My name is Isabelle Vhagar.
The logic is simple, clean, and absolute.
There is no room for doubt or hesitation.
At least, there wasn't, until now.
I stare at the five humans who have just stumbled out of Queen Alyssa's shadow trap.
They are children. Scared, out of their depth, and clutching their cheap, mass-produced swords.
The boy in the lead, the one who called me a traitor, looks like he might be physically sick.
He is trying to puff out his chest, to project an aura of heroism, but his knuckles are bone-white where he grips his sword, and a faint, betraying tremor runs through his hands.
I know that look. I know that feeling. I have seen it in the mirror, in the reflection of my own blade, moments before charging into a battle I knew I might not survive.
A pang of something cold and sharp, something that feels dangerously like pity, twists in my gut.
These aren't soldiers. They are sacrifices.
They are a resource, just as I was. They are being used.
