Page 70 of She Who Was Severed

Eventually.

Then he’s gone.

I don’t chase him.

Vale steps up beside me, tension still high.

“That the priest from yesterday?”

“I don’t know what that was,” I murmur.

But the Chain does.

And it hasn’t stopped humming since he spoke.

- x -

The floor’s still wet. Not from rain—just the kind of seep that finds its way into stone when buildings forget they used to be homes. My back’s stiff from where I curled wrong against the broken frame of a door, and my knees ache like I earned it. I shift slow, careful. Vale doesn’t move, but I know better than to think she’s asleep.

The Chain hums before I move. It wants something. I feel it in the bones of my wrist, in the pull behind my ribs. No hesitation. Just a quiet kind of urgency, like it’s already chosen a direction and expects me to follow.

Outside, the city folds in on itself. Fog curls low across stone and ash-choked gutters. Alleyways look different than they did hours ago. Narrower. Meaner. Ashmere has moods, and this one’s lean and restless. I let the Chain lead—one tug east, another down a stair I swear didn’t exist yesterday, then a sharp pull just beneath my ribs when I pass a crumbling wall scratched with something older than ink.

My spine itches. My palms sweat. I keep walking.

The Chain never drags. It beckons. And I follow—right to the mouth of a half-collapsed corridor that leans inward like it’s waiting to eat someone. No glyph on the arch. Just a charred indent in the stone, like something used to be there. Something that got burned off, but not quite gone.

It’s colder inside. The kind of cold that gets into your fingertips. I step quietly, but not quietly enough to cover the scrape of ash beneath my boots. There’s no light, except the sharp flare of a match rasping to life. The flame catches low, casting a flickering orange halo around the edges of a ruined column.

Then—his voice, casual and far too pleased with itself, drifts out of the dark like we’ve interrupted his afternoon nap.

“I was beginning to think you’d gotten lost. Or distracted. Or eaten. Honestly, I had a whole theory about wild magic causing short-term directional memory loss—very tragic, very poetic.”

A pause.

“But no. Here you are. Intact. Mostly. Hm.”

Owen Serevan is seated like the place was built for him—a cracked column doubling as a throne, tattered robes doing a poor job pretending they’re still priestly. A small lantern orb hovers near his shoulder, casting light in ways that make it hard to tell where the shadows end and he begins. He’s rolling a matchstick between his fingers, lazy, precise, like time owes him interest and he’s just waiting for the moment it catches fire.

“I didn’t think you’d actually follow the call,” he says, like it’s a punchline to a joke I didn’t hear. “Points for curiosity. None for subtlety.”

I don’t respond right away. The Chain is too loud. Not in volume—just presence. Like it’s pressing against the back of my teeth, daring me to open my mouth.

Owen doesn’t seem to mind silence. He stands, easy and slow. His feet don’t make a sound. The kind of movement that makes you forget to reach for a weapon, because you don’t realize you need one until it’s too late.

He lifts a hand like he’s gesturing to a half-forgotten painting.

“Answers. Of course. That’s usually the bit where people start shouting or crying or threatening to stab me. Sometimes all three. Very messy.”

He strolls forward, matchstick spinning between his fingers like it has nowhere better to be. His eyes drift to the Chain wrapped quiet at my wrist, and he studies it like it’s a scar he remembers putting there.

“But you’re different. You’re still pretending you have questions.”

His smile lands—clean, bright, and sharp at the edges.

“You already know what it does. You just haven’t admitted it to yourself yet.”

The match spins once more. He catches it flat, like it told him something he already knew.