Intermittently on the path through the forest, Hytham and I found more of the strange, perfectly imprinted circles pierced into the covering of leaves. I shuddered with each discovery. My every instinct warned me away from whatever unknown creature was capable of making such a mark and of dragging off one so large as the sheriff.

  The chirruping sounds of the forest quieted as we drew near to the caves. Large, lichen-covered boulders clung to the rock face, creating tiny waterfalls from the recent rains. I had heard stories of this area from one particularly harsh winter when our hunters had to brave terrain we usually avoided hunting for the ibex.

  Hytham stood back, surveying the rock.

  There was one part of his revelation from earlier and our investigation of the scene of the attack that was still bothering me. “Have they sent out search parties for the sheriff?”

  The Hume frowned as he pulled himself up onto the first of the boulders, bending down to help me scrabble up its side. His additional foot of height over mine made such a task much easier. “Come to think of it, no.”

  “That’s strange, isn’t it?” I dusted off my hands and steadied my balance on the top of the rock. We had a few boulders more to scale, and then we would be at the entrance to the caves. “Bansaerin was arrested for the attack against the sheriff, and no one but us has gone to look for him? What if he’s still alive?”

  Hytham shook his head. “I would like for that to be the case as much as you would. But you saw the scene of the attack. I’m not sure anyone beyond the pair of us is optimistic enough to believe someone could have survived.”

  “I suppose that could be true.” I squatted lower in my stance and picked my way over the rocks, hands held wide and low to support my balance and catch me if one of my boots slipped. I kept my true thoughts to myself—such negligence went beyond optimism on our part. Did the herald want to find the sheriff, or did he want him to remain vanished? If it was simply a matter of convenience that Bansaerin had been there to blame the attack on, then what larger forces were at work between the sheriff and herald that would prevent the sheriff’s own soldiers from trying to find him?

  Hume were taught to fear the woods and for good reason. I wiped my palms against my thighs as the crooked entrance of the caves loomed before us. Falling rock had shaped the entrance like a jagged triangle, two uneven knife slashes rending rock into darkness. It was hard to imagine mournlings of the size Bansaerin had seen fitting into such a space, and there was no evidence of the drag-marks from the sheriff’s corpse over the mounded boulders.

  “So we’re heading in there?” Hytham removed the lantern from his belt and brushed the river grime from its panes. “Illumis,” he murmured under his breath, and a soft glow emerged from the lantern.

  I placed my hand on his arm before he could valiantly stride forward into the darkness. “Keep the light as low as possible. We don’t want to draw the ire of the creatures of the dark.” Hume didn’t see as well in the darkness as we did. While the deep pits of the cave system would be difficult for me to navigate, I hadn’t even considered a light source so near the entrance where the dull sunlight might filter through.

  Taking advantage of Hytham’s pause, I stepped into the opening first with him following close behind. Overhead, shadowy shapes chittered and scratched, enlivening the dark with their flitting movements.

  Each of Hytham’s steps echoed clearly all around us, from the clank of his armor to the clink of the metal on his boots. A few steps in he noticed the effect himself and added a wincing sound every few feet.

  “It’s alright,” I murmured. “Just try to be as quiet as you can.” Any further reassurances fell from my lips as the shadows from his lantern fell away into abyss.

  Behind me, Hytham raised his lantern, shuddering at the hiss of disapproval from the hissing chorus above. Our path narrowed into a ledge along the wall of damp rock as the cave opened up. A dozen paces further in, it was only a couple feet wide where it looked out over a yawning chasm, so deep I could not see the bottom. Twenty paces from where we were, the ledge fell away entirely.

  I squinted and looked up, scanning the rocky ceiling overhead. Shades of gray and black stared back at me, the shapes uneven, but there was nowhere above the sheriff or his body could be.

  I leaned out over the edge instead, catching myself as Hytham grabbed my wrist. “The only place he could be is down.”

  The Hume swallowed hard, nodding. “Would you like to use your rope or mine?”

  “I didn’t bring any rope.”

  He scoffed. “What kind of adventurer doesn’t bring rope?” Hytham slid his satchel off his back and began rifling through it. His arm stretched inside the small canvas pouch impossibly far.

  “I’m not an adventurer. I’m a spirit-speaker.”

  “Mmhmm,” he answered, his tone unconvinced. “Ah, here we are.” Hytham grinned as he pulled a thick coil of rope from his satchel, working his mouth into a line as he eased the rope out of the top of the bag. The coil was much larger around than the bag itself.

  “How did all of that fit in your bag?”

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  “Oh, the herald gave it to me.” Hytham shrugged. “It holds almost everything one might need.”

  I let the mystery of the volume-defying bag go and focused on the task at hand, finding a boulder of significant enough size that we could use as an anchor point, but the rocky ledge offered no such utility.

  “Worry not, Draeza,” Hytham assured me. His voice echoed against the darkness opposite us. “I have a piton in here somewhere.”

  Clang. Clang. Clang.

  A few minutes later, the echo of the pitons and metal hammer rang in my ears and against the cliff sides. I crouched down and stopped just shy of covering my ears at the sound.

  Hytham rose from his hammered piton, metal tools in hand, and spun slowly toward me. “I . . . didn’t mean for that to be so loud.”

  I bit my lips together and nodded. While I hadn’t found a better way, I had discouraged the use of the piton as soon as he suggested it but hadn’t been able to offer a better solution.

  “It’s—” but before I could finish my slightly disingenuous acceptance of his near-apology, the chittering that had ambled over us before began to murmur anew, the whisper of its movement growing into a steady stream.

  The hammering had awakened the bats who were no longer willing to tolerate the intrusion of light and noise upon their home.

  “Bah!” I screeched, covering my head as a swarm of bats swept low overhead, but not before I released a spray of shadows from my fingertips.

  Unfortunately, the bats were unaffected by such an attack.

  “Draeza!” Hytham called for me. There was a decisive swoosh near my head as he swiped at the bats but, in being careful not to hit me with his glaive, he failed to strike any of the creatures either.

  His voice grew muffled as the chirruping cries of the bats grew in volume. Their tiny claws scratched at my arms and tugged on my hair. I collapsed further in on myself, trying to tug the dagger from my side without granting the bats an opening to scratch my face.

  I screamed as one of the bats tore through my shawl and sank its claws along my arm. It chittered its victory to the others as it launched off near my elbow and joined the swarm.

  Beyond my scuffle with the bats where I punched as many out of the air as I managed to swipe at with my dagger, a steady pattern of tiny thumps upon the ground told me that Hytham was having more success than I was at eliminating the furry, fanged, enraged creatures.

  I swiped wide away from the sounds of Hytham’s battle behind me and caught a couple bats with the tip of my dagger. I held my unwounded arm up by my eyes to shelter them from the increasingly intermittent attacks.

  Hytham called my name again. I tried to turn toward him, but my footing faltered as I stepped upon the moist sludge of a bat carcass and nearly slipped off the ledge.

  A strong, tan hand seized the fold of my cloak as a chainmail-covered arm wrapped about my waist. Hytham tugged me back against himself and pulled us both back against the wall of the ledge behind us. His breaths came fast and warm against the long tip of my ear, and my nails dug into his armor.

  As I found my footing, I sighed and leaned my head back against his shoulder. He released his tight hold as my breathing returned to normal, but he spun me about, looking me over. “Did they hurt you? Are you alright?”

  I tried to take a deep, calming breath as Aveela had too often scolded me to do. Deep gashes ran along my arms where I’d tried to protect myself, and the skin of my neck itched where they’d bitten at me. My shawl was in tatters in multiple places, and I could only imagine the rest of me looked as worn. “Yes and yes,” I panted.

  Hytham’s brow furrowed and he caught my wrist, pulling my arm toward himself to investigate the damage the bats had caused. “No you aren’t,” Hytham insisted. “Look at these.” He looked almost as angry as he had when I cast “dark magic” by the river even though my “Lifkin witchcraft” had saved him from drowning.

  But this anger was of a different sort than the other had been. Concern burned in his eyes as he looked me over. “Do you trust me?”

  I wetted my lips, faltering as he met my gaze. His irises shone dark blue as he waited for my answer. “Yes,” I whispered.

  A soft, warm smile replaced the furrow in his brows. Hytham slid warm, calloused fingers across first my palm and then my slimmer fingers, matching his hand with mine. He closed his eyes and murmured a prayer, “Lady of light, blessed mother of the day, cast your sight upon your servant here below, grant your favor, heal these wounds, that we might, in your service, glow.”

  As he uttered the last word, a pure, white light shone forth from his palm, casting aside the shadows that hung about us in the cave. The glow intensified, and as the light crossed my skin, the cuts from the bats knitted back together and my skin was unmarred as though I hadn’t been bitten or scraped at all.

  I gasped and he held tightly to me once more so I did not wander off the edge of the ledge. “How did you— What?” My breath quickened as I searched for the words.

  A slight furrow returned to his brow, though his expression was gentler than it had been before. “The Lady grants healing powers to her faithful.”

  “Y-you healed me?”

  Hytham nodded. “Ilona healed you.”

  I shook my head. The Hume’s goddess wasn’t here in the cave with us. Hytham was dismissing his power once more.

  “How did you do that?”

  “It is a power Ilona granted me,” he explained patiently as one would to a confused child. “I asked her, and she healed you.”

  I stared down at my arm where my cuts had been. A year ago, I had felt the chills of the visiting herald’s magic while he blessed the field, had shivered at the priest’s glare when I asked for directions to Parrith’s house. Presumably, the magic Hytham’s herald had cast over Bansaerin came from their goddess as well. But this? There was nothing cruel or frightening about Hytham’s healing glow.

  I could not ask him why he would choose to take such a step for me, but it was almost enough for me to believe that Ilona—his version of her—had heard his prayer. “Why should Ilona care whether I was hurt or not?”

  “I care.” Conviction warmed and deepened his voice as though there was no need of further explanation or intermediary.

  I wanted to say something in reply, but the simple kindness of his words rendered me momentarily speechless. At a loss of what to do otherwise, I smiled up at him instead. “Thank you.”

  How strange it was that only the day before, I had glared at this man as those I believed to be his allies brought news of our displacement, and now the pair of us were working together to save Bansaerin and to protect my people. If we were successful, we might save Hytham from his herald as well, but I couldn’t help but feel that he was doing this, in part, for no other reason than to help me.

  Hytham knelt to check the rope’s binding around the rock, tugging his weight against it to make sure it was secure. “I’ll repel down first and then call up to you when it’s safe.”

  “Shouldn’t I go down first? If the rope can’t hold me, you could pull me back up, but it will be a lot more of a struggle for me to do the same for you.”

  His lips scrunched into a line as he considered my proposal. “I don’t like it, but that makes sense.”