Page 132 of She Who Was Severed

Vale slides down the pit wall, landing with a grunt and a clap.

“Well, Mother of Chains,” she says dryly, “if that didn’t earn us at least a few hundred murderers, I’ll eat my boot.”

“You’d eat it anyway,” I mutter, brushing dirt off my ribs.

“Fair. But not while it’s cursed.”

We climb out together.

And behind us—slowly, quietly—some of the fighters begin to follow.

Not just physically.

With their eyes.

With their choice.

- x -

Ashmere doesn’t sleep.

It slinks.

Even the air has teeth after sundown—greased with coal smoke and gutter-blood, twitchy with magic that won’t die right. Somewhere behind us, music fights a losing battle against fists. A dog howls. Or maybe it’s a person. Hard to tell, in this part of the district.

Vale walks beside me, one knife already out.

Just in case.

“You should’ve let me slit that guy’s throat,” she mutters. “Would’ve been faster.”

“He yielded.”

“He spat blood. That’s not a yield, that’s a donation.”

We’re halfway through a crumbling alley—cutting west toward the tunnels Owen commandeered for training—when I hear it.

A breath.

Sharp. Wet.

I raise a hand.

Vale vanishes. Not physically—just in that ghost way of hers. Knife gone. Sound gone. Just… gone.

I step forward alone.

The noise comes again. Softer. Like someone trying not to be noticed and failing at it.

I round the edge of a rust-eaten crate.

And find him.

Small. Too small. Wrapped in a threadbare priest’s robe three sizes too large, knees tucked to his chest like he’s trying to fold out of existence. His hair’s caked in ash. His forearms—raw. Path-burned. Blue-purple sigils cracked and rotting along the bone.

A Severed.

Gods.