Page 116 of She Who Was Severed

“That no path will hold you now. Not cleanly. Not safely.”

“But the Chain will?”

He smiles, “it might. But it won’t be a bond.” He leans in slightly. “It’ll be a reckoning.”

I let that sit.

“I’m not asking it to want me,” I say. “I’m asking you to make it fit.”

He picks up the napkin again. Folds it into a perfect square and presses it down like he’s sealing something beneath it.

“Then we don’t call it a graft,” he says. “We call it a gamble.”

I swallow hard. My throat burns.

He tilts his head like he’s waiting to see what parts of me hold.

“I can do it,” he says. “But you won’t come out the same. Not the same body. Not the same girl. Not the same Vale.”

I keep my voice even. “I’m not the same now.”

He gives me a slow, almost-sad nod. “Then maybe there’s space for you in what comes next.”

He turns before I can respond. Doesn’t wait for my answer. Doesn’t need to. He walks off like none of this mattered—like it didn’t hollow me out just asking.

I stay there longer than I should, in a hallway that smells like rot and damp stone, where even the light feels borrowed.

And I realize something awful.

It’s not the bond that terrifies me.

It’s that for the first time in years… I might want it.

And that?

That might kill me slower than the blade ever could.

Chapter 16

The forge doesn’t greet me. It sizes me up.

The air down here isn’t still—it’s suspended. Held in the lungs of something older than the stone itself. Cold rolls off the walls like a warning that forgot how to whisper. Each step I take draws a hush from the dust-slick floor, the scrape of my boots cutting through a quiet that feels earned. The kind of quiet people bled for.

No one else is here. Of course not. I’m early. But the room feels… occupied anyway. Not haunted. Not alive. Just waiting.

Soot streaks the ceiling in melted arcs, like the stone once caught fire from the inside and tried to tear free. Pillars rise unevenly from the foundation, scarred and pitted with age. Every surface holds a layer of history charred too deep to clean. Sigils cling to the stone like ash tattoos—Chain marks, some bent beyond recognition, some carved with such precision it hurts to look too long. They hum as I pass. Not loud. Not welcoming. Just enough to remind me I’m not the first to stand here.

The obsidian circle waits at the center. Cracked through, down its southern edge, like the judgment it once held tried to escape. It pulses faintly against my path bond, a whisper brushing the inside of my ribs. I don’t step into it yet. I just stare at the break—black glass interrupted by ruin—and feel something sharp settle behind my lungs.

I stretch my fingers. Shake out my hands. My joints pop like old hinges. The tension doesn’t leave—it just sinks deeper. The Chain coils low against my spine, heavy but still. Not aggressive. Not reactive. Just listening. Like it already knows what this will cost me.

I trace a line of scorch across the eastern arch with my eyes. It’s wide enough to have swallowed a body whole. Probably did. The floor beneath the ring bears impact fractures like something tried to escape, failed, and left a warning. I step closer. Obsidian grinds beneath my boot like it doesn’t want me there.

I don’t apologize. I step in.

The pressure hits on the second footfall. A subtle tilt, like gravity deciding it prefers someone else. I adjust my stance. Shoulders back. Chin lifted. Standard form.

I exhale. The breath fogs, even though it’s not cold enough for that. The Chain draws tighter around my ribcage. Not like a threat. Like a correction.