The adrenaline that had carried them across the bridge faded somewhere in the third mile, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion that turned every step into a negotiation with gravity. The forest had changed around them—the dense pines of the lower valley giving way to bare, wind-scoured rock and ancient cedars that clung to the mountainside like survivors of some ancient catastrophe. The snow was deeper here, drifted against the tree trunks in waves that looked almost sculpted, and the temperature had dropped another ten degrees since dawn.
Caleb led the way, his body moving on instinct, his mind cycling through the same cold calculus that had kept him alive for two years. They needed shelter. They needed warmth. They needed to reach Blackwood before nightfall, when the temperature would
