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 handed the money back. "I don't carry blind cargo. Not anymore." Doru's friendly smile dropped. Two men stepped out of the dark behind the sled, and one of them had a rifle slung over his shoulder. "That's not really an option," Doru said quietly.

Vesna raised her hands slowly. "Fine. I'll carry them." She let them re-strap the sled, smiling and easy, until the rifleman turned to watch the trail. Then she kicked his legs out, grabbed his gun, and bolted up the slope into the dark with the sled bouncing behind her.

Vesna led them on a chase up the pass she knew by heart, then doubled back below them in the storm. By dawn the three were lost and frostbitten on the high slope, calling out, while she walked the cargo down the far side and turned both crates and gunmen over to the border post.