"I don't want to know this." The King was openly crying. "I cannot do as you tell me, knowing that she will die without seeing her family again. She lost her sister, and I lost mine, and she did what I would have done to my sister's killer if I had been able to."
"Murder goes against Justice," Conscience Astin explained. "She is a murderer, and the law says she must die." She felt an odd pricking at the corner of her eyes that she had not felt for some time.
"Astin, have all of your decisions been this way? Have you told me to do what the law says is right but which you know is wrong?"
"Some verdicts have caused pain." Conscience Astin eyed the weeping man with discomfort. "The path of Justice, however, is generally clear."
"Justice? Her family does not deserve the pain this will cause them. Is it 'just' to make them endure it?"
Conscience Astin shifted from side to side in her chair. She looked away from those wide, pained eyes. "I can only deal Justice to those who come before you."
"But—how do you feel about the things you have told me to do?"
Conscience Astin shrugged and looked at her hands, stained with ink that glistened like blood. "I have been a servant to Justice for many years. Although I am human, I have never existed for myself." The one desire she had was the most primitive a person could have: not to die.
The King reached for her hand. His face was full of grief. "You have never been free, then," he said. "I wish you could be."
"To be free would take my purpose."
"You might find a new one."
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Mercy (Short Story)
FantasyConscience Astin was unaccustomed to staring Justice in the face. She had worked alongside it all her life, sent helpless souls into its unforgiving hands-but she had never faced it as she now did. She had been taught to expect that this day would...
