The Weeping Cliffs earned their name honestly.
It was a sheer wall of grey limestone that rose three hundred feet into the air, cutting through the forest like a jagged scar. Water constantly trickled down its face from underground springs near the summit, making the stone look like it was perpetually crying.
To a poet, it might have been beautiful. To Ciro and Elara, it was a slippery, treacherous nightmare.
"We have to climb," Ciro said, looking up at the towering rock face. The water slicked the stone, making it shine like oil.
Elara looked at her hands. They were raw, muddy, and shaking. "Ciro, I can barely walk. I cannot climb a waterfall."
"The hounds cannot climb," Ciro replied, pointing behind them.
The baying was loud now. The dogs were less than a mile away. They could hear the shouts of the handlers echoing through the trees.
"The water will wash away our scent," Ciro explained, unwinding a coil of thin rope he had scavenged from his assassin's gear—one of the few tools he had left. "We climb to the lower caves. Just fifty feet up. We hide there until the hunt passes."
He tied one end of the rope around his waist and the other around Elara's.
"I will go first," he said, gripping her shoulders. His eyes were intense. "Do not look down. Look at my boots. Place your hands exactly where I place mine."
They began the ascent.
The rock was freezing. The water trickling down chilled their fingers to the bone, numbing their grip. Every hold was a gamble. Ciro moved with the grace of a spider, finding cracks in the limestone that were barely visible.
Elara was not a spider. She scraped her knees, bruised her elbows, and slipped twice. Each time, the rope jerked tight, Ciro holding her weight with groaning effort until she found her footing again.
"Don't stop!" Ciro hissed from above. " almost there!"
Thirty feet up. Forty feet.
Below them, the tree line burst open.
Three massive dogs, black as pitch and heavily muscled, tore into the clearing at the base of the cliff. They were Morvathian Bloodhounds—beasts bred for war, not hunting foxes. They sniffed the ground frantically, snarling at the spot where Ciro and Elara had stood moments ago.
"Don't look," Ciro commanded, but it was too late.
Elara looked down. She saw the dogs jumping at the wall, snapping their jaws. A moment later, men on horseback emerged.
Among them was a man Elara recognized. Not Kaelen, but Sir Balon—the King's Master Huntsman. A man who enjoyed the hunt more than the kill.
"They went up!" Balon shouted, pointing his whip at the cliff face. "Archers!"
"Climb!" Ciro roared. He abandoned stealth and hauled on the rope, practically dragging Elara up the last ten feet.
An arrow whizzed past Elara's ear, shattering against the stone. Another struck the rock inches from Ciro's hand.
"Move! Move!"
Ciro reached the ledge of a narrow fissure—the mouth of a cave. He scrambled inside and pulled the rope with all his strength. Elara tumbled over the edge, scraping her chin on the rock, just as a volley of arrows clattered against the cliff face below them.
They rolled into the darkness of the cave, gasping for air.
"Inside," Ciro wheezed, untying the rope. "Deeper. Arrows can't turn corners."
They crawled backward into the gloom, away from the cave mouth. Outside, they could hear Sir Balon cursing and ordering his men to find a way up.
"We... we're trapped," Elara whispered, hugging her knees. "They will wait for us to starve."
"No," Ciro stood up, his silhouette faint against the grey light of the entrance. "Balon is impatient. He will try to smoke us out or send climbers. But this cave..."
Ciro turned to face the darkness of the tunnel behind them. A draft of air was blowing from the depths. It smelled stale, musky, and faintly metallic.
"This is not a shallow cave," Ciro murmured. "There is airflow. It leads somewhere."
He drew his dagger.
"We go through the mountain."
Elara stood up shakily. "Ciro... what is that sound?"
From deep within the tunnel, a sound echoed. It wasn't the wind. It was a high-pitched, chittering noise. Like a thousand dry leaves rubbing together.
Skreee... Skreee...
Ciro tensed. He recognized that sound. It wasn't rats.
He grabbed Elara's hand, his grip crushing.
"Stay behind me," he whispered, his voice dropping to a terrified low. "And for the love of the gods, cover your neck."
Above them, on the ceiling of the cavern, hundreds of pairs of tiny red eyes opened in the dark.
The Weeping Cliffs were not empty. They were a hive.