Page 161 of She Who Was Severed

Silence opens between us again. Not empty—charged.

Then he speaks, quiet and deliberate.

“If you walk back into Ashmere wearing her colors, you don’t come back wearing mine.”

I nod once. “Then I’ll wear hers.”

He doesn’t look at me.

I take the silence as permission. Or dismissal. It doesn’t matter.

I turn and walk out.

The heat doesn’t follow me.

But it doesn’t let me forget what I’m leaving behind either.

- x -

Kellen

The firewine burns like it’s trying to earn the name.

I take another mouthful, no glass this time, and let it sit behind my teeth before I swallow. It doesn’t help. Doesn’t quiet the heat under my ribs or the echo of my father’s voice ringing like steel in the back of my skull. “If you walk back into Ashmere wearing her colors, you don’t come back wearing mine.” Like it’s a sentence, not a choice.

The bottle rests between my thighs, half-empty. My tunic’s discarded on the floor, stuck to one boot. Cloak crumpled across the chair. I don’t remember taking it off. The dragon’s stirring low in my chest, not agitated—just awake. Like it’s waiting to see if I’ll move or burn.

The silence is clean. Too clean.

Then comes the knock.

Three soft raps, polite, practiced. Not a servant. Not a guard.

I unhook the latch and open the door without a word.

She stands in the doorway like a sin someone prayed for.

Torchlight kisses the bare slope of her shoulders, gold hair braided over one breast like a ribbon marking where to unwrap her. The silk clings — not obscuring, not offering, just waiting. Tailored to temptation. Studied restraint dressed in the illusion of softness.

She looks at me like I’ve already touched her.

She doesn’t smile. Her mouth curves like it might, if I earned it.

“I was told,” she says, her voice the hush before a confession, “you might want… company.”

I stare at her for a beat too long, then step aside.

She walks in like she’s already been invited once before.

There’s no hesitation when she crosses to the table. Pours herself a glass of firewine with the ease of someone who’s done this dozens of times—for generals, warlords, maybe even kings. She doesn’t sit, but she does lean. One hip against the edge of the table. Eyes on me like I’m a knife she knows the weight of.

“You’ve had a difficult day,” she offers. “You deserve a moment to forget it.”

She steps toward me. One hand, feather-light, brushes my arm.

I don’t speak. Just reach for my cloak.

I shrug into it without grace. Her fingers catch air.