Page 187 of She Who Was Severed

The sigils spiral outward from my sternum in slow, deliberate rings—silver-black, pulsing deep into the bone, not light but weight.

My mouth opens, but no scream comes.

The world is too quiet for that now.

Link Four doesn’t arrive like power.

It arrives like a reckoning.

The Chain completes its circle.

And the battlefield stops breathing.

No spell. No roar.

Just awareness.

Across the stones, soldiers falter mid-step. One drops his blade and kneels without knowing why. Another backs away from me with his hand on his chest like his heart doesn’t trust him anymore.

Even the Severed are still.

Some of them cry. Some laugh. Some just whisper.

And all of them look at me.

Not like I’m a threat.

Like I’m the answer to a question they didn’t know they’d been asking.

My hands are trembling.

I’m know I’m not in control.

The Chain is.

But it isn’t violent.

It’s clear.

I shift my gaze toward the ridge.

Toward the smoke.

Toward the place where Kellen vanished from the sky like someone ripped a name off my skin.

I need to move.

Need to see him. Touch him. Fix this.

But the Chain won’t let me.

It holds my spine like a commandment. Like it’s still rewriting me while the ink is wet.

I clench my teeth. Not in defiance.

In fear.

Because this isn’t awakening.