She closed her eyes and began to drift, the sensation both freeing and welcoming. She floated on the promise of a long, deep sleep that would end with her waking in a better place. With Johnny, once more. Her child’s world had been so good with him. That was why he was in her dreams. It was the best of what she remembered of a shattered childhood, of her dead parents, of her world destroyed. Johnny. Then suddenly he was coming for her, surrounded in a blue light that blazed out of the darkness like a star. She opened her eyes in surprise, the brightness reaching for her, bathing her in warmth. It approached from across the broad expanse of the snowy slope, a steady beam that stretched from far away to draw her in. She lifted her hand in recognition, reaching out to grasp it.

“ Angel! ” he called to her.

She watched him materialize out of the blowing snow and dark night, shrouded in a heavy-weather cloak, the blue light shining out of his extended hand. She tried to call back to him, but her mouth was dry and the words came out a thin, hoarse whisper.

“Angel!” he repeated.

“Johnny,” she managed to respond.

He knelt in front of her. The blue light went out. “Angel, it’s Kirisin,” he said, bending close, his young face pinched against the cold.

She stared at him, trying to find Johnny’s face in his young features, failing to do so, and then realizing who it was. Not Johnny. Kirisin. She blinked against her tears. She was back in the real world in an instant, lying cold and exposed on the frozen slopes of Syrring Rise, still alive, but not by much. “Kirisin,”

she answered.

He brushed snow from her crumpled body, his eyes scanning her bloodstained clothing. “Can you get up?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No.”

“I’m going to help you,” he told her at once. “You’re freezing to death. We have to get you inside, out of the cold.”

He worked himself into position that allowed for decent leverage and put an arm under her body to pull her upright. The pain returned to her in a sharp flood as he did so, the wounds opening anew. But he got her into a sitting position, put both arms around her, and heaved her to her feet. She stood leaning into him, unable to move.

“If you can’t walk, I will carry you,” he told her, his mouth against her ear so that she could hear him through the howl of the wind. “Do you understand me?”