Prince of Time. Rebecca York

her, he stepped through the ruined barrier. Almost immediately, he halted in surprise. He was in a long, narrow cave—so long that it swallowed up the flashlight beam. The wall from which he’d emerged was of dark rock. The facing one was made of snow.

      So how had Cassie gotten in? He wasn’t about to let her start drawing pictures again. He wasn’t going to trust anything besides his own observations. For a moment he stood, listening to the utter silence. Then, doggedly ignoring the cold, he made his way down the tunnel between the black rock and the white snow.

      Cassie kept pace with him, talking all the while. When he ignored her, she grabbed his sleeve and yelled, “Klat!”

      The curse got his attention. He stopped short and turned. She gave him an exasperated look.

      After a moment, she repeated a word she’d used before. “Avalanche.” First she pointed to the snow. Then rolling her hands in a circle, she swept them in a downward motion. Looking behind her, she pretended to run. Finally she put her arms over her head and huddled down, protecting herself from the onslaught.

      “Avalanche,” she said again. “Understand?”

      “Avalanche,” he repeated, finally picturing what had happened. Snow had come roaring down the mountain toward her, and she’d taken refuge against the rock face.

      “Understand?” she asked again.

      “Yes.”

      “Good.”

      It was their longest conversation. Too bad he was almost as articulate as an illiterate camel driver.

      However, Cassie looked pleased. Taking a step back, she raised her arms and stretched, as if to dissipate some of her tension. Her hands slammed into the wall of white that hung over her.

      Quickly she pulled them back. But the damage was already done. Recently settled snow began to tumble down on top of her so quickly that Thorn barely had time to gasp out a useless warning. One minute she was in front of him gesticulating. In the next, she had disappeared, buried under an enormous pile of freezing whiteness.

      Chapter Four

      A mixture of fear and astonishment wrenched through Thorn as he stared at the place where Cassie had been standing moments ago. His first reckless impulse was to toss the flashlight aside and start digging her out with both hands. Instead he clenched the cold metal tube. The blasted cave was pitch-dark; he needed to see what he was doing.

      Using up a few precious seconds, he scraped together a little pile of snow and made a stand for the light so that the beam was positioned in the right direction.

      There was no margin for error, he thought with a grimace as he started to dig with the only tools he had. Almost at once his fingers grew icy. He ignored the numbing pain and scraped away at the snow, alternately cursing himself, calling Cassie’s name and gasping drafts of air into his lungs.

      His whole body was shivering violently from the cold. No, more than the cold. His head spun. He knew he was in no shape for the unexpected exertion. But somehow he kept digging. Because he had to get the snow off of Cassie before she suffocated. So he continued to toss white clouds behind him as he worked in the semidarkness and to pray that he wouldn’t be too late.

      It seemed to take forever. It was probably less than a minute when he felt something harder than the recently settled snow. Not rock. Something that yielded to his touch, although with his hands numb from the cold, he couldn’t tell much.

      He saw the bright pink outerwear covering Cassie’s back and gave silent thanks as he corrected the direction of his search. Redoubling his efforts, he scooped like a madman. His fingers slid off her shoulder. He dug lower and hooked his hand around her arms, giving a mighty tug. One arm came free. Immediately she began to dig, too, and he knew what he’d only sensed before. She didn’t give up easily.

      With a sigh of relief, he brushed the snow away from her nose and mouth. She shook her head and sucked in a gasp of air that ended with his name. Her face was white and etched with terror. Yet her eyes were focused squarely on him as if she couldn’t believe that he’d gotten her out.