The rope was nearly long enough to reach the bottom of the cavern. I scanned the floor of the cave system, on the lookout for a rock that might roll beneath my ankle before releasing the rope and landing below.

  No ankle-breaking boulders in sight, I dropped down from the rope. “Oof.” I froze, crouched at the bottom, searching for the strange, giant mournlings that had dragged the sheriff away.

  The oversight of my rope-drop plan glared at me through the darkness—had one of the creatures been down here, lying in wait, I was now too far away from the rope to climb back away from it and would find myself trapped.

  I released a slow breath as no monsters emerged from the darkness. “Your turn,” I whisper-yelled up to Hytham.

  The adjudicator descended above me. The metal scrape and clack of his armor echoed dully off the cave walls. There was no sense in mourning the lack of subtlety now—we’d already alerted every possible creature throughout the cave system to our presence. Now we had only to find the sheriff or some sign of him.

  I slid away from the end of the rope to grant Hytham more room to land. A glinting shape caught my eye from the cave floor.

  “Yah!” Hytham called, lowering himself off the end of the rope and landing with a soft clang on the bare rock beneath.

  “Wait,” I answered, too late to make sure we’d be able to find our way back up.

  I abandoned my search for the object and looked between Hytham and the rope. “Will be be able to climb our way back out again?”

  For a moment Hytham’s eyes widened. He whirled back. His shoulders relaxed and he turned toward me with a soft grin. “I can hoist you up, and it isn’t so far that I can’t jump to catch it for myself.” His grin twisted into a smirk. “A fine tying job too, I must say. Not bad for a first time.”

  Now I was the one who looked panicked. “You’ve never tied off a rope before?”

  “Oh sure I have, dozens of times. Always in practice though. This was my first non-trial case.”

  I exhaled slowly, trying to ignore the gradually growing weight in my stomach hinting that, perhaps, we might have both overestimated one another and were now in over our heads.

  I’d been listening to the caves while I waited for Hytham to descend, hoping I might be able to tell which direction would offer us the best chance at finding the sheriff. We hadn’t found any blood since we’d made it to the caves, and I wasn’t sure if that boded well or not for his chance of survival. The better time we made, the more likely we were to return a living sheriff to the Hume in exchange for Bansaerin.

  I pushed away the questions that arose for what we would do with the corpse of the sheriff—how we’d remove him from the caves and whether or not such an offering would hold any weight in Bansaerin’s favor.

  I slid a few steps away from Hytham and bent low to retrieve the object I’d found from the cave floor. It was a heavy silver chain with a metal charm on the end, shaped like a hammer and embedded with a great onyx stone.

  Hytham came to stand behind my shoulder, reaching out around me to examine the stone-encrusted amulet. “The sheriff’s,” he murmured. “So we’re on the right path after all.”

  It was the best confirmation we’d found since we followed the mournling’s tracks to the river.

  “Let’s go this way.” I slid my bow off my shoulder as I walked, and Hytham kept both his glaive and lantern at hand should we need them.

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  We traveled as quietly as we were able for a few hundred feet. Ahead of us, softly trickling waterfalls and the plink of stalactites indicated that the cave system opened up.

  I glanced overhead as we went. Growing up in a forest sometimes beset with mournlings, one learned to be aware of one’s entire surroundings and not just the possible tracks for two-legged creatures. Whatever had left the strange circular imprints in the dirt, so sporadic at times and at others, occurring in regular intervals, had no need of flat, traversable paths.

  No haunting creatures hovered above us. But there was a solid, dark shape waiting in the middle of the pools.

  As the echoes had foretold, the cavern opened onto a rounded central chamber. Hytham’s lantern shone against the pale yellows and creams of the cave’s mineral buildup. Shallow pools covered the cave floor, separated from one another by low, mounded stalagmites.

  The broad-shouldered, armored form of the sheriff stood still in the center of the room. His armor was dented, rent entirely through in some places. Ever so slowly, his shoulders rose and fell with his breaths.

  Hytham and I slowed in our approach. I held out my hand in front of Hytham, urging caution.

  The sheriff shifted back and forth on his feet, the water splashing against the tops of his thighs as he turned himself about.

  Patches of mud clung to his face, and one eye was badly bruised.

  The other glowed a soft, pale green. The color of sickness, poison, death.

  “What a strange pair the two of you make,” the sheriff observed, tilting his head to the side. “An adjudicator far from his herald, and a spiritspeaker away from home.” A burbling laugh started low in his chest but, even though his mouth opened to release the sound, his expression otherwise remained unchanged.

  Suddenly his head snapped back to a perfect vertical line. He clacked his teeth once, twice. “I wonder which of the two of you will be the first to fall.”

  Hytham glanced over at me, whipping his glaive forward and lowering into a ready stance but neither of us were quick enough to evade the sheriff-mournling’s next move.

  With a throat-rending cry, the sheriff cast his head back and thrust an arm toward each of us. Thick tentacles of twisting spirit-energy shot out from the ends of his hands, lashing the air.

  I shouted and leapt away from the grasping tentacle, diving toward one of the shallow pools out of the mournling’s grasp.

  Hytham took the opposite approach to mine, charging toward the tentacled monster, glaive raised.

  With the creature’s attention momentarily fixed on Hytham, I took aim and released an arrow, aiming straight for its heart.

  At the last moment the creature turned, and my arrow plopped uselessly into the water on the far side of the cave.

  I cursed under my breath and took aim again. More tentacles had shot off the creature and were whirling and splashing through the waist-deep pool, using the water as a weapon against Hytham’s focus as surely as the tentacles themselves sought to harm him.

  I was so intent on the battle unfolding before me and taking careful aim so that a stray arrow wouldn’t harm Hytham in the sheriff’s stead, I missed the thick tentacle slithering toward me just under the surface of the water.

  Quick as a snake, the mournling’s tentacle lashed out, propelling itself like a javelin straight at my side.

  I screamed as the tentacle pierced through my waist, just under my ribs. My vision spun as the tentacle emerged through my back with a soft squelch. It wriggled against my spine and hooked me around the waist, the compressed shadow energy cold and flopping. With a quick tug, the tentacle yanked me toward the mournling.

  I skidded over the water, grasping onto the tentacle and screaming at the white, impossible pain.

  The sheriff’s non-tentacle arms caught me, and the mournling thrust me down into the water in front of itself. Hytham reared back away with a cry, casting his glaive wide to avoid me.

  I thrashed against the mournling’s hook through me, my own blood tainting the water that filled my mouth.

  “Look at the futility of standing against us,” the sheriff murmured to Hytham, his voice frighteningly calm despite the violence of his actions, as though the two were completely separated.

  I reared up out of the water, coughing and sputtering. I moaned at the gouge through my gut, my every breath utter agony.

  The blood grew thicker around me, and my hands loosened in their grip. Distantly, Hytham called my name. He slashed at the tentacles with his glaive, sending them flying in all directions.

  “Follow the girl—” A hand seized the back of my head.

  “Accept peace.” The hand thrust my head underwater.

  I struggled, weakly, until the pain and blood were all too much. The world turned to darkness.