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.

Vesna dove behind a granite spur and dragged the sled in after her just as the avalanche thundered past, missing her by a body's length. When the roar stopped, she was buried to the waist but breathing. She dug herself out, freed the sled, and pushed on through the broken snow. At dawn she reached the drop point, cargo intact, and faced the mountain that had ruined her. "Four people," she said to the empty pass. "I'm sorry." Then she took her pay and walked down for the last time.