Page 17 of She Who Was Severed (The Ashen Chain Trilogy #1)

The breath turns sharp. My veins go light. I lose the hold too late and the ground slides sideways beneath me.

My balance’s gone. My footing’s gone. The stars stretch at the edges of my vision and I pitch forward, one hand catching mud before my face hits stone. My stomach turns.

I throw up.

Not because of the cycle. Because of what I felt.

The second link didn’t open.

It moved.

Shifted. Just enough to let me feel it. Like something ancient, sleeping, stirred under my ribs and decided to remember I was here.

I don’t try again.

Not that night. Not with my bones still buzzing and the pressure behind my eyes clawing for space. I pull the cloak tight around my shoulders and sit near what’s left of the fire. The coals spit faint heat. I press my fingers to the cover of the manual but don’t open it.

Instead, I whisper his name. Just once. Quiet. Barely there .

Not mine. Not the Chain’s.

His.

Then I swallow it down. Pack it away. Bury it deeper than breath.

Dawn doesn’t come with light. It just makes the dark shift sideways. I stand before the mist finishes rising, sling the pack over my shoulder, and start walking again. No trail. No markers. Just a direction and the weight of something still coiled against my spine.

I don’t know if Ashmere is a ruin or a lie.

But the chain remembers it.

And I’m not ready to die not knowing why.

- x -

It starts with dirt under my nails. Not magic. Just dirt. Packed in tight as I drag both hands through the slope like it’s holding something I lost. I’m not sure when I started. But I don’t stop.

The ridge wasn’t marked. No structure. No ruins. Just a bend in the path the map barely registered. The kind of omission you don’t question until the chain starts pressing into your spine like it has a memory and wants me to find it.

Roots choke the slope. Too many. Too deep. I tear through them with my hands until the fabric of my sleeves shred and the skin underneath goes raw. One root wraps tight around my wrist. I yank too hard. It cuts. Doesn’t matter.

Then stone.

Flat. Cold. Clean where it shouldn’t be .

My hand slips. Just enough. Palm hits a sharp edge—splits straight through. Blood spills fast. Bright and sharp down my forearm. I barely look before it’s soaking into the rock.

Something shifts beneath the blood.

Not movement—just… light, coming from the stone. Pale silver. Soft, but steady. It bleeds outward from a seam in the rock I hadn’t seen before. The blood must’ve touched something carved beneath the dirt. A marking. A sigil maybe.

A glyph.

I lean in, wipe the surface with my sleeve. There’s a shape now, etched into the stone. Faint, but pulsing. Not glowing like magic usually does. This is slower. Like it’s syncing with something. Maybe me.

No voice. But the words still come.

Ash for ash. Breath to stone. Chain to name.

My knees hit the ground before I register the movement. Both hands pressed into the dirt. I drop into Rootform without thinking—spine locked, shoulders forward, jaw tight.

Inhale—anchor.

Exhale—compress.

Hold.

Cycle Six.

The glyph pulses again. Not loud. Not bright. Just a steady throb under my hands, like the stone’s responding to something in me. Or in the breath.

I try to keep the rhythm steady—inhale, compress, hold. Don’t rush it. Don’t go too deep. The Chain’s already reacting.

Something tightens just below my ribs. Not pain. More like a pull—inside, not outside. The pressure slides down my spine and settles in my lower back, cold and sharp like the moment before a muscle locks up .

My jaw clamps down. I try to stay still, hold the breath where it is. But the tension keeps climbing. The hum’s low enough I feel it buzz through my teeth.

I hold anyway. Too long.

Doesn’t matter.

I wait.

The glyph fades. The stone warms, just slightly. Like recognition. Not approval.

Then the pressure hits behind my eyes—fast and low and sudden.

I don’t see a vision.

I feel a shape. Someone standing here before me. Same kneel. Same posture. One hand bound, one hand free. Chain wrapped to the elbow. Blood down the wrist.

They’re not calling anything.

They’re remembering.

One word rises, slow and heavy.

Ashmere .

I blink. The light’s gone. The ground’s cold again.

The Chain doesn’t retract.

It doesn’t pulse, either. Just stays wrapped tighter across my spine and shoulder like it’s holding something in place. I can’t tell if that something is me.

My knees dig deeper into the slope. I press one palm to the stone—half to steady myself, half to see if the glyph’s still warm. It isn’t.

“I don’t know what you are,” I mutter. “But you know me.”

The stone doesn’t glow. Nothing stirs. But the ground under my knees… settles. Just a shift. Like pressure releasing under the surface. I can feel it more than I hear it.

I push up too fast .

My vision sways hard to the left. Hands go cold. I stumble sideways and catch myself on the edge of the tarp, breath coming sharp and shallow.

I don’t remember pulling the fire ring together. But there it is—half-built, rocks too wide apart. I drop the last one and sit. Hard. No grace. Just weight and legs that won’t hold right.

Then the voice lands.

Flat. Dry. Unbothered.

Like she’s been here longer than I have—and just got bored waiting for me to pass out so she could loot my boots.

“You bleed nice and loud,” she says, boots crunching moss. “Would’ve found you even without the glyph.”

- x -

I turn slow. Not fear—calculation. The chain shifts across my back like it’s rolling its weight toward my spine. Not defending. Not attacking. Just… watching her.

She’s standing ten paces out, left boot planted on a moss-covered root, arms folded like she’s judging the view. Leather armor, patched and scorched. Old priest robes hanging like trophies beneath it. One of her knives is visible. The other three are not well hidden.

Her head tilts. “You’re slower than I figured.”

Not a threat. A joke. Maybe.

But her eyes don’t blink. And I don’t look away.

She’s older than me. Calm, not bored. Like she’s sizing up the mess and deciding whether to step in or step over it .

I don’t move right away. I shift back, steady, weight low over my knees. My hand brushes the hilt at my boot. The chain rises an inch up my spine—tight, but not warning. Not yet.

Her hair’s black and uneven, shaved clean on one side and ragged at the ends like it’s been cut with a blade too dull or too fast. Her eyes catch the firelight—hazel-gold, sharp and watchful. Nothing soft in them.

She smiles without warmth. “Was gonna wait until you passed out. But where’s the fun in that?”

I stay quiet. Let her fill the air. It’s something people like her can’t help doing.

The chain hums low—not reactive. Present. Watching her the way it watches memories I haven’t earned.

She takes a step closer, boot sinking just slightly into the wet earth. “Vale,” she says. “Like funeral cloth. Or awkward silence. Take your pick. Full name’s Vale Maraquinn. If you’re the formal type.”

“What do you want?” My voice comes out steady, rough. Not invitation. Not challenge. Just weight.

“Company,” she says, without blinking. “Or conversation. Or maybe a look at whatever ancient chain magic you’re leaking all over the place.”

“Back off.”

Vale tilts her head, amused. “That tone. You Severed types always go flat when you’re trying to keep your insides from showing. It’s charming.”

She flicks her fingers. Something arcs through the air. I catch it without thinking.

Scrap of parchment. Fragile. Burned through one side. I know the script before I even read it—Ashen Chain, but not mine. The pattern’s wrong. The binding sigil is distorted. There’s blood in one corner, dried into the fibers.

My grip tightens. “Where did you get this? ”

“Killed a priest who tried to burn it,” she says. “In my defense, he was doing a really crap job.”

The chain brushes the back of my neck. Not defensive. Something else. Like recognition in slow motion.

Vale doesn’t flinch. Just watches the motion with interest, like she’s checking to see which way the current runs.

“What are you?” I ask.

“Severed,” she says. “Stonebound, originally. Didn’t like where the bond was headed. Cut it loose before it could take anything important.”

She taps her temple, then her gut. “Mind and will, mostly. Kept both.”

I glance at the scarring above her collar—sigil burn, half-healed.

“You’re unregistered.”

“No shit,” she mutters. “Don’t do paperwork. Don’t do collars. Don’t do temples unless they’re burning and there’s something worth stealing.”

“You’re dangerous.”

She grins. “We’re just saying facts now? Great. You’re bleeding. I’m funny. The forest smells like wet dead things. Want to keep going?”

I don’t answer. But the chain shifts across my back. Not warning. Just closer. Like it’s bracing again. Or maybe listening.

Vale steps nearer, slow but sure. She doesn’t draw her weapons. Doesn’t ask. Just stands there in the firelight like she belongs here whether I like it or not.

“I don’t want to fight you,” she says. “Waste of breath. Waste of knives. And honestly? You have nothing I need.” She pauses, tilts her head. “Plus, you look like the kind of person who fights best when she doesn’t have time to think. I respect that.”

“Then, what do you want?”

“Told you. Same road. Ashmere. I have one page. You’ve got the rest. I figured it’d be more fun if we didn’t try to kill each other before sunrise.”

“And if I say no? ”

“Then I’ll leave,” she says. “Come back. Follow you anyway. Or maybe just take your map and leave you with a nice hole somewhere unhelpful.”

I blink once. “So… what you’re really saying is, you’re bad at asking questions.”

She grins. Sharp. Unapologetic.

“I’m worse at waiting.”

She turns without waiting. Walks past the edge of the firelight. Doesn’t disappear. Just stops—far enough to give space. Close enough to still count as company.

“You coming?” she calls over her shoulder. “Or should I start narrating my own heroic inner monologue until you catch up?”

I don’t move. Not yet. The chain curls tight at the base of my ribs. Not alarm. Not consent. Just… tension. Like it remembers her. Or wants to.

Vale glances back once. “By the way, I talk in my sleep,” she says. “I steal if I’m bored. And I bite if you try to hug me.”

Then, quieter: “But I don’t betray first. Not unless I’m given a reason.”