Page 45 of She Who Was Severed (The Ashen Chain Trilogy #1)

Kellen

The heat in the Ember Hall has nothing to do with fire. It’s in the walls, the floor, the air itself. It settles behind my ribs like it’s lived here longer than any of us. A warning dressed as warmth.

It was built millennia ago by the first rulers of Solenn—not for comfort, but to hold power steady. The obsidian beneath my boots hums with it, low and constant, like the ground still remembers every war it was made to endure.

At the far end of the chamber, my father, Lord Tor doesn’t move.

Hands clasped behind his back, eyes locked on the glass map that shifts beneath the war table.

Glyphs and runes flicker over the surface in controlled pulses—red, gold, the occasional spark of silver when something crosses the ridgeline.

Most of them drift over Solenn’s clean borders.

One glows harder than the rest.

Ashmere .

Too bright. Too steady. It shouldn’t even be on the map at all, and everyone here knows it.

He still hasn’t looked at me.

The decree rests near his hand. Unopened. The red wax seal catches the light, the Council sigil stamped so deep the parchment’s warped beneath it. Like that emblem was meant to carry more weight than the words inside.

It doesn’t.

Everyone here already knows what it says.

He turns slowly and finally looks at me—not as his son, just as a piece to reposition. A pawn to move, not someone worth asking. “You scorched Virelle,” my father says, like he’s discussing terrain, not blood. It’s not a question. Not a judgment. Just a fact he’s already filed and moved on from.

“They forged my name,” I say. “Used it for their own gain. Dragged our house into it—without consent, without respect.” I give it a beat to land. “I took revenge.”

It’s not a lie. Just shaped in the kind of language he respects. Precise. Strategic. Something he can file and forget—without asking who I burned for. That’s the kind of truth he understands. Not personal. Not emotional. Just legacy violated—and fire as the answer.

He nods once. “Contained burn. No excess fallout.” His voice is steady, almost clinical. “I might’ve done more.”

And he means it. The tactics were sound. The result speaks for itself. But the reason I acted—the true reason—that’s where he finds fault.

The map flickers. Solenn’s borders shift, but only slightly. Ashmere holds.

“You burned it for her,” he says. “The Ashen Chain girl.” There’s no edge in it. No accusation. Just the truth he thinks I won’t say out loud.

Then he turns. Quiet. Certain. Like that’s all he needed to confirm .

“They twisted my words—our name—to justify killing an innocent girl,” I say, keeping my voice level. “What kind of man would you want me to be?”

He turns. No heat behind it—just that level tone he uses when delivering orders that don’t allow for argument. “A politically astute one. A man who understands power. Not a boy ruled by his cock.”

I don’t flinch. He’s trying to bait me, press the weakness he thinks he’s named. But I’ve learned not to meet fire with fire in this room.

“She wasn’t a weakness,” I say, keeping my voice level. “She was a line they crossed. And I responded the way you taught me to.”

He exhales through his nose. Short. Dismissive.

“They cross lines every day, Kellen. That’s how power works. You redraw it. You don’t light it up over a girl who doesn’t carry our name.”

“She carries a path that will change everything.”

“A dead one,” he snaps, the first crack in his tone. “The Chain is a myth, barely more than a story the Severed cling to. It has no political recognition, no Council protection, no future. It’s not a legacy. It’s a liability.”

I meet his gaze. “And yet Kier forged my name—no, our name—to stop her. He must know something you don’t.”

That lands. Not deep—but enough.

He turns back to the war table. The glass pulses again. Ashmere still burns steady in the west.

“Kier’s afraid of what she represents,” I say. “That’s why he acted first.”

“Kier is always afraid of losing control,” he says, but quieter now. “And you gave him reason to call it a war.”

“She gave people a reason to resist.”

He scoffs. “And you followed her into that ruin like it meant something.”

“It does,” I say .

“You think this is loyalty,” he mutters, almost to himself. “It’s weakness. Emotional. Reckless.”

“I think it’s the first real choice I’ve made that didn’t come from your hand.”

Silence opens between us again. Not empty—charged.

Then he speaks, quiet and deliberate.

“If you walk back into Ashmere wearing her colors, you don’t come back wearing mine.”

I nod once. “Then I’ll wear hers.”

He doesn’t look at me.

I take the silence as permission. Or dismissal. It doesn’t matter.

I turn and walk out.

The heat doesn’t follow me.

But it doesn’t let me forget what I’m leaving behind either.

- x -

Kellen

The firewine burns like it’s trying to earn the name.

I take another mouthful, no glass this time, and let it sit behind my teeth before I swallow.

It doesn’t help. Doesn’t quiet the heat under my ribs or the echo of my father’s voice ringing like steel in the back of my skull.

“If you walk back into Ashmere wearing her colors, you don’t come back wearing mine. ” Like it’s a sentence, not a choice .

The bottle rests between my thighs, half-empty. My tunic’s discarded on the floor, stuck to one boot. Cloak crumpled across the chair. I don’t remember taking it off. The dragon’s stirring low in my chest, not agitated—just awake. Like it’s waiting to see if I’ll move or burn.

The silence is clean. Too clean.

Then comes the knock.

Three soft raps, polite, practiced. Not a servant. Not a guard.

I unhook the latch and open the door without a word.

She stands in the doorway like a sin someone prayed for.

Torchlight kisses the bare slope of her shoulders, gold hair braided over one breast like a ribbon marking where to unwrap her. The silk clings — not obscuring, not offering, just waiting. Tailored to temptation. Studied restraint dressed in the illusion of softness.

She looks at me like I’ve already touched her.

She doesn’t smile. Her mouth curves like it might, if I earned it.

“I was told,” she says, her voice the hush before a confession, “you might want… company.”

I stare at her for a beat too long, then step aside.

She walks in like she’s already been invited once before.

There’s no hesitation when she crosses to the table.

Pours herself a glass of firewine with the ease of someone who’s done this dozens of times—for generals, warlords, maybe even kings.

She doesn’t sit, but she does lean. One hip against the edge of the table.

Eyes on me like I’m a knife she knows the weight of.

“You’ve had a difficult day,” she offers. “You deserve a moment to forget it.”

She steps toward me. One hand, feather-light, brushes my arm.

I don’t speak. Just reach for my cloak.

I shrug into it without grace. Her fingers catch air.

I pull the door open, hard enough to make it rattle in the frame .

She doesn’t follow. Just lifts her glass, lets it tilt in quiet acknowledgment.

I leave her standing there. The last of my father’s cheap tricks, fading behind me.

The corridor outside is silent. No guards. No torches lit this high up—just glowstone veins running through the black stone, pulsing faintly with residual heat. I walk barefoot, the soles of my feet slapping softly against the warm floor.

The Ember Hall looms ahead, double doors sealed but never locked. I shove them open without ceremony. He’s not there. But someone is.

She turns from the far wall slowly, her robe trailing along the stone as she moves.

My mother.

Twilight-blue silk, long sleeves, tea cooling on the table beside her. Her hair’s plaited in the old Solenn way, simple and crownless. She looks older tonight. Not weak. Just worn thin in the places no one sees unless they know where to look.

I stop halfway across the room.

“I expected him.”

She nods. “He left.”

I glance at the chair beside her, then choose to stand. She waits, giving me space I don’t deserve and still get anyway.

“You’ve made a decision,” she says, not asking.

I nod once.

Her gaze drops to the clasp of my cloak. Her mouth softens.

“I thought so.”

I pace. Not fast. Just enough to keep the heat from building again.

“He sent someone,” I say. “To my room.”

Her eyebrows lift, but she doesn’t look surprised.

“Did you expect anything less?”

“No,” I admit. “But I thought he’d at least wait for me to fail before offering consolation.”

She smiles. Small. Not amused. Resigned.

“You’re not the first son to be tested that way. And you won’t be the last.” She sits, rests both hands around the still-warm teacup. “But you might be the first who didn’t take the comfort.”

“I wasn’t tempted.”

“I know.”

She studies me for a long moment. “Do you remember when she used to visit? Freya.”

I blink. “I remember.”

Her smile lifts, real this time. “You never knew what to do with her.”

“She was loud. Fierce.”

“She was a wildfire,” she says, almost fond. “And you were already trying to become a sword.”

I cross to the window, palms resting on the black stone sill. The city glows faintly below, firelight winding through the lower towers. My breath fogs the air for just a second before it’s swallowed by heat again.

My mother continues, voice quieter now. “There was a summer—years ago. You must’ve been ten. She was here for a week. There was a storm, and afterward, one of the training cliff nests collapsed.”

I frown. “The hawk nests?”

She nods. “One of the chicks fell. The boys laughed. Left it.”

I don’t remember this.

“She found it,” she says. “Sopping wet, breathing, just barely. She brought it to me in both hands, trembling but determined. She asked what we could do.”

I glance over my shoulder. “What did you tell her?”

“We made a nest together. Fed it. Kept it warm. She named it, but only whispered the name to the bird. Said it was private. ”

“And it flew?”

“Eventually.” She meets my eyes. “You were training that week. Practicing blade forms with your tutor. You didn’t see her much.”

I nod. “I don’t remember the bird.”

She smiles, the kind that hurts a little. “That doesn’t surprise me. You wanted to be a warrior, to protect people. Freya… she would protect people in a different way. She was always meant to be more.”

I say nothing. There’s nothing to say.

“Even then, she knew what mattered wasn’t control—it was care. That bird flew because she stayed.”

The silence wraps around us. Comfortable. Heavy.

Then she sets her tea down and stands.

“You’ve made your choice,” she says again. “And I won’t stop you.”

She steps forward, straightens my cloak where it’s slipped off one shoulder. She kisses my cheek once. She hasn’t done that for years.

“But if you’re leaving, let it be because you believe in what she’s building—not just because you want to burn something down.”

I meet her eyes.

“I do believe,” I say.

She nods once, firm.

“Then go. I’ll speak with your father.”

I leave the Ember Hall before she finishes her tea.

The corridors are empty. The air clearer.

And for the first time since I left Virelle in ash, the weight in my chest doesn’t feel like guilt.

It feels like fire that finally belongs to me.