Chapter 89

He felt a bulk of their loss directly on his shoulders. There were plenty of reasons that he couldn’t have foreseen just how far Tristan’s metamorphosis had carried him, but he also saw plenty of room for improvement. His interactions each time with the succubus had been the same way, all of them ending in failure as well. As he lay on the hard rocks, pinned in place by a mimic, it occurred to him that maybe he had lost his touch.

It had been a long time since a mission had gone sideways like this. The last one he remembered was back in the seventies, a hunt that had ended in the death of his partner, the knight Jeffrey. While still considered a success, he had learned an overabundance of caution from the experience. His future missions were even more meticulous, and he had quickly climbed the ranks inside the Order as a result.

But now? He felt as though he had stepped completely out of his depth. It had been years since he had run into such difficulties, and now he won