The Breaking Point
295 Words
The Ashwood was quiet.
Too quiet.
Kane crouched in the undergrowth, sweat stinging his eyes, every muscle coiled tight. Forty yards ahead, the Ironclaw raiders laughed around their fire. The same laugh he’d heard the night his home burned.
His hand found his sword without thinking.
“Not yet.”
Mara’s whisper cut through the red haze in his head. She didn’t touch him this time. She didn’t need to. Her voice alone was enough to make him pause.
“They’re talking about the next village,” she said low. “If we wait ten minutes, we’ll know where.”
Kane’s jaw clenched. “Ten minutes is ten more people they decide don’t get to live.”
“And if you charge in now, you’ll die before you save a single one.” Her eyes locked onto his. “Is that what your sister would want?”
The name he’d never said out loud hit him like a blade between the ribs.
His breath came fast. The firelight danced on his blade. One pull, and it would be over. Blood for blood. That was justice, right?
That was what he’d promised himself.
But then he remembered her hand slipping from his. The way she’d looked back at him, not with fear—with trust.
Don’t become them, Kane.
His fingers loosened.
The sword stayed in its sheath.
“Ten minutes,” he said, voice like gravel. “But if they move before that—”
“We move first,” Mara finished. A ghost of a smile. “Smart.”
Above them, a branch cracked.
Both of them froze.
The laughter by the fire stopped.
Footsteps. Coming their way.
Kane’s hand hovered over his sword again. This time, he wasn’t sure he could stop it.
- Writer
