Page 57 of She Who Was Severed

I slap it down with the flat of my palm. The ember dies, but the damage is done.

“Shit.” The word scrapes out with more breath than voice.

I fold the map too hard. The corner tears further. The chain stirs low against my back. A slow drag down the ribs. Not aggressive. Just present. I feel the weight of its attention, I know what it means. It didn’t need that part.

I sit back. Cross-legged on cold dirt, elbows braced on knees. The cloak’s soaked through at the hem. My knees are scraped from where I slipped earlier—once on moss, once on a stone that moved wrong when I stepped. I press my palms to the ground and hold. Breathe once.

Then again.

Anchor high. Drop to belly. Compress. Cycle Six.

It’s not listed in the manual. Not anywhere official. It’s a stitched-together fragment I built myself—part defensive meditation, part veil-thread pull, part raw instinct. I probably shouldn’t use it. Not in this state. But I don’t stop.

The chain tightens across my back like a hand bracing against a push. The pressure spikes before I reach the second layer. Heat flares behind my eyes. My nose starts to bleed. My balance folds sideways and I sway.

The fire shimmers in and out of view. My breath cracks halfway down.

I let go of the form. Let it fall apart like it never mattered. My knee hits dirt. I grip the earth hard enough to split a nail.

The chain pulls back. Not in retreat. In judgment.

You’re not ready.

I fold the map again, slower now. Slide it under the manual. Let the edges crumple where they want. I don’t try to fix what burned.

The chain shifts lower along my ribs, a lazy turn that says more than words would. It doesn’t comfort. Doesn’t threaten.

It just stays.

I lie back under the arch, watch the cracks in the stone above me. Watch the stars drift behind unfamiliar branches. They don’t look like the ones I grew up under. I wonder if that’s because I’ve moved too far, or because I’ve changed too much for them to recognize.

I don’t sleep.

Not really.

I go still. And in that stillness, something else settles with me. Not pain. Not magic.

Expectation.

Like this place didn’t need to welcome me—because it already knew I’d come.

- x -

The chain wakes me before the cold can finish the job. Not with pain. With pressure—tight and steady across my ribs, like it’s bracing for something I haven’t seen yet. My eyes snap open to a sky still caught between night and whatever comes after. No sunrise. Just bruised color stretched thin.

Everything hurts.

Thighs stiff from climbing, calves twitching when I try to stretch them out. My left wrist’s gone half-numb, the old bruise from the cuffs pressed deep into the bone. The cloak’s twisted beneath me, damp along the spine. It was drier when I curled into it. Not now. The rain must’ve come while I slept—if I slept at all.

I pack in silence. No fire. Just a handful of dried ration scraps I’d lifted from a window ledge in Virelle, and a mouth that still tastes like iron. The map’s still in one piece, barely. The burn across the bottom corner makes direct tracking impossible, but northeast is still northeast. I set out again. Uphill. Wind in my face. Broken moon over my right shoulder. The chain stays still, coiled low.

I train when I stop. Not for control. For survival. Breathwork keeps me from unraveling. It’s the only thing I trust more than instinct.

I drop beside a stream that cuts through a gully slick with root and ash. My hands are caked in dried mud and the half-healed blood stain on my elbow splits when I kneel. Doesn’t matter. I settle into Rootform, spine straight, palms on earth, and begin cycling breath.

Cycle Four is muscle memory now. Up through the collar, hold at the ribs, compress low. If I do it right, the burn stays contained. If I slip—well, I’ve learned not to slip. Not if I want to keep my own mind.

Tonight I go further.