And the ice, which was not her ally in life, was her perfect preserver in death.

For 2,500 years, the ice held.

When it melted, she emerged.

And the world she had come from, which had been gone for two millennia, came back with her — in the blue of the tattoo, in the silk of the blouse, in the golden birds on the spike of the headdress.

The secret inside the Ice Maiden’s tomb was not a single revelation.

It was an entire world.