NINETEEN | HESITATION

It was all my fault. I’d hesitated, and, because of that, Old Tim was dead. The demon had lured me in, with what were most likely lies, and I’d taken too long to strike. And I’d forgotten another important rule of hunting, though it was an unspoken guideline more than an actual rule: don’t gloat. 

Maybe, if the demon hadn’t known it was going to die, it would have left Old Tim alive. I berated myself angrily the whole way back to Seafall, and as my emotional exhaustion began to set in, I continued to berate myself in a bitter inner voice, rather than the angry one, cold and almost toneless.

Death was an unfortunate part of the reality of hunting. But unnecessary death was something far, far worse, and this time I’d been the one to cause it.

I’d gone through the motions of the clean up rigidly, hardly noticing what my body was doing. I was less than a passenger as we sorted t