강 속의 돌

The Feud on the Hill

For as long as anyone could remember, the Renns and the Coles had hated each other. The quarrel had begun generations ago over a fence, a well, and a single careless word. No one still living could explain exactly how the trouble first took root. Yet the bitterness passed from parent to child like a treasured family heirloom. Each insult demanded an answer, and every answer demanded a harsher one in return. Children on both sides learned to distrust a face before they learned its name. The two families shared a hillside, a market, and a river, but never a kind word. So the cycle turned, year after year, grinding both households down to weariness.

The Weight Micah Carried

Micah Cole was seventeen when his older brother was beaten at the crowded market. His father pressed a heavy stone into his palm and spoke gravely of justice. "Our family does not forget, and it does not forgive," he said quietly. Micah understood the lesson he was expected to carry for the rest of his life. Revenge, he had been taught since childhood, was simply the shape that loyalty took. Still, something inside him had grown tired of counting and repaying old wounds. At night he wondered whether the chain of hatred would ever reach its end.