Page 16 of She Who Was Severed

“Can I help you?” a voice calls from the stairwell above.

Kellen.

He’s not wearing silks. Just leathers worn at the seams, fire-stained and travel-scarred. His hair’s unbound. He looks like someone who’s seen war too early and learned to hide the damage in posture.

The priest startles. Bows, awkwardly.

“Council liaison,” he stammers. “I was just—”

Kellen steps fully into view. His gaze skims the room like he’s reading the cracks in the walls. Like he already knows.

The priest murmurs something and hurries off.

Kellen doesn’t move.

Then, soft: “I know you’re there.”

My jaw tightens.

“You always liked the alcoves,” he says. Not accusing. Not tender. Just… true.

I don’t answer.

He doesn’t press.

“Are you bleeding?” he asks next. Sharper now. “Or is that—?”

The chain flares once, heat licking the inside of my wrist. I press back against the stone, harder. Don’t let it show. Don’t let him see.

He exhales. Turns to leave. But just before he disappears from sight, he glances back and says—

“Be careful, Freya.”

No warning in it. No threat. Just sincerity. Then he’s gone.

The archive exhales with him. I let the air move again. The manual’s cover is still warm beneath my palm. Not like paper warmed by body heat. Like something alive. Like ink that remembers being blood.

The chain relaxes.

But the second link pulses, slow and steady. A knock on a door I hadn’t meant to open.

I don’t put the path manual back.

I should.

But I don’t.

Because if I return it, I’ll never find this place again. And if they find it on me, I’m already dead.

I tuck the manual under my arm—fast, clumsy. The chain tightens like it approves.

My breath comes shallow.

I’m not supposed to have this. Not supposed to want this.

But I do.

Because this isn’t just ink and diagrams. It’s a path that was buried before it could be followed.