AN: Hey guys, so I'm doing a re-write of this series. It's been a long while in the making, but it's so much better this time around, I promise. I'm sticking a little bit closer to canon, and removing some extraneous plot elements. And the prose is by far more legible. So thank you for your patience everyone. For new readers, you're in for a treat!.

PART ONE: THE LUXURY OF MERCY

PRELUDE

It is alarming how quickly one's convictions can change. It seemed like only yesterday I was trying to stop this sort of thing from happening. And now I was here, preparing to do something ghastly.

As I watched, a circle of pale figures in black robes drifted together over the stone floor in perfect, practiced unison. In their hard, inhuman fingers, they clutched, in the center of their dark mass, a lone man. A man who was screaming and bucking to no avail against their merciless white hands.

The man didn't scream without purpose. He'd already seen enough to know what cruel fate awaited him now. Enough to know that his time was limited. That, unless he could escape somehow—which was impossible given the strength of his captors—that he would die.

A meal. A murder. A sacrifice.

I trembled, my hands—my weapons—quaking at my sides as the dark figures brought the man closer. I didn't want to do this. This man didn't deserve to die. At least, not now. And not like this.

The black circle halted, just inches away from me.

I hesitated.

"You agreed to this, did you not, Isabella?" A velvety voice urged me from behind.

That was true. I had agreed. But only because the alternatives were so much worse. If this man did not die, millions of others would. In the past few days, that much had been made crystal clear.

But I still did not like it.

I would give anything to trade places with him. To be the one sacrificed for the greater good, rather than the one who had to live with making that monstrous decision.

I would have welcomed my death, in those circumstances. It would be selfish not to. After all, what was my life—one, tiny, insignificant life—in the larger scheme of things?

It was easy to rationalize that way on my behalf. But it was much harder when the one who had to die was someone else.

Especially when that someone, judging by their shrieks and sobs as I sauntered closer, very much wanted to live.

"Silence, you pathetic fool!" one of the robed figures hissed at the man. "You should be honored to be chosen for this!"

The man immediately clammed up, fearing retribution from the cruel creatures restraining him. Though he did not looked honored in the slightest. His deep brown eyes reflected the horror in my red ones.

It took everything I had not to scream and run the other way.

The man remained silent as I approached. Though his eyes kept flickering around, looking for a door—an escape. And his whole body, drenched with nervous sweat, shook violently.

When I reached him, I too was quivering. I placed my shaking palms gently against the slick sides of his head. And though I knew it was hardly any consolation, I breathed an apology in his ear.

"I'm sorry."

I didn't give him any time to process what my words meant. In a minute attempt to be merciful, my whisper was followed by a swift movement.

A garbled shriek.

A flash of red.

And the sound of tearing skin.