Bearclaw Valley Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men.

In the days between his escape from the valley and today, he had failed to find anything of note. The snow had come and washed away, or hidden, the trail his brother Astyanax had taken. It had obscured more than that: the way back, the way forward, everything blanketed in white.

For two weeks Karst was left to his own devices; he huddled for warmth when he could find shelter and chased the ghostly sounds of falling snow, or ran from the howling wind, until he thought he was at his limit. He began to talk and told himself to keep on going — that if he stopped he would surely freeze and die, and he did not want to die.

When he came to the edge of the valley Karst did not recognize it. He kept going, his limbs weak and his body trembling from the cold, his head fogged with hunger. When he finally stopped walking he slumped against a solid object coated in ice — not recognizing the massive boulder that he had passed by so frequently in the past.