Page 141 of She Who Was Severed

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Vale

The heat hits before I even register it.

One second I’m focused—breathing steady, doing the whole anchor-release thing—and the next, the air just explodes. No warning. Just a sharp pop, loud enough to make my ears ring. The stone wall in front of me jerks like it’s been punched from the inside, and a long crack shoots through it with a sound like splitting bone. Dust pours from the arch above. A chunk of rock, about the size of my fist, slams into the ground right next to my boot.

I don’t move. Just stare at it.

That could’ve been my head.

“Well. That’s encouraging.”

I shake out my fingers, which are still steaming, and eye the blackened section of wall like it personally insulted me. Maybe it did. I’m not ruling anything out.

My palm’s raw. The graft etched above my navel throbs once—sharp and satisfying. It’s not a seal. Not yet. But it’s working. Almost. Sort of.

Close enough to kill me if I get cocky.

Torchlight wavers behind me. The old chamber groans in the cold. Half-buried in the cliff face, it’s just shy of collapsing—a perfect place to test illegal magic you probably shouldn’t be wielding.

I lean against a cracked pillar, chest still heaving. Sweat’s drying sticky down my sides. Every breath feels like I ran through a war zone uphill, in boots two sizes too small. But I keep going. I have to. The graft isn’t settled yet. If I stop now, my body might spit it out—or worse, let it take over and erase whatever version of me came before.

I close my eyes. Try again.

Smaller this time. Just a trickle of heat pulled from where the graft’s still healing. It flickers out through my fingers—barely enough to light a candle. Still hits hard. My vision goes fuzzy for a second, like static crawling across the edge of my eyes.

I exhale, slow. Swallow down the rush of nausea curling at the edge of my tongue.

It’s working. And that’s the most dangerous part.

I don’t hear her at first. Not until the silence goes weird—heavy, like the room’s waiting for something.

I turn. And there she is. Freya. Standing in the doorway like she never left. Chain coiled over her shoulder. Eyes already locked on the scorch marks behind me… then my hands.

And just like that, the air feels too close.

She doesn’t speak.

Neither do I.

I lower my hand. The flame dies with a soft hiss.

We sit, eventually. Torchlight catches on her knuckles as she rests her elbows to her thighs, hunched just enough to look human instead of divine. Across from her, I stare at a crack in the floor that wasn’t there earlier. Probably mine. Probably not the only one I’ve made lately.

Freya doesn’t say anything at first. Just watches the flicker of the flame like it might whisper back.

Then, with no warning, she asks, “Do you regret it?”

I shift, dragging the back of my wrist across my mouth. Blood’s stopped. Mostly. My graft still itches under the skin, low and sharp, like it’s thinking about waking up again.

“Regret what?” I say.

“The graft. The Chain. What it’s doing to you.”

I let that sit. Then lean back, shoulder popping against the stone. “Look, I didn’t graft myself to a relic because I believe in bedtime stories. I did it because someone finally stood up and said the whole system’s rigged. And maybe—just maybe—they’ll listen to you before the next kid burns.”

Freya doesn’t flinch.