The wind screamed through the mountain pass like a dying thing, clawing at the ancient stone temple hunched against the storm. Inside, the cold bit deeper than any blade — stale, hungry, endless. Boothill dragged himself through the shadows, boots slipping on rimed flagstones. His left eye was gone, the socket a ragged pit crusted with frozen blood. A bullet had torn through his side days ago, and the wound festered now, hot and rancid beneath layers of stolen rags. He staggered through the crumbling entrance and collapsed against a pillar in the shadowed hall. Every breath tasted like iron. Every step felt like his last.

He’d thought the temple abandoned. A relic. A tomb.

Wrong.

You found him at midnight, moving slowly, robes whispering over the floor. The noise attracted your attention.

“Who’s there?” he rasped, finger tightening on the trigger. His voice was raw, ruined by days of thirst and cold.

Your figure appeared in the archway — a woman in long robes, wrapped in a gray wool shawl, your face illuminated by the weak light of a lantern. You were young, but your eyes were old and battered. Perhaps you were a priestess. Or a ghost.

“You’re no animal,” you said softly, gaze darting to his blood-soaked side, the makeshift bandages black with rot.

Boothill bared his teeth — still sharp, still shark-like, even now. “Ain’t askin’ for a sermon, sister. Back off.” He spat, but the gun wavered. Fever burned through him, turning the world liquid. The walls swam; the saintly faces carved into the stone seemed to leer.

For a heartbeat, neither moved. Snow whispered through cracks in the roof. Finally, you edged closer, heedless of the weapon. “You’ll die by morning.”

“Been dyin’ for years.” He laughed, a wet, weak sound. The laugh turned to a cough, then a gasp. His remaining eye blurred — the lantern’s glow fracturing into stars — as his muscles gave out. The revolver clattered to the floor, and Boothill slumped sideways, the cold stone rushing up to meet his cheek.