Vesna Kruger hadn't set foot on Ember Pass since the avalanche took four clients and her guiding license. Now she stood at the trailhead in borrowed crampons, breath fogging, while a man named Doru loaded heavy crates onto her sled by lantern light. "Don't open them," he said, and pressed a thick roll of banknotes into her glove. "Get them over the pass by dawn. No questions." The money was more than she'd made in two years. She tightened the sled straps and looked up at the dark mountain.

Vesna took the money and started up the trail without a word. A deal was a deal. She'd haul the crates, collect the rest, and never see Doru again. The sled scraped over the first rise as the lanterns of the town shrank behind her.

The wind picked up and the snow started falling sideways. Vesna knew the signs at once: the same heavy, brittle snowpack that had buried her clients. She stopped at a fork in the trail, heart pounding. The short route ran straight under the avalanche slope.

Vesna chose the short route. She had to clear the slope before the snow loaded any heavier. Halfway across, a low crack rolled down from above, the exact sound she heard in her nightmares. The whole slope was about to let go.

There was no time to outrun it. The snow swept the sled away and rolled Vesna down the mountain in a roaring white tumble. She came to rest in the dark, packed tight, one arm free near her face. She'd warned four clients about this exact slope. Now she clawed at the snow and screamed for anyone at all.