And just as love has two sides, so too does Death. While Ismae will serve as His mercy, I will not, for that is not how He fashioned me. Every death I have witnessed, every horror I have endured, has forged me to be who I am -- Death's justice.

Perhaps that is because you mistake death for justice, and they are not the same thing at all.

When he laces his fingers through mine, my heart does its now familiar panicked flight, bumping painfully against my ribs. My shoulder twitches as if to pull my hand back, but my heart overrules it.

... while I am Death's daughter and walk in His dark shadow, surely the darkness can give way to light sometimes.

I never skulk, and lurk only sometimes.

You come to us well tempered, my child, and it is not in my nature to be sorry for it. It is a well tempered blade that is the strongest.

The body on the ground is nothing more than a shell, a husk, and I am filled with a sense of peace. Yes, I think. Yes. This is what I want to be. An instrument of mercy, not vengeance.