I must get back home. I don’t understand how months passed in a blink. Agasta cannot be right; I thought I’d be down there for several hours and I won’t know for certain until I get past this cursed terrain.

After crossing between and over icy mountains, I reached a summit with a clear line of sight to the landscape below.

“No,” I whispered and collapsed in the snow.

Below, the world I left in the early summer had turned to winter.

“How is this ...