Wind and snow tore through the mountains. Pale green ghost-fire flickered in the cracks of the glacier like watching eyes.
A slender girl in a plain white dress lost her footing on the slope and tumbled down into a cave of ice crystal. The silver bells at her wrist shattered into a jumble of notes as she gasped for air.
She hit the ground with a cry of pain. The storm had already torn her thin skirt open, baring knees scraped white and blue, and the gold-feather jade hairpin was gone from her hair, lost somewhere along the way. Ice hung heavy in her long white strands, until she looked like some fragile Spirit Herb that had sprouted deep in the snow mountains.
Crack... crack, crack...
Outside the cave, the ice split with a brittle sound. She spun around in fright. Black-green shapes were closing in from every side.
"Little missy's a pretty one~"
The monster at the front curled his lip with greed, idly turning the gold-feather jade hairpin she had dropped between his fingers.
