Page 21 of She Who Was Severed (The Ashen Chain Trilogy #1)

“So. How’s the manual treating you? Gotten past the first anchor diagram yet?”

I freeze.

That manual hasn’t left the bottom of my pack. I haven’t taken it out once since entering Ashmere. Never said a word about it.

But he knows .

His smile only widens. “Don’t worry. You’ll figure it out. Eventually.”

He stops close enough that I can smell the ash on him. His smile hasn’t budged.

“How do you know about my manual?”

He lifts a brow, like I’ve asked him whether the sky is wet. “ Your manual?”

The Chain twitches under my ribs. Not threatened. Not defensive. Just… amused . Traitor.

Owen’s grin returns, teeth too white in the half-light. “I should know about it. I wrote it, dear. Hoping, foolishly, that one day a bright, beautiful young woman would come waltzing through the crumbling gates of this once-magnificent city and right into my humble wreck of a foyer.”

He’s insane. Has to be. That’s the only explanation. But I still step closer.

“You… wrote it?”

He doesn’t blink. Just nods, slowly, theatrically, like he’s confirming a scandal.

That smile again—wide, gleaming, the kind that makes it impossible to tell if he’s flirting or dangerous. Probably both.

Owen’s match spins once between his fingers, then stills—balanced perfectly along his knuckles. He watches the tip like he’s waiting for it to catch on thought alone, then lifts his eyes to mine.

“Do you know what the Ashen Chain really is?”

“I thought that was your job. Telling me.”

His laugh is too fast. Too delighted. It cuts close enough to bleed.

“Stars, no. If I told you, you’d stuff it into whatever shape scared you least. Safety. Power. Revenge.” He gestures vaguely toward the Chain still warming against my wrist.

“But the Chain doesn’t attach to comfort. It binds to consequence.”

He moves around me slowly, watching with those too-bright eyes. Not touching. Just measuring .

“What you carry is older than the Council. Older than the Path system. Older than the division of the Five. It wasn’t made to be followed. It was made to judge.”

I want to breathe, but the Chain flares in my chest again—hot and sudden. My legs hold. Barely.

He doesn’t miss it.

“You hear it now, don’t you?” he murmurs, voice lowered. “It’s watching you. Waiting to see if you’re worth the trouble.”

“I didn’t come here for some test.”

“Of course you did. You just didn’t mark it in your calendar.” His grin widens. “No quizzes, though. No riddles. Just a simple question: are you in, or are you still waiting for the Chain to rescue you again?”

I don’t answer. Not right away.

He shrugs. “I’m not offering training. I’m offering blood. You want to understand the Chain? Prove you won’t flinch the next time it bites.”

“What happens if I say no?”

“Then you keep surviving by accident. Which, let’s be honest, has worked for you so far. But eventually?” He lifts a hand, shrugs. “Something bites back.”

He lets the silence sit. Then he snaps his fingers once. “You may as well come out now.”

My heart skips.

A boot scrapes stone behind me.

Vale steps out of the shadows, arms crossed, face unreadable.

“You were about as subtle as a bonfire in a graveyard,” she mutters.

“You followed me?” I blurt.

“Obviously.”

Owen doesn’t miss a beat. “Good instincts. Very stabby. Keep her close.”

Vale’s eyes narrow. “You keep talking like that and I’ll demonstrate.”

He bows slightly. “Delighted. ”

I shoot her a look. “You could’ve said something.”

“You looked like you needed to do this alone.”

“So you followed me anyway?”

She shrugs. “Figured someone had to make sure you didn’t get gutted by a smug priest with a savior complex.”

Owen places a hand over his heart. “Savior’s a strong word. Let’s go with prophet. Less messy.”

The Chain pulses again—low and sure.

His gaze sharpens. “You’re standing in front of a door. You can keep pretending it’s a wall, or you can open it.”

“What’s behind it?”

He grins, not kindly. “Something that won’t let you walk out the same way you walked in.”

He tosses something. A scrap of folded parchment lands at my feet.

“East stepwell. Old ruin sealed under it. Wardings are cracked. If the Chain wants in, it’ll find a way.”

He glances at Vale, eyes bright with mischief. “Take stabby if you like.”

Vale snorts. “Call me stabby again and I’ll turn your spine into a scarf and sell it at the market.”

Then she nudges the parchment with her toe like it might bite.

“So. What exactly are we walking into this time?”

Owen flashes a wink. “Her next mistake. Or her first truth.”

Then he sits back down and says nothing else.

The Chain thrums once under my ribs. Not pushing. Not warning. Just… present.

And for once, I don’t push it down.

- x -

The ruin’s not silent. It’s holding its breath.

There’s no wind, no birdcall, no echo. Just the kind of quiet that sits behind your teeth and dares you to break it.

The kind that makes your boots sound too loud, your breath too sharp.

And underneath it all—low and sour—there’s the tang of metal in the air, like something bled here and never quite stopped.

The trail didn’t lead here. It gave up before the last ridge, as if the mapmaker reached this spot, looked into the trees, and turned back.

What’s left of the path ends in a half-buried stone arch, cracked and listing like it’s trying to collapse in on itself.

Vines coat the far wall, but even they seem to hesitate, their roots veering away from the shadow pooling just beyond the entrance.

Vale stops short. Doesn’t speak right away. She tilts her head like she’s listening for something that doesn’t want to be heard, then finally mutters, “Five minutes. If you scream, I come running. If not, I’m stealing your boots.”

I keep walking. “Bold of you to think they’d fit.”

Her smirk’s more reflex than reply. She doesn’t cross the threshold. Doesn’t need to. I know that look. She’s not scared, just smart enough to let me be the first idiot down the stairs.

There’s a sharp drop in temperature after the first step. The kind that doesn’t come from shade or elevation. Cold that feels intentional. My boot scrapes stone—no moss, no wear. Just dust and quiet and too many places a blade could be hiding .

The Chain shifts under my skin. Not warning me off. Not trying to protect me. Just… waiting. Curious.

The stairs wind down into a narrow passage, low ceiling, thick air.

Every breath tastes like old rain and something older still—something that never quite dried.

The walls are slick in patches, marked with sigils so faint they don’t register until I’m past them, and even then only as a flicker of itch along the base of my skull.

The deeper I go, the tighter the walls feel. Not spatially. Spiritually. Like the ruin is narrowing around me on purpose. The Chain doesn’t press back. It just listens harder. There’s a difference, and I can feel it—like the difference between being followed and being studied.

At the base of the final stair, the tunnel opens into a wide, round chamber.

The air shifts again—more pressure than temperature this time.

The room’s too symmetrical. Too clean, despite the ruin above.

One central column has collapsed sideways, ribs of stone jutting from its base like it snapped trying to birth something.

Beneath it, half-buried in dust, is a single glyph.

Broken. Sharp. Spiral cut with three clawlike notches along its outer edge.

I’ve seen that symbol before.

In the manual. Once in a fever dream I didn’t talk about.

The glyph is old, but not worn. It hasn’t faded—it’s stalled. Waiting for the right shape to walk into it.

I do.

A brittle crack sounds beneath my foot. Bone. Picked clean. Not ancient, but not fresh, either. It shifts as I move, like even death here can’t lie still.

“You dragged me here for this?” I say under my breath. Not to the ruin. To the Chain.

It answers .

Not with voice or vision—just presence. A ripple across my ribs. A tension that isn’t mine. And then the floor drops.

No tremor. No groan of shifting stone. Just absence. One moment I’m standing. The next, the platform’s moving—down, smooth, slow, inevitable.

Walls pass by on either side, marked with the same spiral sigils, but these ones glow faintly now. A sickly gold, like lamplight filtered through brine. I don’t feel fear. Not yet. Just the sense that whatever’s about to happen, I’m already inside it.

The platform grinds to a stop.

The chamber it delivers me to is colder than the last. Not air cold—bone cold. The kind that settles in the joints and doesn’t shake loose. It’s quiet here too, but not empty. There’s no magic in the air, no beasts in the dark, and still—I’m not alone.

They rise without sound.

Three of them. One steps from the shadows, jackal jaws and human eyes staring straight through me.

Another crawls, all twisted spine and scaled skin, like it forgot how to walk and never learned to stop.

The last comes in a blur—wings beating too fast to track, a wasp the size of a wolf with a stinger longer than my forearm.

The Chain moves before I think.

Silver arcs out from my wrist, faster than my own breath. The jackal drops with no sound. Just a flash. Then nothing. A yank at my shoulder spins me off balance, and the scaled one’s tail slices through the air where I stood a second ago. The chain didn’t warn. It repositioned.

I stumble, catch myself, pivot on instinct. The wasp dives. The Chain lashes—thread-fine, perfect. Its stinger hits the ground in two pieces.

My breath’s ragged now. Not from fear. From keeping up.

Every time the Chain moves, I react half a beat late. It doesn’t hesitate. It doesn’t check if I’m ready. It lunges, pulls, cuts—and I scramble to match its rhythm like I’m clinging to the back of a beast that doesn’t know I’m there.