The Price of Mercy
The forest was silent, save for the rustling wind and the occasional crack of branches underfoot. Aron walked with a blade in one hand and his sister's fingers in the other. Derran limped behind, supported by a crooked staff he'd cut from a dead tree. The three of them—bloodied, broken, barely breathing—had survived the massacre. But survival was no mercy. It only prolonged the pain.
They had not spoken since they crossed the river.
Alia's eyes were empty. Not from fear, but from knowing what they'd seen would never leave them. Mothers with their throats slit. Fathers burned alive while screaming their children's names. She had begged to help them. Aron had dragged her away.
He hadn't stopped running since.
Now they moved like ghosts. Hunting trails twisted through the dark wood, carved by deer and foxes. The air smelled of pine and wet dirt—but underneath it, there was still ash. Always ash.
"Here," Derran rasped. He pointed to a stone overhang near the base of a hill. "We rest here. Just for a moment."
They collapsed without complaint. Aron dropped beside Alia, heart pounding with the rhythm of exhaustion. His body was young, but his eyes had aged years in days. He felt it in his bones. In the nightmares that came even when he was awake.
Derran unslung a cloth pouch and unwrapped a sliver of dried meat. He offered some to Alia first.
"No," she said, her voice hoarse. "He needs it more." She pointed to Aron.
He shook his head and took nothing.
"No one eats if one of us starves," Aron said quietly.
There was a pause. Then a faint smile broke Derran's cracked lips. "You're too noble for this world, boy."
"I'm not noble," Aron whispered. "Just tired."
The meat was split. The silence returned.
---
That night, a storm rolled in—slow and crawling, like the things that had hunted them. Aron sat outside their rocky shelter, watching lightning dance across the far hills. He wondered if their village still smoldered. If the corpses were cold now. If the soldiers had moved on to another town.
He should have died back there.
But he hadn't.
Alia came beside him, wrapped in the cloak of a dead man. She sat close, resting her head on his shoulder.
"You blame yourself," she said.
Aron didn't respond.
"You think if you'd fought harder, they wouldn't have died. That if you'd died instead, it would've meant something."
Still, no answer.
"But you're wrong."
Aron turned his head slightly. "Am I?"
She nodded. "You did what they couldn't. You ran. You made sure someone remembered."
---
They awoke to crows. Not just their calls, but their wings—dozens of them bursting through the trees like shadows made of smoke.
Aron grabbed his sword.
Derran already had his hand on his dagger. "That's not natural," he said. "Something scared them."
The ground trembled faintly.
Then they heard the cries.
Human. Distant. But close enough to reach them.
Screams.
Aron and Alia locked eyes. He didn't even speak. He was already running toward the sound.
---
Through thorns and brush, over rocks and fallen logs, they ran until they reached a clearing. And what they saw stopped them cold.
A group of villagers—refugees, like them—were on their knees. Around them stood armored men. Not soldiers, but mercenaries. Dirty, drunk, and laughing.
A child cried. A man begged.
One of the mercenaries lifted a sword.
And Aron didn't think.
He leapt from the trees like a storm. His sword hit the first man before he even turned. The mercenary collapsed, blood spilling across his face.
Alia followed—sprinting forward and stabbing another in the thigh. The man screamed, and she tore the blade free. For a girl so small, her strikes were pure fury.
Derran came last. Limping but deadly, he slit one man's throat as he tried to draw a crossbow.
It was over fast.
The mercenaries weren't trained. Just animals with steel.
When the last one fell, choking on his own blood, Aron stood in the center of the field, chest heaving.
The villagers stared at him like he was a demon. Or a god.
One of the men crawled forward and took Aron's hand.
"Thank you," he whispered.
Aron pulled his hand away.
"Don't thank me," he said coldly. "They were already dead. We just made it quicker."
---
That night, the stars came out.
But Aron didn't look up.
He sat by the fire, sharpening his blade, while Alia slept against his side.
Derran leaned beside a tree, watching him.
"You saved lives today," Derran said.
"I didn't do it for them," Aron answered.
"I know."
Aron paused his sharpening.
"Do you think I'll become like them?" he asked softly.
"Who?"
"The ones we killed."
Derran didn't speak for a long time.
Then he said, "The world decides what you do, Aron. But only you decide what it means."
Aron stared into the fire. It danced in his eyes.
"I want to protect her," he whispered.
"Then start there."
---