Your choice changes what happens next
Split Camp
The mountain appeared while Sela was arguing with a sock. One moment the space beyond Split Camp was white; the next, the cloud lifted like a tablecloth being drawn very slowly from beneath the dishes. A black ridge ran east. Above it stood Orra's snow crown. Far below, a turquoise lake shone in a basin so unexpectedly broad that Sela forgot what she had been saying about other people's packing.
At forty-six, Sela Dorn had led enough expeditions to dislike the photograph of the leader pointing. Her vermilion sleeve made a bright stroke against the pale canvas shelter. Wind stirred the short salt-and-pepper curls above her brown face. Anouk Fer, thirty-two, stood beside the packs with a folded map in her hand. Pale freckles crossed her nose; her cropped black hair needed none of the attention Sela's did. "Which part?" she asked.
"The eastern ridge." Sela moved her finger. "The traverse." Anouk's violet jacket brushed hers as she looked higher. "And there's the summit." Behind them, Bastian Holt had raised his compact camera. Fifty-eight, dark-skinned, with a shaved head and a silver beard, he was the only one still wearing his teal jacket properly fastened. He took a picture without asking either woman to look heroic. "There's also that," he said, lowering the camera toward the lake.
They had reached Split Camp the previous evening. This morning began the last four field days of a journey planned around the west-to-east crossing. Sela wanted the commission that would let her buy equipment for her own guiding business. Anouk wanted an ascent they had discussed as a possibility. Bastian wanted photographs that were not illustrations of somebody else's ambition.