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.

Two hours up, a light flicked on across the valley, then another. Lanterns. Someone was following her tracks in the snow, moving fast and in a line. These weren't lost hikers. They knew exactly where she was going.

Vesna left the sled and climbed fast up a side gully to get above them. From the ridge she watched the followers reach her abandoned cargo and start prying the crates open. She could slip away now and keep the money, or stay and learn who they were.

The followers were border officers, and the vials inside were stolen vaccines bound for sick villages on the other side. Doru wasn't a smuggler. He was getting medicine past a blockade. Vesna had almost run from the wrong side. She climbed down and helped them carry it the rest of the way.