Talia stopped walking when she saw the footprints. Small ones, child-sized, leading away from the main trail and out into the white nothing. She stood there longer than she should have, pack heavy on her shoulders, telling herself it wasn't her concern. Someone else would notice. Someone else would come. She followed them anyway. The tracks led to a girl curled in the snow, maybe six years old, still breathing. Talia lifted her, felt how light she was, and started back toward her shelter. Then she saw what lay beyond the girl. A mammoth carcass, torn open from the inside. The ribs splayed outward like broken fingers. The meat was black where it touched the snow, and the snow itself had gone dark in a perfect circle around the body. No predator marks. No blood trail. Just destruction that spread from a center point, and that center point was exactly where the girl had been lying. Talia set the child down carefully and stepped back. She looked at the carcass again, then at the two wooden crosses planted in the snow thirty paces away. Fresh graves. The girl stirred and opened her eyes, and Talia watched the darkness spread beneath her small body like ink in water. The child reached for her, and Talia didn't move closer. She knew what happened to people who showed up. She knew what it cost. But she also knew she wouldn't walk away. Not after three days of trying once before. Not ever again. She picked up the girl and turned toward her shelter, carrying someone else's curse because that's what showing up meant. The cave entrance appeared through the snow after an hour of walking. Talia pushed through the animal skins that blocked the wind and laid the girl near the fire pit. The child's breathing came shallow and quick. Dark veins spread across her neck like frost on glass. Talia added wood to the fire and sat back against the stone wall. The quiet life she'd built here was gone now. She could feel it leaving with each breath the girl took. But she didn't regret following those footprints. She never did. That was the problem.