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The ground did not behave at all like ground is supposed to—all still and reliable. Instead, it had all the substance and stability of meat jelly.

Beneath their feet, the crust of snow shattered like broken glass, radiating outward into hundreds of lightning bolt-shaped fissures.

"What's happening?" Kai said, leaping to the side to dodge a crack heading straight for her.

"Avalanche," Derek croaked. "Layyin, watch out!"

At the last second, Layyin vaulted, barely escaping a widening crevasse. She landed on her behind, legs over her head, grinning, eyes glowing like moonbeams. "Cool."

But then ...

... an eerie quiet blanketed the mountaintop.

As if suddenly the monstrous mountain thought, hey, why bother with all this destruction? Wouldn't it be better not to make such a big mess? Think of all the cleanup!

Perhaps that was it.

Which would make this a fabulous quiet, not an eerie one.

A small, slightly insane giggle escaped Ashley's mouth. Avalanches didn't seem all that bad compared to trolls, witches, randy unicorns, arcane prophecies, ice elves, and an abominable lack of moisturizer while questing.

"You could've been hurt, My Princess," Terrowin said, extending a hand.

"I know! Isn't that awesome?" Layyin said, breathless as she allowed him to help her up. "I love being on the brink. So life-affirming."

"'Tis," Terrowin agreed. "But a little less brink, please."

Layyin kicked snow into the crack. "I'm a little disappointed, though. You'd think an avalanche would be more of a challenge."

Derek put his hands on his hips and glared at Layyin. "Girl, are you insane? Never ever ever taunt the universe. What do they teach you at princess school? Honestly!"

Layyin formed a snowball and threw it hard at Derek. Missed. It hit the crack instead. Immediately thereafter, above the cloud line came a deep, very wrong-sounding rumble that vibrated in Ashley's chest. "Whaaaa?" Ashley said. Next came a series of bangs, the twisted crunch of snapping wood, a banshee-caliber scream.

Oh, wait. That was her.

"Told you, Layyin," Derek snapped.

Craggy tree trunks slid and tumbled in chaos, like a melee of giant rolling pins determined to flatten them into life-sized gingerbread people.

Chaos ensued as the humans shouted, sidled, scampered, stumbled.

"What do we do?" Sadira yelled and fell into the snow as a log grazed her ankle. She stood shakily, arms outstretched in the traditional "I' m-embarrassed-I-fell-but-don't-worry-about-me" stance. "I'm okay."

"Aaaaaaargh," Ashley said, narrowly avoiding the cauldron hurtling past. They had to get to shelter and fast. But where?

Betty trumpeted out a snore as piercing as a stampeding elephant but remained blissfully asleep.

Which gave Ashley an idea. "Betty's cave!"

"Good idea," Gerald said.

"Let's drag Betty too," Ashley said, barely missing a harrowing interaction with a careening pine.

The mountain rumbled in fury.

Gerald scooped Ashley into his arms and took off for the cave, as did the others, leaving Betty behind.

"But ... poor Betty! Why did you pick me up?" Ashley yelped—not only because he had gripped her so tightly, he probably bruised her ribs but also because evidently, he still didn't think she could take care of herself.

"Doing my job," Gerald snapped. "There's no way we could move Betty. She's bigger than ten men. And she's a creature of the mountain. She probably starts an avalanche every time she falls asleep."

Ashley had to admit there was a certain logic to his assertion.

As they neared the cave, kicking up snow, zigzagging past deadly detritus, a wall of ice sheared off the escarpment, covering the entrance. Gerald screeched to a halt, cursing under his breath.

"Now what?" Derek prompted.

Ashley jumped out of Gerald's arms. "I'm thinking."

"Take your time," Derek said. "I'm sure the avalanche will hit the pause button."

"What's a pause button?" Kai said, as a wave of snow, high and massive as a castle wall, charged out of the mist.

"Run!" Ashley said, heart racing.

Ashley grabbed Gerald's hand, and together they sprinted down the mountain, swerving and veering to avoid the widening cracks and occasional uprooted trees and boulders.

Betty slid past, rigid and undisturbed as a gigantic wooden sled. Ashley peeked over her shoulder. The snow swallowed everything in its path—wood, no trespassing signs, bones, and boulders. "It's gaining on us."

A spear of ice shot toward them. Ashley released Gerald's hand and managed to push him to safety but, in the process, lost her balance and somersaulted down the slope, snow, pummeling her from all sides, accordioning the vertebrae in her neck. Her limbs bent at unnatural angles, like a doll in the hands of a sadistic four-year-old.

"Ashley!" Gerald yelled from far above. "Dammit! Do not die!"

"I'll try," she lied, preparing once again to meet certain death.

Her heart slammed into her ribs, and she choked on her breath. She had no control over her body.

That's the thing with certain death; you can't avoid it. Because it's certain.

The ground dropped from beneath, and she fell into a chasm.

Down, down, down.

Gravity had her in its grip and wouldn't let go.

Stomach turning.

Heart threatening to explode from her chest.

The sky far above became a remote thing—an insubstantial and unhelpful crack of light.

Closing her eyes, Ashley tried not to think about how much it would hurt when she struck the bottom of the gorge. It would only be for a moment because surely, she would die instantly.

She landed with a body-jarring thump, but the bottom of the gorge was carpeted with soft snow. Which meant she didn't die! After a limited celebratory period, chunks of ice and snow fell, packing her into the depths.

Ashley gasped for breath but could not expand her chest. Could not even wriggle a finger. Snow pushed into her eyes and clogged her throat, crushing her face, enveloping her body. It was as if the mountain was trying to consume her.

Please stop, Ashley begged.

But the mountain had its own agenda.

A few minutes later, the flooding of snow ceased. But Ashley remained locked in place inside a tomb of ice.

Drowning in icy darkness. The darkness of nightmares and graveyards. Not so much a lack of light as its opposite.

Was she to be buried alive only to be unearthed in thousands of years, and put in a museum where people of the future would gawk at her and ask how she could have walked with such tiny feet?

And where were her friends? She prayed they were all right.

The mountain rumbled again. Oddly, beneath her, the snow warmed. At first, she enjoyed the heat, but when the snow beneath her melted, it was like pulling a plug, and she resumed her descent.

Nooooooo!

How many times had Ashley fallen to her death in the last couple of weeks? Shouldn't there be a contractual limit to having to endure the same peril over and over? Someone had to look into Quester's Rights after this was all over.

She smacked against something ...

... cushiony. Kind of scaly. Like landing on a stack of lepidote mattresses ...

... rather than the rocky, icy, pointy, inhospitable, body-pulverizing landing she'd expected.

Even so, it jolted her body, sending her internal organs into her throat. She must've died this time. In a way, it was nice to be dead, mainly because she didn't have to worry about dying. She closed her eyes and relaxed into death, pondering once again the whereabouts of the Afterlife Welcoming Committee (AWC for short).

What would the AWC be like? Would they be a bunch of very attractive angels singing Vivaldi or a drunk pub band singing 100 Bottles of Mead on the Wall? Did earworms exist in the afterlife? Talk about torture!

But before Ashley had much time to wonder which music she'd have to listen to for eternity, or whether she would end up in the clouds with harps and unlimited "all-you-can-eat-buffet" afterlife or the fire and brimstone and surprise! "are-the-unlimited-buffet" section, she had an odd sensation.

Cold air pulsing over her face. Rising in herky-jerky spurts. The feeling one might have if riding a very large, possibly drunk, winged angel.

At least she was heading on a heavenly trajectory.

She closed her eyes and relaxed, stroking her palm over the angel's cool, scaly robes.

Wait.

Didn't angels wear gossamer or silk or at least 100% Egyptian cotton?

Something roared.

Very not angel-like.

Her eyes flew open in time for her to see orange fire shot against the side of the cavern, creating rivulets of steaming water rushing down the ice.

Holy Ever After!

She had landed on top of a dragon!

And not any dragon. From the gleaming red horn protruding from its cow-sized head, this had to be a Red-horned Bluebelly, the most dangerous and fiery and least patient of all dragons.

Talk about out of the icebox and into the fire.

And typically, this Red-horned Bluebelly seemed to be in a rush.

They rose at tremendous speed.

Ashley's mind whirled.

A dragon!

Everyone knew princesses and dragons didn't get along.

Dragons were always kidnapping them and taking them to their lairs, for some inexplicable reason. Lodging princesses in towers had to be a lot more work than hoarding gold and gems. Gems and gold don't require food nor toilet facilities. Plus, they had no mouths with which to endlessly complain about being held in captivity.

And, inevitably, a prince stopped by and slew said dragon.

It never ended well for the dragon.

The sky brightened as they neared the surface.

The dragon broke through and banked hard to the left. "Oh, no! Junior," it said, dropping back into the hole they'd just flown out of. "Aaagsh," Ashley gasped and seized one of the spiky thorns that lined the wyvern's spine.

"Hey, lady, not so hard. That's my back," the dragon said.

"If you don't want me to hold on for dear life, maybe you shouldn't dive like that. What'd you do it for?"

The dragon lurched. "You understand me?"

Ashley grabbed a second spike. "Of course I do. If I didn't, how would I be able to tell you that you fly like an inebriated bat."

"I do not! But back to the important issue, you cannot possibly speak Dragon. You're human." Ashley could feel the condescension in the wyvern's voice. Though calling him an inebriated bat probably was similarly unkind.

"I've got some kind of witch blood, which means, lucky me! I can understand derision in any language. Can you please level off?"

"Nope. I forgot something."

"What?"

"None of your business. Please be quiet. And never tell my wife I forgot it, okay?"

"Forgot what?" Ashley said. "Junior?"

"I said no talking. Who invented talking humans, anyway? Terrible inconvenience," the dragon roared.

"Okay, okay," Ashley said as a second Red-horned Bluebelly, larger and given the magnitude of the flames—angrier than the first, dove into the hole, racing toward them, spewing a hundred-foot jet of fire.

Ashley gulped. "What's that?"

"What's what? I told you to be quiet."

"Up there," Ashley said.

"No, it can't be," he whined. "I'm cooked."

"Who is it?"

"Shhhh, I need to think before we both end up skewered, basted, roasted, and served with a nice bottle of chianti."

Ashley kind of missed the avalanche.

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