Page 105 of She Who Was Severed

And now we both have to decide what burns next.

Chapter 14

The square stinks of fire and collapsed magic. You can taste it in the air—burnt stone, scorched metal, the brittle afterbite of something that tried to rewrite a city and only half-finished the sentence. Most of the onlookers have scattered, but a few linger at the edges of the ruin, too stunned or too foolish to move. They watch like the story hasn’t ended yet. Like it might still break open.

I walk forward anyway.

The cobblestones grind beneath my boots. Loose ash shifts underfoot, tracing the paths of what’s already been lost. The wind doesn’t stir. Doesn’t breathe. Just hangs like it’s waiting for someone to make the next mistake. The Chain tightens at my wrist—not warning, not threat. Just… presence. Awareness. Like it’s bracing with me.

Kellen stands across the square, half-shadowed by his dragon. He hasn’t moved since the landing. Neither has the beast. Smoke still rises in thin trails from its shoulders and ribs, heat shivering in the space between scale and air. The curve of its wings blocks out most of the skyline behind him. It doesn’t feel like protection.

It feels like a line.

He sees me. That’s the first thing I know for sure. Not because he calls out, not because he steps forward. Just the way his shoulders shift—slight, controlled—like my movement has weight again. Like I’m real again.

I stop in front of him. Not close enough to touch. Just close enough that the silence starts to feel dangerous.

He breaks it. His hand lifts, slow, measured, fingers open—not hesitant. Careful. The kind of careful that says he doesn’t know what version of me he’s reaching for.

His touch finds the spot just under my ribs. The place where the Chain broke me once. The place where the lie landed.

It’s not soft. It’s not romantic.

It’s a test.

And gods help me, I fail it.

My breath jerks in. The Chain floods my veins with heat and response, threads wrapping up my forearm like it’s remembering him too—like it never stopped. I should flinch. I should shove him back. I don’t. I just stand there and let him find the truth of me in the spot that still aches.

And maybe I lean in. Just enough to feel it. Just enough to remember what it was like before everything cracked.

Then—

“Ah, young love,” a voice drawls. “Touching, yet vaguely nauseating.”

Owen.

The moment fractures.

He strolls into the square like a man arriving late to his own funeral and delighted by the turnout. His robes don’t match—one sleeve velvet, the other is coated in what looks to be blood. A half-burnt match spins between his fingers. His eyes scan the aftermath like he’s judging the destruction for artistic merit.

Kellen moves before I can say a word. Just a step, but his dragon feels it too. Smoke thickens at the nostrils. The pressure in the bond shifts, not hostile—ready.

I don’t blame it.

“Owen,” I mutter, low and flat.

He beams like I’ve complimented his shoes, which, to be clear, he isn’t wearing. “Am I interrupting? You two had that lovely tense silence going. I thought maybe we were mid-foreplay.”

Kellen’s voice drops. “Who the fuck is this?”

“I didn’t invite him,” I say tightly. “He just… keeps appearing.”

“Like herpes,” Vale offers, strolling in from the side with one knife already spinning between her fingers. She jerks her chin at Owen. “You know—ex-priest, superiority complex, chronic meddler. Thinks he’s clever enough to rebuild the world and insane enough to try.”

Owen places a hand over his heart. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all week.”

“She’s not joking,” I tell Kellen, eyeing the dragon as its tail tenses. “He’s dangerous. But he hasn’t hurt me.”