Yuki Shirogane knelt in the snow and searched for a frost-wyrm she could not see. Her white hair hung wet against her neck. Somewhere ahead crawled the beast whose breath had frozen her eyes blind when she was six. She had carried a sword and hunted it ever since. But a hunter needs clues, and every clue the wyrm left was a thing of sight. Clawed snow. Steam on the air. She had crossed this valley twice and found nothing. She pressed her palm flat to the ground. Cold, silence, the drip of melting ice. No scent of sulfur, no print her fingers could read. The wyrm might be a stone's throw off, or a day's walk. She had no way to know. Her jaw tightened. Three years of walking, and she still stumbled past the thing she chased. A sharp cry broke the quiet. Wings beat close, then closer. A small bird struck her shoulder and clung there, shaking. Yuki held still. She felt its tiny claws grip her coat, felt its heart race against her hand. A sparrow, feathers stiff with frost, fled from something behind it. Birds fled the wyrm. She knew that from the old hunters' tales. "What scared you?" she whispered. The sparrow trembled and did not answer, but its fear told her enough. It had come from one direction only. Then she heard the other thing. Heavy paws in the snow, slow and sure, circling her. Not the wyrm. Too light, too careful. A low breath, almost a word. Yuki's hand went to her hilt. The paws stopped an arm's length away. A cold nose touched her wrist. Fur brushed her fingers, thick and smooth. She reached and found a great hound, tall as her waist, its coat sleek under her palm. It did not flinch from her sword. It leaned into her touch and made a sound deep in its chest. Yuki felt the warmth of it and understood. This beast saw what she could not. The sparrow had bolted from the wyrm; the hound had come to her. She pressed her forehead to its neck. "You can be my eyes," she said. "Will you?" The hound turned its head. It gripped her sleeve in its teeth, gentle, and pulled. Yuki rose. The sparrow lifted from her shoulder and flew the same way the hound led, back toward whatever had frightened it. She followed. For the first time in three years, she did not stumble blind. The hound chose each step and she trusted it. Her boots found firm ground where before she had floundered. Then the hound stopped. It growled, low and steady, facing ahead. The sparrow shrieked and scattered into the dark. Cold rolled over Yuki's face, colder than snow, and carried a smell she had not breathed since she was six. The wyrm was close now. And this time, she would not walk past it.