, he says, “I’ll stop them.”

I blink. My throat tightens .

“Kellen…” My voice barely rises. “You can’t stop them all.”

He meets my eyes. Doesn’t hesitate.

“You don’t know what I’m capable of, Freya.”

Not a boast. A promise.

And for the first time, I believe he’d set the whole world on fire if I asked him to.

He steps aside.

I walk past him. No touch. No words.

At the doorway, I pause. Look back.

He’s still there.

So am I.

Neither of us moves at first. The silence between us doesn’t stretch—it settles. He takes a step, slow and careful, like any faster might break something. Then another. When he reaches me, he doesn’t speak.

He stands in front of me, one hand steadying himself against the stone shelf beside us. His other hangs loose at his knee. I don’t breathe as he leans in. His forehead finds mine, light and steady. No pressure. No claim. Just presence.

Then he shifts. Closer.

He presses a kiss to the hinge of my jaw, just below my left ear. A soft, exact touch—like muscle memory.

That one place only he remembers.

The place no one else has ever thought to find.

“It’s not goodbye,” he says, voice barely audible.

“It never is,” I answer.

The words land like a promise.

He stands slowly.

Doesn’t touch me again.

And I turn toward the dark.

This time, he lets me go.

And I don’t look back.