Sarah looked down at the faint outline of the teahouse that sat on the wide snowcapped swath between the veiled massifs. A little way away in front of the house, remnants of tattered prayer flags whipped in the wind. Frank pulled his glacier glasses off and looked at her. In his languid gaze, she saw deepened lines over his brow and around the corners of his red-rimmed eyes that aged him right in front of her. She propped her poles against her waist and stood in the knee-deep drift, pulled her ice-crusted buff down her face and drank from her CamelBak. The water wouldn’t come. It had frozen in the bladder despite having been tucked away under her parka.
A little way down the slope, the rest of the group was slogging toward the shelter. She watched them zigzag through the windswept sheets
