Page 113 of She Who Was Severed

“Bite me,” she replies.

He grins wider. “Tempting. But I’m grieving. One of my morals died.”

He turns to me. Winks.

I stare back.

The woman taps again. “You vouched for her.”

“I vouch for a lot of things,” Owen says cheerfully. “Cheese. Courage. The long-term viability of doomed love. Could you narrow it down?”

“She brings war,” one says.

“She brings a path we buried.”

“She brings judgment.”

A pause. Then someone braver, louder: “And what do you bring, Serevan?”

Owen stops smiling.

Not entirely. Just enough.

“I bring perspective.”

He raises one hand.

The Chain doesn’t lash. Doesn’t glow. But something drops. Pressure. Balance. Light shifts. The man who asked the question falters. Knees hit the ground. Not a collapse. Not yet. Just enough for shame.

Kellen watches. Doesn’t blink. Vale tilts her head like she’s giving it a five out of ten.

Owen drops his hand. Smooths his robe. Folds the parchment again.

“There,” he says. “That wasn’t so bad. Most people who kneel for the Chain don’t get back up.”

No one speaks.

Owen steps up beside me. Doesn’t look my way. Just reaches behind his ear, pulls a matchstick, and lights it with nothing. It flares anyway. A soft hiss. A tongue of fire where there shouldn’t be one.

“I remember when this room had teeth,” he says, voice low. “Now it’s just afraid of getting bitten.”

Silence follows, but not the passive kind. It tightens. Like the room’s holding its breath too long. Like every person here is waiting for someone else to speak first, hoping they won’t have to be the one who chooses wrong. The Chain hums against my ribs. Not loud. Not urgent. Just steady pressure—like it’s ready to fill the space if no one else will.

Owen’s smile doesn’t change, but the energy around him does. He’s still. Not casual. Poised. His attention scans the chamber like he’s collecting evidence no one realizes they’re giving away.

Then the grizzled man leans forward. Not much. Just enough to make his chair creak. “If we give her quarter,” he growls, “we invite retaliation.”

“No,” the bone-ringed woman says, sharp and decisive. She hasn’t moved, but her voice cuts through the tension like a hook. “We invite warning.”

Her eyes slide to Kellen. Then to Owen. Then—to me. And linger there. Like she’s just reworked a sum in her head and doesn’t like the answer.

“Kier already called for her,” someone mutters from the shadows. “What happens when he sends his response?”

Owen doesn’t blink. Doesn’t even pretend to entertain the drama. “Believe me,” he says dryly, “he’ll send his response whether Freya’s here or not. He has a reputation to uphold, afterall.”

The woman with the bone rings doesn’t look at him. Her eyes shift instead to Kellen.

“Flameborn,” she says. “Your father rules Solenn, correct?”