Neva Silvermark crouched behind a snow drift and counted the guards on the trail below. Her clan had lost the sacred peak generations ago. She meant to climb it and take it back. But strangers now held the mountain, and they had posted armed guards on every path up. If they caught her alone, they would turn her back, or worse. She knew the risk. She had walked out of camp before dawn without telling anyone. Her mother would have stopped her. Her father would have called it foolish. Neva watched two guards pace the lower switchback. A third stood at an ice tower near the tree line, tall and dark against the white slope. He did not pace. He watched. Neva chose the far gully, where the snow lay deep and the rocks gave cover. She moved slow, keeping low, testing each step. She reached the second bend before her paw broke through a crust of ice. The crack echoed. The dark guard turned his head. He came down fast. By the time Neva reached the rocks, he blocked her path. A black panther, broad-shouldered, in gray armor with a red cloak. His yellow eyes fixed on her. "You're a long way from the valley," Kaine Shadowpelt said. His voice was low and hard. "These trails are closed. Turn around." Neva did not turn. "This mountain belonged to my clan. I have as much right to walk it as you." Something shifted in his face. He looked at her longer than a guard should. "You're the Silvermark girl." He said it quiet, almost to himself. "I've heard your father speak in the market. Khalan Snowpelt." "Then you know why I'm here." Kaine glanced back up the slope. The other two guards had not seen her. He stepped closer and dropped his voice. "If they find you, they'll drag you to the palace and let the cold hold you a while. I've watched them do it." He paused. "I don't want that for you." Neva studied him. He was the enemy's guard. Yet he had not called out. "Then let me pass." "I can't." His jaw tightened. "But I can look the other way. Tonight the watch changes late. This gully goes dark for an hour after moonrise." He pressed something into her paw. A small iron token, cold and worn. "Show this at the upper gate. The night guard owes me. He won't question it." Her fingers closed around the token. "Why help me?" Kaine was already backing toward the trail. "Ask me when you've climbed higher." Then he turned and walked back to his post, calling out that the gully was clear. Neva slid the token into her coat. The lower trail was no longer a wall. But now she had one hour, a single stranger's word, and a locked upper gate ahead. She looked up at the peak and started planning her climb.

The moon rose. The gully went dark, just as the panther guard had promised. Neva Silvermark slipped into the passage with the iron token cold in her paw. She moved fast while the watch was thin. Then the trail split. Two paths cut into the rock, and she had no memory of which one his directions meant. She crouched and studied both. The left path climbed. The right ran flat and smooth. Kaine had said to climb higher. She took the right, thinking flat ground would be faster and quieter. She was wrong. The path bent, and a wall of ice rose ahead. A guard stand stood carved from solid ice, its edges sharp, its surface frosted and pale. A lamp burned inside it. Two guards leaned against the base. They saw her at once. "Hold," one said. He stepped forward with a spear. "No one passes here." Neva raised the token. Her hand shook. "The night guard owes a debt. This clears me." The guard squinted at the iron in the lamplight. He did not know it. The wrong post. The wrong path. He reached for her arm instead. A shape moved in the dark behind the ice stand. Pale fur, and antlers made of clear crystal that caught the lamp and threw light across the snow. A frostwisp. It stepped between Neva and the guards, calm and slow, its crystal antlers glowing. The guards froze. One dropped his spear and backed away. "A spirit," he whispered. Both men stumbled from the stand and fled down the flat path, their boots loud on the ice. Neva stood alone with the creature. It looked at her with pale eyes, then turned and walked toward the left path, the climbing one. It paused, waiting. She understood. She followed. The creature led her up until the flat trail was far below. Then a voice spoke from the rocks. "You took the wrong turn." Kaine Shadowpelt stepped out, red cloak dark against the snow. His yellow eyes went to the frostwisp, then to her. "I heard the guards run. I thought they had you." "They almost did," Neva said. "Your token means nothing at that post." "That post isn't mine to buy." His jaw tightened. "You should have climbed. I told you to climb." "You told me riddles." She stepped close. "Those men saw my face. They'll report a snow leopard on the mountain." Kaine went still. He knew what that meant. The occupiers would double the watch. Every path would tighten by dawn. "Then we can't wait," he said. "You have to reach the upper gate tonight, before the report climbs faster than you do." The frostwisp turned up the slope and waited again. Neva looked at the peak above, closer now than it had ever been. She started to climb.

The frostwisp led Neva higher until the peak loomed close. Then it stopped. Its crystal antlers dimmed, and it faded into the rocks. Neva stood alone with Kaine below the last stretch of climb. The upper gate waited above, pale against the sky. But guards moved on the wall now, lamps in hand. Dawn was near, and the report of her face had traveled ahead of them. Kaine gripped her arm. "They know me here. Every guard on that wall has seen my face." His yellow eyes searched the ridge. "If one of them spots me lifting you over, I'm finished. And I can't shield you past the gate if I'm in chains beside you." Neva looked at the wall. The climb was steep and smooth. She could not reach the top without a boost. But Kaine could not give it in the open. A small shape slid down from the rocks above. A snow leopard boy, no older than twelve, in a blue coat and worn boots. Kiran. He crouched by a gap in the ice where the wall met the cliff. "You're the one they whispered about," Kiran said. His voice shook, but he did not run. "My mother says the mountain was ours. She won't say it loud." He pointed at the gap. "The guards don't watch this crack. I climb through it to see the old shrine." Neva knelt to meet his eyes. "Show me." Kiran squeezed into the gap. Neva followed. The stone pressed close on both sides. Kaine stayed below, out of the guards' sight. "Go," he whispered. "I can't follow. But this keeps my face off the wall." Neva pushed upward through the crack. Ice scraped her fur. Above, a guard passed the gap and never looked down. She held her breath until his boots faded. Then she pulled herself out onto the ledge inside the gate. She was past the wall. Kiran climbed out beside her, grinning. Kaine remained below, hidden and safe. But the ledge was not empty. An ice guard stand rose ahead of her, carved sharp and clear, a lamp burning inside its narrow window. A guard sat within, back turned, watching the main path. He had not seen the crack. He would see anyone who crossed the open ground beyond. Neva pressed flat against the ice. She had solved one wall. Kaine's face was safe. But now she stood inside the gate with no cloak to shield her, no token that meant anything here, and a watchman between her and the shrine above. Kiran tugged her sleeve. "That one never sleeps," he whispered. "And he knows every face that belongs on this mountain. Yours doesn't."