Page 41 of She Who Was Severed (The Ashen Chain Trilogy #1)

He kisses lower .

Trailing fire where his mouth lands. Over my ribs. My stomach. The curve of my hipbone.

“You’re mine,” he says against my throat. His voice is gravel and heat. “And I’d burn the world for you.”

Another kiss. Lower.

“Because my fire belongs to you.”

He doesn’t ask.

He enters me with the kind of certainty that makes a lie out of every other touch I’ve ever known. Like his body remembered this before we ever earned it.

We find a rhythm older than speech. His hips thrust deep. Deliberate. Like every motion is a sentence in the language we never dared speak aloud. I brace on his shoulders. Breathe through clenched teeth. Burn through my ribs.

The wax cracks. The Chain stirs.

First around his wrist. Then mine.

It doesn’t bind. Doesn’t squeeze.

Just… coils.

Blessing. Witness. Consequence.

His breath breaks against my collarbone. My name slips from his mouth like it costs him.

And I want him to say it again. To ruin me with it.

I pull him closer. Wrap my legs around his waist. He thrusts harder, deeper. My spine arches. His forehead presses to mine, then drops.

He finds the hinge of my jaw.

Kisses it.

“It’s not a goodbye,” he rasps.

I’m already crying when I whisper it back. “It never is.”

The Chain pulses once.

And I know—

This was never about sex.

It was a ritual.

And now it’s carved into memory.

Even if the war takes everything else, we’ll still have this.

Something real.

Something ours

- x -

I wake cold. The chapel’s gone quiet again, the kind that doesn’t settle—it lingers.

Damp stone. Soot in the air. The smell of something burned and never fully buried.

I sit up slow, shirt half-twisted around my ribs, hair damp against my neck.

My throat’s dry. My legs ache. Not from the cold.

From the memory of where he held me last night.

The spot where he knelt is still warm. Just barely. The stones hold heat longer than they should when fire’s been involved, and gods, he was. Every inch of him. I press my palm flat against the floor and breathe. It doesn’t help. The warmth doesn’t fade.

I rise, barefoot. Ash sticks to my skin. The chain doesn’t stir when I move, but I feel it—resting along my spine like a thought waiting to be finished. Kellen’s gone. That’s the part that gets me, I asked him to leave and now I can’t stop looking for where he stood last.

The doorway hangs crooked, one hinge busted, warped from from years of neglect.

I slip out through it anyway. Rain’s coming down sideways in the courtyard, cutting across the stones like it’s trying to scrub the whole place clean.

It won’t. The bloodstains here don’t lift easy. Neither do the scorchmarks.

I step into the center. The rain soaks through my shirt, clings to my thighs, runs down the inside of my arms. I don’t shiver. I don’t blink. I drop straight into Rootform, knees braced, spine vertical, palms down.

Inhale. Anchor. Compress.

My breath settles deeper, landing low behind my ribs—right where his hand held me last night.

The pressure there feels familiar. Solid.

The Chain shifts in the same place, slow and deliberate, like it’s tuning to something already known.

Its weight spreads warm across my spine. Awake. Steady. Still with me.

I drop into Anchor. Knees out. Spine straight. Palms flat to stone. My breath evens—not calm, just controlled. That’s the point of Anchor. You don’t settle into it to feel better. You settle into it to see if you can hold still when everything in you wants to move.

The pressure behind my ribs doesn’t ease. If anything, it sharpens. Too fast. No rhythm. No room to think.

I shift lower. Fold forward. My arms close in tight across my chest. It’s not a stance. The manual doesn’t name this shape. But it’s real. I’ve been in it before—knees up, breath caught, holding myself together with tension alone.

I don’t stay there long. That’s not what this is for. I set one foot wide, brace the other behind me, and drive the weight into my core. Coil.

It’s the stance you take when you’re waiting to strike, but not ready to lose control. Everything tightens. Legs. Shoulders. Jaw. Breath holds at the top of the ribs. The chain doesn’t hum, but I feel it watching.

Stillness is done. Now comes the pressure.

Cycle One. Two. Then Four.

I hold the compression too long and my ribs creak under it. That’s fine. That’s the point. Pain tells the truth .

The Chain hums—not at my skin, not through it, but deeper. Somewhere marrow lives. Somewhere grief sticks. I drop into Strike stance without thinking. Snap the arm. Twist. Redirect. Again.

I throw my whole weight into the next move.

My shoulder catches hard, jarring up into the socket.

My hip scrapes across wet stone—cold, rough, unforgiving.

Something shifts in my wrist, a sharp pull that might be a pop.

Could be worse. I don’t stop to check. I grit my teeth and keep going, breath tight, legs already bracing for the next hit.

Then I hit Cycle Five.

I shouldn’t. Not here. Not like this. But the moment I drop into it, everything around me pulls tighter. The wind stutters. The rain slaps harder. The air bends—not visibly, but I feel it. Pressure builds in my gut, in my back teeth, in the center of my chest where his mouth pressed just hours ago.

The Chain snaps once—across my forearm—tight enough to sting. Then again, looping high. Not violent. Familiar. Like it remembers how he held me. How I answered.

I collapse.

Not from pain. From weight. From the way it all rushes back when I stop moving.

My knees hit stone first, then my palms. I catch myself halfway down but don’t get back up. Let the rain hit me. Let the water soak through every inch of what’s left. My breath comes too fast. My jaw’s locked. The scar beneath my ribs hums like it’s being touched again.

“Kellen,” I whisper. I shouldn’t. I know better.

The Chain pulls once—hard and direct across the center of my chest. Then it stops.

Pressure stays behind, heavy and unmoving.

I tip sideways without thinking. My cheek meets cold stone.

The hit is clean, solid. My fingers twitch once against the floor.

The Chain doesn’t retreat. It shifts slow, curling back toward my ribs like it’s choosing where to stay.

Nothing moves. Nothing changes. But I feel it—right there, steady and near.

It doesn’t leave.

I don’t move. I just breathe. One more shallow inhale. Then another.

My voice is almost gone when I say it.

“Just stay quiet. Please. Just let me feel this.”

The Chain doesn’t answer. It stays coiled—close, unmoving.

“I know,” I whisper. “I chose this.” My fingers tighten against the stone. “I just didn’t know it would feel like losing him.”

Nothing shifts. No sound. No pull.

But the Chain stays.

And for now, that’s the only truth I get.