The fires crackled softly, casting flickering shadows across the clearing. Taryn sat near the edge of their space, her blade resting across her knees. Her hands moved in a rhythmic cadence, sharpening the edge, but her mind was a thousand leagues from the task.
It was quiet—too quiet. The kind of quiet that pressed on her chest and made her nerves coil tighter. Every flicker of the firelight seemed to catch something in the corners of her vision, something she knew wasn't there but couldn't stop scanning for.
She leaned toward the dark beyond the tops of the trees, her eyes razor-sharp and slicing through the darkness. The woods were silent, yet in her stomach, unease brewed in thick pools, as if scratching an itch that refused to stop.
The blade scratched along the whetstone again. Too loud. She stopped, staring at the weapon in her hands as if it might give her answers to questions she didn't know how to ask.
