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I step into my harness and pull it up, contemplating the question. “Probably not,” I admit. “Who would do that? It’s not worth the risk. You’d be disqualified for sure.”
Iara turns away and starts going through her gear. She gets all the buckles tight and double checks them. Then she checks them again.
“You already did that.”
“This makes me uncomfortable. The race is enough of a challenge. I don’t need someone actively trying to, you know…”
“Yeah.”
We look at each other. Would it be bad to have each other’s back? We wouldn’t have to help each other. We could be just an extra set of eyes for the other, sharing information. What could it hurt?
I reach into my pocket and pull out the flavor plants. I hold them out.
Iara’s eyes widen. “You’re picking herbs?”
“You were right, the bar tastes like –”
“Sawdust.”
“I was going to say shit, but whatever. I found these. Suck on a leaf for a while, it freshens your breath up. Do you want to trade?”
“Trade what?”
“The flower. Some of each for two petals.”
She reaches into her pocket. Carefully, she breaks the flower in half.
“You don’t have to give me half.”
“I want to. Good sportsmanship. And if I need more than half a flower, well, that’s going to be a pretty serious injury.”
We swap plants. She sniffs the ones I hand her and pops a leaf in her mouth. We start the climb together, but I quickly take the lead. The space between us grows.
I fuss with my gear at the top as long as I can but eventually leave without her. She’s nowhere near the top yet, and I want to get a good spot at the clearing. If it rains, part of it floods. If forgetting the harness for your climbing belt is the worst thing you can do on the first day, getting yourself soaked the first night is a close second.
I’m sitting outside my tent when she shows up.
“Is this spot taken?”
I should say yes. I should tell her to back off and get her own space. She’ll be fine for one night without trailing behind me like a fledgling clinging to its mother. But something else, and I know what it is, wants to ask her to join me. By my side, in my tent, in my…
I can’t. I wash those thoughts from my mind and replace them with something safer, more casual.
“No.”
I refrain from helping her with her tent. We are not partners. We’re just not… Heck, I don’t know what we are.
8
IARA
Alittle more than twenty of us have formed a cluster of our own. We aren’t traveling together, perse, but we tend to keep bumping into each other and move at about the same speed on the same path.
It’s nice to have familiar faces to greet, but the novelty of it is starting to wear off. Our conversations and proximity begin to thin as the shroud of competition sets in. I should count myself lucky that Rylan is still anywhere in my vicinity.
Which is curious, honestly.
The towering Tournalese mountain beckons us into the ominous unknown, begging me to take a moment to myself. The others start to pass me up, which is fine. This time.
