Page 137 of She Who Was Severed

He shrugs. “Well. Your organs will stay in roughly the same order. Probably.”

“Reassuring.”

“Think of it like knocking on the door of a very old, very judgy house,” he says. “If it opens? Congrats, you get to be heard. If it doesn’t? No one’s home, or worse—someone is, and they think you’re boring.”

“And what’s the goal?”

“To get the Chain to look at you,” he says, suddenly quieter. “Not as an extension of her, or me. As you. Just you. If it recognizes you, you might get a fragment. A hum. A spark. If it doesn’t—well. That’s why I brought the match.”

I raise an eyebrow. “To light my funeral pyre?”

“To distract you while you scream. Obviously.”

I blow out a breath and start pulling off my gear. The air’s cold as sin down here, but I don’t flinch. I toss my shirt beside my boots and step barefoot toward the spiral.

This isn’t about armor.

It’s about being seen.

When I step into the spiral, the Chain doesn’t react—not at first.

But I feel it watching.

Owen crouches. No showmanship now. Just function. His fingers move fast—precise lines, old sigils. Not for flair. For consequence.

“This won’t bond you,” he says. “Won’t make you special. Won’t make you the Mother of Chains. Won’t even make you the Daughter of Chains, understand?”

I nod. “Good.”

“It might open a door, that’s all.”

I meet his eyes. “If she’s really going to tear this gods-damned system down—the bonds that lie, the Council that culls, the Paths that chew you up and spit you out hollow—then yeah. I’d rather be close enough to help her do it… or close enough to burn when it comes crashing down.”

Owen whistles, soft and low. “Reckless. I respect that.”

He draws a blade—short, curved, ugly—and slices a line across my palm. Blood hits the spiral. It doesn’t glow.

It sinks.

I hold my breath. Cycle Five. Root-spine breathwork. Just like Freya showed me, when she thought I wasn’t paying attention.

She’ll never know I memorized every word.

“She didn’t ask you to do this,” Owen says, quiet now.

“I know,” I say. “That’s the point.”

He presses two fingers to my collarbone. The sigil he draws burns for half a second, then cools into something that feels permanent.

The floor pulses beneath me—once, twice—and everything tilts.

Owen steps back. Places the unlit match beside the spiral, gentle like he’s setting down a fuse.

“The Chain won’t take all of you,” he warns.

“That’s fine,” I murmur. “I’m not much for giving it everything anyway.”

He laughs, just once. No teeth. Then steps into the dark, leaving me there—bleeding, marked, ready.