I bit out a curse. Crossing my arms over my chest, I wondered if it might be better to lie on the beam and edge my way across it. It would be more time-consuming, but it would give me less chance of falling. Maybe.
Shaking off my unease, I crossed to the beam but made no moves to even touch it. Instead, I sprawled on my front near the edge and then grabbed the sides of the beam. Sending up silent prayers to the gods, I used my hold on the strip of iron to heave my body forward. Ithurt.Hurt my sore muscles, my wounds, my palms, everything.
Not for the first time today, I called on the ability I’d recently developed in the past forty days to shelve my pain and focus on the matter in front of me. Again and again I pulled myself forward, until eventually my legs were dangling over the edges of the beam.
This was it. There was no going back now.
Keeping my front pressed against the beam, I repeatedly and carefully edged forward. The entire time, I kept my head up; kept my eyes trained on the end of the passage; didn’t once look at what lay beneath me.
I also tried not to think of how hard it would hurt to hit that ice; tried not to imagine just how freezing cold the water would be; tried not to imagine falling on Finian.
And I failed. Dramatically. There was no waynotto fret over any of that.
The wind blew through the passage, whipped up more snow, and barreled right into my side. My heart smashed my ribcage. Feeling myself start to slip, I curled my limbs around the beam and held tight.
Once the wind died down, I edged forward again. And again. And again. It was a painfully slow process, but I eventually past the halfway point. Then the three-quarter-way point, which—
The wind slammed into me yet again.
I braced myself for the impact and clung to the beam with every bit of strength I possessed. The gust smacked me, rocked me, caused my face to bash against the iron so hard it was dizzying.
And my body abruptly tilted.
I would have fallen to the ice below if I hadn’t had a death grip on the iron bar. Instead, I ended up clinging to its underneath, my back to the ice, my pulse racing a mile a minute.
I spat a dozen curses, holding on for dear life. Literally.
Keep moving, don’t just hang there.
I wasn’t sure I could make it. My body trembled from the effort of clinging to the bar. I was just so tired and weak right now.
Still, having no choice but totry, I kept my limbs tight around the beam as I tried smoothing my lower arms and inner thighs along it to propel my body forward. It worked, but I only moved half an inch.
I thought about attempting to roll back onto my stomach, but that would be even harder—not to mention be a waste of precious strength, since the wind could again return me to my current position.
As such, I repeated the whole smoothing along the beam thing. I did it over and over and over, the iron beginning to burn my skin with the friction.
Finally, I reached the end of the beam. It would have been a cause for success, except I was clinging to the damn bottom of it, so there was nowhere for me to go unlessI somehow switched positions. It would be a gamble, but I had no other choice at this point. It was that or—
The wind bashed into me again.
My legs lost their purchase on the beam, and my slower body dropped. A short cry burst out of me as my heart jumped into my throat. I ended up dangling in the air, clinging to the beam by only my hands.
Shit, shit, shit.
I tried swinging my legs upward to again curl around the iron bar, but I didn’t have the strength. My legs dropped yet again.
And one hand slipped.
I scrambled fast, managing to latch onto the same side of the beam as my other hand. Spotting two icy ledges severalinches level with my feet, I worried my chapped lower lip. One shot. I had one shot. If I didn’t make it …
Well, I wasn’t going to think about it.
I inched along the beam without hesitation, knowing I wouldn’t have much time before the wind once again struck. I braced one foot on an icy ledge, relieved when it didn’t crack or shift. Praying my luck continued, I pushed down hard on the ledge as I used my grip on the beam to pull me upwards so that I was able to plant my lower arm on the edge of the crevice.
My pulse out of control, I stuck my other foot on a slightly higher ledge while positioning my free elbow on the beam itself. It took some awkward maneuvering, but I managed to heave myself using both my hands and feet onto safe ground.
Lying there, I scrubbed at my face, my chest rising and falling at a crazy pace. I didn’t want to get up. Even though it was so cold I was shuddering, I didn’t want to rise.
