Prologue
Prologue My blade sliced through his throat. It should've felt monumental. Instead, it was nothing. Barely a footnote to the end of a career. And I usually liked this part. The muscular red demon roared, coughing blood. Sparks spat from his breath like flecks of saliva. He fell to his knees, kicking up a burst of dust. He swiped weakly with his free hand, the other clamped to the wound in his neck. His glowing eyes flickered, then he dropped face-first to the stone, wings beating once, then never again. The echo of that final wingbeat faded into silence, faded into the wavering torches on the walls. The smell of scorched stone and singed leather clung to the back of my throat, bitter as burned bread. The demon lay unmoving on the ground, a pool of blood seeping from the wound in his neck—a bright shade of red, nearly the same as his flesh. It dripped unceremoniously onto the stone floor. "That's the last one," I grunted, panting as I crouched down to grip his horn and placed my blade on his neck. Not the most efficient tool for the job, but I had to prove I'd slain Boltrow, the fearsome cambion terrorizing this village. It was just north of Draydon. The farmhouse had taken the worst of its rage before it fled into the dungeon. Its foundations had burned down to a blackened skeleton, only a few walls and the stumps of its corner posts still standing. The widow knelt in the ashes, the stench heavy against the city's rot. Ending Boltrow should have been a victory worth drinking to. It should've felt satisfying, but a hollowness ran through me. I must have been the first man to behead a demon and find it as mundane as pulling a crop. And it wasn't that I'd grown tired of the act. No. More like the act had grown tired of me. I was good at the job—better than most—but I carried a secret. Around nineteen, I felt it: like a man running a hand through his hair and finding it already thinning. My seer sight had begun to fade, far earlier than it should have. Usually, it happened around forty, maybe fifty, though most seers never lived that long. Me? I saw the signs back then, and now at twenty-nine, I was retiring long before I ever wanted to. Still, spotting the recession that young had its advantages. The surest sign your time is running out is how far off you can spot a demon. To ordinary folk, they look like anyone else, but we can see their true form. And with age, the range shrinks. You have to get closer and closer still until one day you can't see it at all. That's why it's dangerous to survive to retirement as a seer. You don't know when the demons will come for you, seeking revenge. Most were harmless, so we let them be, presuming they offered the same courtesy to the humans around them. A succubus, for example, was not always a soul-sucking demon from your nightmares. She still fed that way, sure, but more often than not, her partners woke up with nothing worse than a splitting headache, blaming the hangover on the drinking. Her slit was extremely dangerous, yes, but only if she wanted it to be. I once had to evict one from a baker's attic after she refused to stop flirting with the flour boy. She offered me a night's 'hospitality' in exchange for letting her stay. I countered with a stern warning and a loaf of bread she'd stolen from the baker. She left pouting, groaning about prudish seers. Ha! We were anything but. The guildmaster regularly encouraged us to explore each other's bodies, so we didn't enter contracts hungry enough to give in to temptation. He and I disagreed on that. Women are like whiskey; the more you taste, the more you want, no matter how harsh the first sip. It wasn't just succubi we found mildly bothersome. There were the mischievous imps, swapping your salt and sugar. Or their favorite prank of all, stealing one sock from a pair so you thought it vanished in the wash and blamed your wife. There are others. So many variants throughout my short ten years of work. I think I've seen them all. As soon as I caught wind of my fading power—my premature demon-blindness, as it were—I started saving a good share of my contract pay. No more blowing it at the pub. My peers called me boring; the Guildmaster called me prudish. This was easy enough to shrug off. I'd always felt distant from them anyway, and leaning into that came naturally. Eventually, they started referring to me as the dark one of the lot. Imagine that—being the brooding one in a guild of demon killers. My peers spent their coin as if each hunt were their last—and for some, it was. They bought shiny studded daggers they'd never use, rounds at the pub for anyone within earshot, and all manner of pointless trinkets and curiosities. I only nodded and smiled when they mocked my stingy ways, keeping my judgments to myself. No doubt I would've been the same, were it not for my predicament. As for real courtship—the kind that lasted longer than a day—I couldn't manage that either. A family meant expenses, and every coin spent on a child's meal was one I couldn't save. Draydon is costly enough on its own, and no place to raise a family. Fortunately, twenty-nine is not too late for those things, and the skills I'd learned as a demon seer were enough to carry me in a small town short on mercenaries. They still faced raids from rogue hobs, orcs, and greedy bandits, and the Hunters Guild held no interest in such humanoid terrors. Those bastards only cared about the coin from slaying oversized monsters. Hells, I even heard they employed a few orcs. With my thoughts carrying me through the drudgery, the task of sawing through the creature's neck was nearly done. Mithril blade or not, cambion muscle was tough as armor. At last, the head came free, blood spurting from the stump. I wrapped the head in rough cloth, careful not to let the horns tear through it, and bound it tight with leather cord. The bag sagged with its weight, dragging close to the ground. Each step back to the village left a faint drip of blood on the path. The widow would feel no relief. They never did, no matter how they begged me to bring them the head. All it gave them was another stain on their memories. The worst, most monumental night of her life. For me, just another Tuesday. Maybe it was Wednesday. A few hours later—after proving the job done to the widow—I slumped the bag beside the counter of the Seers Guild. The pretty attendant smiled brightly, her blonde hair tied in a single braid that trailed over her receptionist's apron dress. The outfit framed her cleavage and ended in thigh-high stockings clipped to pantaloons. I couldn't see all that from behind the counter, but I always enjoyed the view when she stepped out to collect a head. "Wait, isn't this your last one?" Her smile faded as she handed me the contract to sign off on. "Afraid so. This life ain't for me," I said, my voice jovial and warm. "Guildmaster Terrence said I was to fetch him before you left." I batted my hand dismissively. "We already spoke. He couldn't convince me, and besides, I've been talking to the lord at Penmor. He's eager for me to move into the vacant cottage." Trina nodded, the side of her lip quivering in a strange mix of happiness and sadness. Sad I was going, happy to see me one last time. "I'll miss these great stinking heads you bring in, Gerald. We have a hells of a time carrying them to the basement." "And every time I see a braided beauty with hair as bright as the sun, I'll think of you, Trina." I swore a little tear appeared in her eyes. I wondered if I regretted never asking her out on a date. I'd told her I didn't date where I worked. I was too focused on my short window of opportunity to even consider it. Because of my fleeting time, I'd become one of the top hunters, never resting, always taking contracts. They said I'd been the second youngest to ever take an A-Contract, the first being Guildmaster Terrence, who, right on cue, stomped down the stairs behind the counter and peered at me over his spectacles. I raised my hand. "Please," I said. "You can't convince me." "Oh, I know," he replied. "We all know that." I frowned. "We?" "Surprise!" They burst up from behind the counter. Others leaped out from behind the coatroom door. Too many came crashing in from the hallway to the pub, tripping over each other in a heap. Laughter and shouts slammed together as my peers tumbled into view. How hadn't I noticed? I really must have been losing my touch. "You got me." I grinned, holding my hands up and laughing. Men shook my hands, women hugged me. Old Merek—thirty-five years old—shoved a dented silver flask into my hand, swearing it had seen him through more battles than his own sword. One of the younger hunters launched into a wildly inaccurate retelling of my first A-Contract, making me sound like a hero out of the sagas. I didn't have the heart to correct him. I swore even Trina was bawling. Come to think of it, she may have felt more for me than just a fancy. A shame. She was a nice girl. Unlike the others, she didn't spend her time crawling into random beds. She just did her job and went home like a good girl. She would've been a good one to marry. We all clinked glasses, spoke of the past, and Guildmaster Terrence begged me to stay for one last hunt. There were contracts he could only trust to me; he didn't trust the others. They heard him say this and got offended. He said he didn't care; he needed me. I had to admit that after all that, I got a little emotional too. I'd been so focused on building up to this moment I'd hardly thought about how tough it would be. But tough didn't mean it wasn't the right thing to do. In my mind, I had already left, long ago. I patted my side, the hefty bag of coins and guild checks enough to last me at least half a lifetime. I was fortunate to be retiring from a guild because I could use them as a bank. The guild's word on the money was as good as real coins, and no bandit could steal these checks and use them in my place, so it was safer to travel with them. "At least tell me why you're leaving," Guildmaster Terrence said, slurring over his words. His salt-and-pepper beard dripped with golden ale. "I'm alive; that should be reason enough," I replied. "So am I," he said. "You could stay and instruct if you're tired of seering. You'd be a fantastic teacher." "That's a life for another man," I said, feeling oddly poignant. "This one is retiring." I shook his hand, noted how his beard had been black with specks of gray and now was gray with specks of black, and if I ever saw him again, it would be pure white. I wondered when I'd see him again. Soon, I hoped. "You were a good guildmaster," I said, and we shook hands in the warrior's grip. His lower lip wobbled, and whatever he meant to say collapsed before it reached me. "See you soon, son," he finally said. "See you, pa."
