"It's cold up here." Ursa stepped down from the hauler and handed me a thermos. "Not the place to drink ice caff, Your Highness." She took the mug I was holding. "Drink the fresh one."
"Thank you," I said.
It was cold. Most of Tarina was relatively flat, but close to its border with Elucia the land rose, and though the incline was gradual and moderate, the temperature change was dramatic.
As before, we made base camp in the furthest possible spot the vehicles could reach, and from here on out we would continue on foot, but it wouldn't be a hard climb. There was a path, and it wasn't very steep. Even Ursa could join us, but I knew she would prefer to stay behind inside the warm hauler.
"Are you sure you don't want to come?" I asked. "It will be a safe adventure for you."
"I am a lady's maid, Your Highness, not a goat." She surveyed the slope with open distaste. "I climb stairs when I must. I do not climb mountains. I will keep the kettle hot for when you all come down half-frozen." She leaned closer and lowered her voice. "Someone needs to watch over the camp. I don't trust those two." She pointed her chin at the drivers who were staying behind.
"They were vetted by Jeffson, so I don't expect any trouble from them, but it's a good idea to keep your eyes on things down here just in case someone who saw us making camp gets ideas."
Gavon hadn't joined us at all, which surprised no one but still managed to disappoint me even though it shouldn't have. I kept hoping he'd rise above the low expectations everyone had of him, and that he had of himself, but he kept proving them right and me wrong.
He'd made a whole act out of it, pressing his hand to the ankle he'd broken in the avalanche and making an impassioned speech about how his body simply wasn't ready to be tested again and how he'd only slow me down and worry me.
I didn't fall for his act, but I pretended that I did because the alternative was to confront him, and that was pointless. I wasn't going to change him. The only thing I could do was either accept him as he was or end things between us.
The thought had crossed my mind on more than one occasion, but I wasn't ready to do that yet. So, I'd let him kiss my forehead and tell me to come back to him with wonderful stories, because my expeditions made excellent scenes in his screenplays that no one wanted to produce.
I'd told him I'd bring him a souvenir.
Denna and Palel, my research assistants who had been hurt as badly as or worse than Gavon during the avalanche,were accompanying me on this trek, and Palel wasn't even complaining because it looked easy from where we were standing.
The other members of my team were Jeffson, my trusted mountain guide, and two new porters he'd brought along, named Dyshas and Borin. Dyshas was tall, light-haired, and wore a colorful wool cap that looked like it had been knitted by a child, and Borin was short and dark-haired, and wore a traditional Tarinian cap that was knitted from natural fibers and extended over his ears to keep them warm.
Denna walked up to me and patted her satchel. "I'm ready, Your Highness."
I rolled my eyes. "You know the rules, Denna. I'm Royal Highness only in the palace and on television. Everywhere else I'm just Idrilia."
"Sorry." Denna pushed her new pair of glasses up her nose. "I've been influenced by Ursa. She's not following your rules."
"I know." I grimaced. "It's a lost cause with her."
"Fine her every time she calls you Royal Highness when you are outside the palace. That will make her stop. My mother used to do that to my brother and me to get us to stop swearing."
I arched a brow. "Did it work?"
"It did, except for the times we were so mad at each other that we were willing to pay the price for each of the swear words we hurled."
I couldn't imagine the straitlaced Denna using inappropriate language, but as I was learning, sometimes appearances could be misleading.
"Oh, don't look so surprised." She waved a dismissive hand. "I'm not as prim and proper as I look."
"Says the girl who is carrying two extra pairs of glasses in her satchel."
"I am not going to be blind on a mountain again. I don't repeat prior mistakes. I learn from them."
"That's smart. Perhaps I need to take a page out of your book."
She frowned but smartly didn't ask me to explain.
"So? Are we going or what?" Palel asked. "I'd rather be done with this trek and back in camp before it gets dark."
To his credit, this was the first semi-complaint he'd lodged, which was admirable given how much he hated field work.
The guy had chosen the wrong specialty, expecting to spend his days in the lab examining soil that had been delivered to him. He hadn't figured on actually collecting samples himself.
