Page 32 of She Who Was Severed

“You’re not.”

The silence that follows isn’t sharp. It’s soft. Settling.

I close the manual. Not to hide it. Just to rest.

We don’t talk for a while. We just sit. The food gone. The light fading. The Ash Tower breathing around us like it remembers what it once was.

Maybe I’ll let myself be a little full. A little quiet. Just for tonight.

Maybe tomorrow, I train until my bones scream.

But for now—

“Thanks,” I say, barely above a whisper.

Kellen doesn’t ask what for.

He just says, “Anytime.”

And I almost believe him.

- x -

Kellen watches me like I’m about to shift into something else. Not dangerous—different. Like he’s taking a reading not of what I say, but what I radiate.

My heat. My edge. The way the chain hums just beneath the surface when I hold still too long.

“You said you’ve been trying,” he says. Not accusing. Just… waiting.

There’s a tension between us now that doesn’t feel like mistrust. It feels like pressure. Like touch might be the only way to relieve it.

“Show me,” he says.

I arch a brow. “You want to spar?”

“I want to see if you’re still pretending you’re fine.”

The chain stirs.

I should laugh. Should toss him a clever line and wave him off. But I don’t. Because part of me wants the same thing he does.

“I’m bruised,” I warn, stepping into the open.

Kellen’s smile is low and lethal. “I’ll be gentle.” Gods, that smile. It almost undoes me right there.

I roll my shoulders, slow and deliberate. Let him see the heat under my skin. “If I break your ribs, I’m not apologizing.”

He tips his head, eyes dark with something that’s not fear. “If you break my ribs, I’ll be impressed.”

We clear the space by instinct. The old ash-tiled floor still bears marks from older fights—burns, scrapes, blood. A training hall, once. Or a chapel of war.

Fitting.

Kellen shrugs out of his cloak. I shed mine. Beneath it, my shift clings damp to my spine, salt-slick from nervous heat. The chain is cool against my wrist. Waiting.

We circle.

No counting. No salutes.