Page 170 of She Who Was Severed

I’m leaning over the chalkboard wall, tracing lines that might have been roads twenty years ago, when Ashmere was less rumor and rot. The names are guesses. The arrows are desperate. Every mark says the same thing: we don’t have enough. Of anything.

Vale perches on the corner of the table like she belongs to no one. She flicks a coin up, catches nothing, lets it fall again. The rhythm helps her think, maybe. Or it doesn’t. She just likes the sound it makes when hope hits stone.

Then the doors slam open hard enough to jar the dust from the rafters.

Two boys skid to a stop, breathing like they ran through hell barefoot. One’s too small to be here. Ten, maybe. Red-cheeked and raw-throated. The other’s older, but not by much. They’ve got sand in their hair and fear under their fingernails.

“They’re coming,” the smaller one chokes out.

The room stills. Even the air feels tight—like it knows what’s coming next. The only sound left is the slow creak of someone’s chair settling under weight that suddenly feels too heavy.

“Whose banner?” I ask, turning from the chalkboard wall.

The older boy shakes his head too fast. “No banner. Just—people. Too many to count.”

A gruff man with a half-scorched beard and more scars than teeth snorts under his breath. “Lad, that could mean five… or five thousand.”

The boy doesn’t blink. Doesn’t answer him. He looks straight at me.

“Mother,” he starts.

I don’t flinch at the title. I can’t—not here. Not now.

“There’s a lot,” he says, quieter this time. “Can’t see much else past the rise. Just… people. Everywhere.”

He points west, hand trembling just enough to notice. “They’re not all marching. Some are limping. Some are carrying stretchers.”

The silence that follows holds for three heartbeats. Then he says the part that fractures it clean through.

“Some are wearing Council robes.”

The chamber erupts.

One of the gang leaders grabs for his knife. Another shouts for the gates to be sealed. Someone curses, something crashes, and Vale’s coin hits the stone floor and spins. She doesn’t reach for it.

I don’t raise my voice. I raise a hand. Just once. That’s enough. They don’t go quiet, but they don’t get louder either. That’s what passes for control now.

“If they have stretchers, they’re not attacking,” I say. “They’re running.”

Vale doesn’t look up. “Or pretending to.”

A woman near the back grunts. “Kier’s smart enough to send decoys. Wounded in front, blades behind.”

Another voice cuts in—rough, uncertain. “Could be prisoners. Could be bait.”

“They could’ve broken ranks,” someone else offers. “Fled his army. But if it’s real, why wear the robes?”

“Because they’re desperate,” I say. “Or because they want us to panic.”

Vale shifts beside me, voice low. “Solenn could’ve broken them. If they fought Kier’s flank and lost—this could be what’s left.”

“If that’s true,” I answer, “they’ll carry scars. But until I speak to Kellen, I’m not assuming mercy from Solenn any more than I would from Kier.”

A beat of silence follows.

“Either way, there’s only one answer.”

I glance back at the map, the chalk paths that lead nowhere clean.