The Svalbard Airport stood like a quiet sentinel at the edge of the Arctic, where the mountains leaned close to the sea and the wind carried the taste of salt and ice. Its runway stretched in a dark, unwavering line across ground that never truly thawed, reinforced by gravel and insulation against the restless shift of permafrost beneath. On one side, the fjord lay still, a sheet of steel-blue water that mirrored the sky in summer and froze into pale glass in the long winter. On the other, mountains rose abruptly, their slopes draped in snow that glowed with a pale fire in the endless twilight.
