Page 49 of She Who Was Severed (The Ashen Chain Trilogy #1)

“You know,” he says lightly, “if you had joined the cult, you would’ve made it to third rank in record time. We had sashes. Velvet.”

Vale deadpans, “Did they come in bloodstain red or morally gray?”

“Oh Vale,” Owen says with a wink. “Both.”

- x -

The directions Owen gave me weren’t exact. Just a time—dusk—and a phrase whispered in that infuriating, singsong way of his: “Follow where the air forgets your name.”

So I do.

Ashmere exhales strangely at this hour. The upper market still crackles with bootsteps and shouted barter, but down here—in the tunnels carved beneath the melted sanctuaries and broken teeth of old barracks—sound goes to die.

I pass crumbling archways leaning like they’ve given up. The stone’s blackened, burned by something older than fire. Some doors are still chained shut. Others… something got through anyway. Something that didn’t ask.

At the end of the passage, a door waits. Bent iron. No hinges. Just a smear of ash across the middle and a sigil carved half-through, like whoever made it stopped halfway and decided they didn’t need to finish the warning.

Owen stands just beyond it, lit match cupped in one hand, casting warped shadows up his cheeks. His smile is wide—too wide.

“You’re late,” he says—though I know I’m not.

“You sent me in circles.”

He shrugs, and gestures toward the cavern behind him. “If you’re ready to stop walking in circles—come.”

The chamber isn’t large, but it feels like it is.

Like the walls remember more than they should.

Cracked stone slabs stretch across the floor, carved with symbols I don’t recognize but feel anyway—deep in my jaw, down my spine.

At the center, there’s a sunken platform, surrounded by rusted chains and empty sockets where statues used to stand.

What’s left looks like bone, burned down to ash.

Whatever they prayed for—it didn’t save them.

I step forward. The Chain lifts from my shoulder like it remembers this place. A low pulse tightens around my arm—then another—until each link presses with heat I haven’t earned.

Owen doesn’t speak at first. He just walks the edge of the platform, eyes half-lidded, fingertips trailing along stone like he’s greeting an old friend he’s already outlived.

“This was a judgment vault,” he says, like he’s pointing out the weather. “One of the last. Before the powers that be got nervous and decided everything tied to the Ashen Chain should be flammable.”

He glances back, grin sharp and not the least bit sorry. “And they were thorough, I’ll give them that. Burned the transcripts. Buried the sanctums. Rebranded the survivors as unbonded. Then whipped up an entire ritual to make sure none of them could ever bond again. Very dramatic. Very on brand.”

“The Severing,” I murmur.

He nods, crouches beside a fractured sigil, and taps it twice—like he’s knocking on a door he still believes might open.

“But Ashmere wasn’t just a city,” he says, voice shifting—less amused now, more reverent. “It was built as a conductor. They wove Chain resonance into the streets, the stones, even the breath of the place. Not to hold magic. To move it. To focus it.”

The Chain stirs behind my ribs. Not in protest. Not in power.

Just listening.

Owen straightens. Dusts his hands. This time, he meets my eyes. “It fractured. Then it hid. Then it waited. And now it’s listening to you.”

The Chain pulses once—low and even. Not at Owen. With him.

I don’t speak. I don’t have to .

“Why now?” I ask.

“Because you’re proof the Chain didn’t end,” Owen replies, almost gently. “It just got smarter about who it woke.”

He gestures to the platform beneath our feet. The dust settles in thin concentric rings I hadn’t seen until now. Judgment glyphs. Old. Not decorative.

“Freya, this is where initiates passed their link trials. Where the Chain decided who was willing to carry truth, and who was still too fond of lies.”

I blink. I can almost feel it under my boots—the thrum of memory not mine.

“Why me?” I ask.

Owen doesn’t hesitate.

“Because the others didn’t make it this far.” His grin quirks sideways. “And because the Chain didn’t choose them.”

I breathe in. The air tastes like dust and iron and something older than language.

“So what happens now?” I ask. “If the Chain chose me—what does that mean for the rest of them? For the Severed?”

Owen’s grin dims. Not with sorrow. With restraint. Like he’s holding something delicate in his mouth and hasn’t decided whether to swallow it or throw it at a priest.

“They can still serve,” he says. “Still fight. Still feel the flirtation of power brushing past their ribs.” He lifts his hand, fingers fanned. “Bond grafting. Highly illegal, spiritually inadvisable, and—depending on your definition of success—technically invigorating.”

I frown. “Vale.”

“Yes,” he says simply. No smirk. No flourish. Just fact. And that’s how I know he cares. “And myself.”

“We feel the Chain pass us. We even feel it stir sometimes. A resonance. A hum. But it won’t link. Not the way it links with you. ”

I don’t respond. That truth aches louder than anything else we’ve said tonight.

Owen senses it, of course. He never misses a wound.

So he walks the rim of the platform again, like he’s drawing a sigil no one else can see. The dust lifts beneath his finger—not disturbed, summoned.

“For the Severed,” he says, “bond grafting is like taping a prayer to a shattered doorway and hoping the gods can still read.” A beat. “They can’t. But sometimes the wind answers anyway.”

“Then what is the path?” I ask.

He looks up.

“You.”

My throat tightens.

“Link Six,” he says, almost lazily, as if it’s the answer to a riddle I should’ve solved already. “The Chain doesn’t just scale power. It widens memory. Each link draws in more of what it was—and what it wants to become.”

He steps forward now. No grin. No theatrical arc of the hand.

Just Owen. Dangerous and calm.

“When you reach Link Six,” he says, “Ashmere changes.”

“How?”

“It wakes,” he answers. “Not this stone-and-ash version we’ve been limping through. The real one. The network buried under the streets. The ley-paths. The judgment lattice. The signal architecture they couldn’t kill—just smother. It all comes back.”

“And that matters because…?”

Owen spreads his arms like he’s unveiling a particularly impressive corpse.

“Because that’s how the Chain survives. Not as rebellion. Not as memory. As infrastructure.”

I stare at him .

“You’re saying the Chain becomes a real path again. Legal. Chosen.”

He tilts his head, mock-thoughtful.

“Legal? No. Gods, no. That would ruin the mystique.” A pause. Then softer: “But chosen? Yes. By those who do not bond with one of the five paths”

The weight of it drops slow. Not like thunder. Like a verdict you already feared and secretly hoped for.

“Unbonded.”

He nods. “The unchosen. The failed. The tossed. The ones the world currently discards at sixteen like bruised fruit. If Ashmere lives, the Chain can offer itself again.”

I go quiet. The stone seems to breathe under my boots.

“So the future of the Ashen Chain…” I begin.

“…isn’t built on what’s left,” he finishes. “It’s built on what’s next.”

The Chain coils once around my wrist. Not tight. Not urgent.

Just a promise.

Owen doesn’t speak right away.

He just stands at the edge of the platform, staring at a matchstick hos rolling between his fingers. Finally, he looks up.

“Anyway, I didn’t actually bring you down here for a history lesson,” he says, soft but amused. “Though I do give a spectacular one, if the mood’s right and the audience doesn’t interrupt.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You brought me here to monologue in riddles and burn matches dramatically.”

He tilts his head. “Also true. But no.”

His grin fades—not gone, just thinner. Like he’s folding it back to make room for something heavier.

“I brought you here to try.”

The word lands sharp.

“Try what? ”

He taps the platform beneath us with the toe of his boot. Dust ripples in concentric rings.

“Link Four,” he says. Like it’s obvious. Like we’ve been circling this truth since the moment I stepped into Ashmere.

I don’t move.

The Chain doesn’t, either.

Owen crouches, fingertips trailing across one of the scorched judgment glyphs carved into the stone.

“This platform wasn’t decorative,” he says. “It wasn’t ceremonial. It was functional. A place built not to display power—but to weigh it. Every link was passed here. Quietly. Without witnesses.”

“And you want me to stand in it,” I say, gesturing to the ring. “Alone. Without knowing what Link Four even is.”

Owen grins, all bright teeth and bad intentions. “I want you to flirt with the unknown while standing on a judgment engine. Alone is just the aesthetic.”

I narrow my eyes.

He walks the edge of the platform like he’s hosting a dinner party at the end of the world.

“No one knows what Link Four is. Not fully. I’ve touched its edge.

Paid the fee. Wouldn’t recommend the process to anyone unbonded with the Ashen Chain if they’re fond of things like…

unfractured memories or sleeping through the night. ”

A beat.

“But this one?” He gestures to the vault floor. “This one’s yours. Your chain. Your bond. Your potential.”

I glance at the glyphs beneath my boots. The scorch-rings. The way the stone seems to hold its breath.

“If I try,” I say slowly, “and it doesn’t answer—”

“Oh, then it waits,” Owen cuts in, cheerful as a storm. “Or worse—it watches. Quietly. Judgily. You’ll feel it not responding in that specific way that makes you spiral for the next week wondering what part of your soul it didn’t like.”

I exhale through my teeth. The Chain hums—low, amused.

I take a step toward the ring.

“Tell me what to do.”

Owen lifts a finger. Wags it once.

“Mistake number one,” he says brightly. “This isn’t a recipe. It’s a dare.”

He begins pacing again, slow, deliberate, hands behind his back like a man pretending not to conduct the room.

“The Chain isn’t looking to be impressed. It’s not interested in perfection or form. It’s listening for whatever truth you’ve been stuffing in a box labeled later.”

I roll my shoulders. Try to still my breath.

“Then how does it know I’m ready?”

He stops in front of me, grin gone—not because he’s lost it, but because he’s handing it to me to hold.

“It doesn’t want you ready,” he says. “It wants you raw.”

The words hit like they were aimed.

I step into position.

Anchor stance. Breath slow. Spine upright. The world narrows to the stone beneath me and the hum at the back of my teeth.

Cycle Four.

Inhale—collarbone to gut.

Hold—beneath the ribs.

Exhale—slow, compressed, forced.

The Chain tightens once. Then… nothing.

No flare. No pulse. Just a silence that feels too sharp.

I try again.

Cycle Five this time. Deeper. Riskier .

The breath catches. My jaw clenches. Something shifts behind my spine—but it doesn’t rise. It just… stalls.

Third cycle. Harder hold. Full compression.

The glyphs under my feet flicker, but the Chain doesn’t move.

The fourth try, my knees buckle.

Owen catches me with one hand. Not out of kindness. Just efficiency.

“Well,” he says lightly, “the floor still likes you.”

I glare up at him. “What does it want?”

His expression shifts—just for a second. Not pity. Not pride.

Something older.

“It wants what you’re not ready to give yet,” he says. “And I don’t mean pain. You’ve given it that in spades.”

I stay quiet.

My lungs ache. My wrists throb where the Chain coiled and didn’t strike. And somewhere behind the pain, I feel it:

A pressure that’s not rejection. Not refusal.

Just… waiting.

I stand. Slowly. The stone groans beneath me, as if disappointed.

“Another day,” I say.

Owen nods, already flipping the match again. “Yes. But next time, don’t bring power. Bring truth.”

He walks ahead of me toward the tunnel.

The Chain wraps once around my ribs—not tight. Not punishing.

Just enough to remind me:

It heard everything.

And it’s still deciding whether I deserve what comes next.