Heavy grey clouds had rolled across the sky by morning, sitting like a suffocating blanket over the pass. Daron spoke more about Lush, telling Rhea of the clans that endlessly fought for power and the caste system that had kept his own clan homeless and shunned. Rhea listened, absorbing the knowledge soberly. Her task would be no easy one.

"Why don't more of your people come to Etria?" she asked.

"There is a reason," replied Daron grimly, looking up at the folds of grey overhead.

By mid-afternoon, they had entered the mountains proper and Rhea put on several more layers of clothing and a pair of fur-lined gloves from her pack to ward off the biting chill. Snow began to fall slowly around them.

The Sentinels had been aptly named. Each peak of the mountain range was tall and alert, pushing upward like a sword into the heavens. Even now, in late summer, the higher altitudes sported white helmets of snow. They watched and waited.

The path narrowed as it ascended, the once numerous pines thinning, the snow steadily becoming deeper. Rhea's legs burned with the steep upward trek, yet she resolved herself to not complain. They trudged single file, Daron in the lead, along a path that became increasingly difficult to discern among the accumulating snow. The wind turned fierce, whistling past Rhea's ears, biting at her nose and flinging falling snow into her eyes. She pulled the hood of her cloak snugly around her face, focusing on Daron's dark blue cloak ahead.

As the storm intensified, so did Daron, who increased their pace until Rhea was all but jogging to keep up. She soon found herself falling into sticky, knee-high snow with each step. Despite being no expert on mountainous weather, it was clear to Rhea that they had become caught in an unusually severe storm.

"I was hoping to reach a cave I know of," Daron shouted over the wind, falling back beside Rhea, "but we're not going to make it. Keep an eye out for some shelter."

Rhea scanned ahead, her pulse quickening as she realized there was little shelter to be had. The mountain veered steeply downward on the right; on the left it reared up, equally steep and uninviting.

It was hard to see with the fat flakes of snow obscuring her vision, but there, just ahead, Rhea thought she could see a partially sheltered indent in the mountainside. She took a breath to exclaim jubilantly -- and the snow-covered ground beneath her shuddered.

"Run!" shouted Daron beside her, and -- as she took a confused step -- the world beneath her fell away.

It was strange, thought Rhea later, that moment when she turned to Daron, not yet fully understanding what was happening. After all, she had never set foot on a mountain before, much less a snow-covered one. At first they seemed to fall in slow motion; she noticed the snowflakes caught in his hair, the spark of fear in his dark eyes. His reflexive grab for her. His mouth shaping words she could not hear, yet their deep familiarity striking her through. The fear turning into horror as they fell, losing sight of one another in the blinding white.

Rhea scrabbled furiously at the snow with her boots and hands, trying to find something to grab onto to slow the descent. With every passing second, the snow slid faster down the slope, carrying her along helplessly like a leaf in a furious stream.

Her right boot collided with something hard, her ankle wrenching to the side with a snap. Rhea cried out as sharp pain shot up her leg, her cries quickly becoming muffled as the avalanche of snow poured suffocatingly over her body.

Her heavy pack was pulling her further under, and without a second thought, she freed herself from it. She struggled to bring her hands to her face, to make room to breathe. Her senses were disoriented as she continued to be pushed relentlessly along, until she had no sense of up or down, only the ever-increasing icy pressure bearing down around her.

And then suddenly, she was free-falling. She flailed her arms and legs instinctively, looking for some kind of solid anchor in a world that had abruptly become without substance.

Then she was hitting the ground again, her ankle crumpling under her. She screamed as she tumbled downhill, her vision blacking out at the corners.

She came to a stop buried waist-deep in snow at the bottom of a narrow valley. Her throat was raw. She struggled from her icy prison. When she was free, she lay upon the snow, breathless and beaten.

Daron.

She sat up. Her ankle twisted unnaturally, the tip of her boot pointing in an impossible angle. Her vision swam and her breath came shallow and uneven. Blood soaked through both her wool leggings and trousers. Her wounds must have reopened and been torn further.

She struggled to her feet. Her attempt to bear weight on her broken ankle caused bile to rise in her throat and the world to swim nauseatingly. Walking was an impossibility.

"Daron!" she called into the storm. "Daron!" Her voice was rough and cracked with desperation. "DARON!"

Not even an echo called back. Only the soft sound of millions of snowflakes striking the ground surrounded her.

She was alone. Blood seeped from her leg onto the pristine snow. Icy flakes stung her eyes and cheeks. She looked around, not even able to recognize where she was. Which way was the path? And her supplies were gone, leaving her no food and no way to make fire.

She drew her knees to her chest, wincing in pain. She curled in on herself, on the despair that overtook her. Was this how she had been fated to finally die all along? Cold and alone, failing in the kingdom's last hope?

Her cheeks crackled with frozen tears.