Page 39 of She Who Was Severed (The Ashen Chain Trilogy #1)

Rubble edges the space. A courtyard, or what’s left of one—cracked tiles spidered with soot, chunks of wall still standing like they don’t know they’re ruins yet. Every breath scrapes raw.

Something’s at the center. At first, it’s just shape—wood, metal, scorched stone. Then it sharpens. A stake. Upright. Old iron clamps warped black from heat.

And then I see her.

Bound there. Small. Too still. Her head droops, hair charred back in places, skin cracked where the flames bit deepest. Her chest shudders once—barely a breath—but enough to know it’s not over.

She’s still burning.

Still breathing it in.

And gods help me—I don’t look away.

I hear my own voice before I feel my mouth move.

Burn her. She’s tainted. Let the Chain take her.

Except it’s not me. It’s younger. Sharper. Crueler. I’m not alone in the body. I’m in the crowd. I’m the one screaming.

I try to move. Try to look away.

I can’t.

I’m stuck—half in the spiral, half inside this memory the Chain’s stuffing down my throat like it wants to see what happens when I gag on someone else’s truth.

In the chamber, my knees give. Hands hit stone. I can’t breathe.

Owen doesn’t help.

Of course he doesn’t.

This isn’t his moment. It’s mine. And the Chain? It’s not interested in comfort. It’s here to see what I do when no one pulls me out.

My chest locks up. Feels like something’s carving into it—deep, hot, like metal dragging through bone. The Chain tightens its grip. Not to hurt me. Not exactly. It’s pushing. Seeing what I’ll do.

Can I carry what isn’t mine?

Can I hold the pain that belonged to someone else?

Can I get back up after ?

I want to scream. Honest-to-gods, full-body scream.

But instead, one word scrapes out of me. Ragged. Honest.

“Freya.”

Not because she’s here. Not because she can help.

Because she’s why I’m here. The only thing solid enough to hold on to.

And the Chain feels it. Responds.

Not with pain.

With purpose.

It tightens—not like a noose, but like a brand. Like it’s making sure this moment doesn’t vanish when I wake up.

Something in me breaks open. Not skin. Not thought.

Something deeper. A wall I didn’t know I built.

And behind it?

Heat. Weight. Something old. Something with teeth.

Then the ground disappears beneath me.

Not fainting.

Not falling.

Just—gone. Like the world decided it was done holding me up.

I wake in silence.

Not peace. Not calm.

Just absence.

No glow. No sound. No Owen—which, frankly, might be the scariest part. Just the stone, cooling under my side, and the throb of a body that feels like it lost a fight to something it couldn’t see.

I sit up slow.

Nothing screams. Nothing cracks. But I feel wrong in the bones.

I glance down.

There’s a mark now—right above the navel. Spiral. Ash-toned, with red-black threads branching off it like hairline fractures. Not a scar. Not ink. Just… there .

A signature.

I touch it.

It hums. Quiet. Not sound—memory. Like something older just checked a box and moved on.

I take a breath.

Not one of the deep, controlled ones from earlier. Just a regular breath. Enough to remind myself I’m still here.

And that’s when I feel it—something shifting behind my eyes. Not a voice, not exactly. More like a thought that didn’t come from me.

This body is still yours… mostly.

I smile. Small. A little crooked. But real.

Yeah. That makes sense.

Because whatever just happened—whatever the Chain just did—it didn’t take me over.

Not completely.

What’s left?

It joined me.

And whatever piece of me cracked open to let it in… didn’t seal back shut.

I roll my shoulders. Something inside still buzzing. Like a warning. Or a promise.

My smile turns sharper. Meaner.

Yeah. That tracks.

Because whatever’s in there now?

It’s not tame.

And neither am I.

- x -

Vale

The heat hits before I even register it.

One second I’m focused—breathing steady, doing the whole anchor-release thing—and the next, the air just explodes.

No warning. Just a sharp pop, loud enough to make my ears ring.

The stone wall in front of me jerks like it’s been punched from the inside, and a long crack shoots through it with a sound like splitting bone.

Dust pours from the arch above. A chunk of rock, about the size of my fist, slams into the ground right next to my boot.

I don’t move. Just stare at it.

That could’ve been my head.

“Well. That’s encouraging.”

I shake out my fingers, which are still steaming, and eye the blackened section of wall like it personally insulted me. Maybe it did. I’m not ruling anything out.

My palm’s raw. The graft etched above my navel throbs once—sharp and satisfying. It’s not a seal. Not yet. But it’s working. Almost. Sort of.

Close enough to kill me if I get cocky.

Torchlight wavers behind me. The old chamber groans in the cold. Half-buried in the cliff face, it’s just shy of collapsing—a perfect place to test illegal magic you probably shouldn’t be wielding.

I lean against a cracked pillar, chest still heaving.

Sweat’s drying sticky down my sides. Every breath feels like I ran through a war zone uphill, in boots two sizes too small.

But I keep going. I have to. The graft isn’t settled yet.

If I stop now, my body might spit it out—or worse, let it take over and erase whatever version of me came before.

I close my eyes. Try again.

Smaller this time. Just a trickle of heat pulled from where the graft’s still healing. It flickers out through my fingers—barely enough to light a candle. Still hits hard. My vision goes fuzzy for a second, like static crawling across the edge of my eyes.

I exhale, slow. Swallow down the rush of nausea curling at the edge of my tongue.

It’s working. And that’s the most dangerous part.

I don’t hear her at first. Not until the silence goes weird—heavy, like the room’s waiting for something.

I turn. And there she is. Freya. Standing in the doorway like she never left. Chain coiled over her shoulder. Eyes already locked on the scorch marks behind me… then my hands.

And just like that, the air feels too close.

She doesn’t speak.

Neither do I.

I lower my hand. The flame dies with a soft hiss.

We sit, eventually. Torchlight catches on her knuckles as she rests her elbows to her thighs, hunched just enough to look human instead of divine. Across from her, I stare at a crack in the floor that wasn’t there earlier. Probably mine. Probably not the only one I’ve made lately.

Freya doesn’t say anything at first. Just watches the flicker of the flame like it might whisper back.

Then, with no warning, she asks, “Do you regret it?”

I shift, dragging the back of my wrist across my mouth. Blood’s stopped. Mostly. My graft still itches under the skin, low and sharp, like it’s thinking about waking up again.

“Regret what?” I say .

“The graft. The Chain. What it’s doing to you.”

I let that sit. Then lean back, shoulder popping against the stone. “Look, I didn’t graft myself to a relic because I believe in bedtime stories. I did it because someone finally stood up and said the whole system’s rigged. And maybe—just maybe—they’ll listen to you before the next kid burns.”

Freya doesn’t flinch.

She just reaches out. One hand. Light on my knee. The graft flares under my collarbone. Warm. Like a heartbeat. Like it heard me.

We don’t talk for a while. Just sit in the dark, breath slowing, the aftershock of all that heat still crawling behind my ribs.

I roll my neck. Graft’s still hot, like it doesn’t trust me yet. That’s fine. I don’t trust it either.

Freya shifts beside me. Chain still draped over her shoulder like it’s part of her spine. Still silent. I stare at it for a while. “Mine acts like it wants to rip through me,” I mutter. “Yours… doesn’t. It just waits.”

Freya looks at the Chain on her shoulder. Doesn’t speak.

“What’s it waiting for?” I ask.

She exhales. “Judgment.”

That’s when the stone doorway creaks.

And, of course Owen appears. In his usual haunted scarecrow aesthetic. Velvet waistcoat over god knows what, hair a mess, sleeves dusted in soot like he rolled through a battlefield just to make a point.

“Oh good,” he says, stepping inside like it’s a social call. “The identity crisis circle has begun.”

“Don’t you knock?” I ask.

“I do,” he says. “Just usually with force.”

He gestures vaguely between the two of us. “Now. You want answers or a demonstration?”

“Both,” Freya says flatly.

He grins like it’s his birthday .

“All right then.” Owen drops to a crouch near the scorched wall and pulls a shard of old glyphstone from his pocket. “Let’s play a game called Why Can Vale Go Boom But You Can’t?”

He sets the shard down. Snaps his fingers. The spiral on my chest flares. A gout of heat lances up my spine. I hiss but hold steady.

“Vale,” he says, voice sing-song, “has what we call a graft. A delightful abomination of ritual, blood, stubborn will, and my personal brand of chaos.”

He tosses the shard up. It flashes once. “She doesn’t have a bond. She has a shortcut—to a Chain that didn’t choose her, but tolerates her just enough to burn things on command.”

I glance at Freya. “Sounds flattering.”

“She’s a matchstick,” Owen continues, twirling the shard. “Sharp, hot, fast. She lights the fire but risks burning the hand that holds her. Her power? Combustion. Raw force drawn from a splintered thread in the Chain’s punishment core.”

Freya’s brow furrows. “So why doesn’t mine—”

Owen doesn’t miss a beat. Still crouched on a broken slab like he’s hosting a picnic in a graveyard, he twirls a match between two fingers and points it at her like a scepter.

“Because yours doesn’t need to,” he says. “You’re not channeling the Chain. You are the Chain.”

I snort. “Little dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Not at all,” he replies, cheerful as ever. “She’s the judgment they tried to bury. The system they outlawed. The one that made the rest of us look like amateurs.” He pauses, as if struck by a profound and terrible memory. “And then they set it on fire.”

Freya’s eyes narrow, but her voice stays steady. “That doesn’t explain why I can’t do what Vale does. ”

“Because you weren’t made to start fires,” Owen says, flipping the match again. “You were made to decide who deserves to burn.”

My eyebrows lift. “So I’m the arsonist and she’s the judge?”

“Precisely,” he says, beaming. “You’re the fuse. She’s the verdict.”

Freya doesn’t respond. Just watches him like she’s already measuring what kind of hole to bury him in.

I cross my arms. “Then what the hell does that make you?”

Owen taps his own chest like he’s checking for a heartbeat.

“Ah, me. Well. Once upon a regrettable time, I was a high priest with access to restricted relics, far too much confidence, and a stunning lack of adult supervision.” He smiles brightly.

“I bonded the Chain, yes—but not cleanly. Not like her. Not with consent or ceremony. More like… I picked the lock, let myself in, and bled until it got curious enough to stay.”

He spreads his hands, half-apologetic. “Which is why I’m technically functional. And medically inadvisable.”

I blink. “You really sold that like a résumé.”

“Thank you,” he says brightly.

Freya shifts slightly, the Chain still draped over her shoulder like it belongs there. “So you two burn things.”

Owen’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “And you decide what walks through the fire.”

Freya presses her palm to the Chain. The links stir, then wrap her fingers one by one, like they’ve been waiting.

The air thickens.

I watch them settle. Her. The Chain. The room.

“My Chain tries to incinerate my lungs every time I breathe,” I mutter. “Hers? Apparently wants to cuddle.”

Owen’s smile shows up half a second late. Doesn’t reach his eyes.

Then it vanishes.

“It’s not cuddling,” he says, voice dropping. “It’s remembering. ”

That hits harder than it should.

“Remembering what?” I ask, already hating the answer.

He rolls the match between his fingers once.

Then, with something almost like reverence:

“Her. It’s remembering her.”

My stomach drops like a floor gave way. “Okay… and what in the hells does that mean?”

Freya’s thumb moves along one of the links. Precise. She doesn’t lift her head.

When she speaks, her voice is low enough to make gods lean in.

“It means,” she says. “That I’m its reckoning.”

The match does catch fire.

Not from friction. From choice.

Owen lets it burn between his fingers, the flame casting shadows across the sharp edges of his grin.

“Well,” I breathe, mostly to myself. “That’s hot. Terrifying. Existentially confusing. But mostly hot.”