the trees.
'I won't be staying.' She shook her head. 'I can't stay.'
We agreed we would all remain on the gantry until Ben had transferred the hammer to the bank near to where it had been stored. Then he would return to the anvil to await the outcome. It was as near to safe as we could make him. I still had the memory of standing in Meg Highsmith's kitchen, trying to explain that the task was not without risk and that others might try to stop us. Warning her did not make me feel any less responsible. At least this way he would return.
'It's waiting for you,' he called up to us, and then to me, 'Are you going to be OK?'
I looked at Blackbird and she held my gaze. She would not look away.
'We're doing what we must,' I told him.
Raffmir and Solandre were arguing on the bank next to the gantry. Raffmir's reasonable tone was underscored by her hissing and spitting. If he hadn't been there to hold her back then I think she would have gone for us, law or no law.
I trusted Raffmir's sense of honour. To him this was all a game. He liked it. He liked the play of it. That was why he had allowed me to include Ben and Alex in the deal. He was playing to win and it suited him to raise the stakes. He had not even considered losing.
I had come to understand that it was this unshakeable confidence that gave the Feyre their power. The magic was there, regardless, but like a razor edge it was inert until it had intent. For that they needed belief in themselves.
Solandre was different. I suspected that she was used to being feared and respected, but that had been thrown into doubt when she had failed to kill me and had been forced to excuse her failure with tales of a half-breed mongrel wielding gallowfyre. She'd told me in the glade that they had not believed her, that they'd said she was hallucinating or dreaming. She'd begun to doubt herself and that doubt had eaten away at her like the rot she had spread into my bedroom door. Doubt was not something the Feyre could afford.
I trusted Raffmir, but I feared his sister. I feared she was no longer sane.
I turned to Blackbird. 'I don't trust her.'
'Nor I, but the law here is strong. Her life is forfeit if she goes against the trial or its outcome and she knows that.'
'I don't think she cares. She's not rational anymore.'
'I'm not thinking about her,' she said.
And there it was. The thing she had agreed I should do was the thing she believed would end me.
'I've been living on borrowed time, remember?'
She turned her face away, but I caught her chin and turned it back to me. Tears brimmed into her eyes, running carelessly down her cheeks.
'Have faith,' I told her.
'I do,' she whispered. 'I'm so sorry. If I could think of another way…'
'There is no other way.'
She pressed herself into my chest and I wrapped my arms around her, her head resting against my shoulder. I breathed her scent, which wrapped around me even in the foulness of the fetid tunnel. She was a private breath of sunshine and, for that moment, she was mine.
'Are you prepared?' Raffmir's voice was expectant, keen with enthusiasm.
'I am ready,' I told him.
Blackbird hugged me one last time and I lifted her face to plant a damp kiss on her lips. I smiled for her. If we were doing this then I wanted it over with.
I climbed down first onto the bank where we had retrieved the hammer, with Blackbird climbing after me. I called my thanks to Ben. He'd left the hammer close to where the rungs were set, leading down into the dark water. As we approached it the hackles rose on the back of my neck and my senses jarred at it. Carrying it was going to be an ordeal, even without the water.
I wiped my palms on my trousers where they were greasy with slime and sweat. My spine was prickling and my head ached with the wrongness of it. I would try and make this quick. The less time I had to spend near the thing, the better.
Raffmir descended the ladder and produced a lace handkerchief to wipe the slime from his hands and from the edges of his sleeves. He was as fastidious as a cat and the expression on his face as his white hanky took on the green-brown stain was almost worth enduring the trial for.
Solandre stood at the top of the ladder. I knew it was petty but I looked forward to her getting her hands dirty. Instead, she stepped lightly off the gantry and floated gently to the ground, her skirts billowing around her legs. Another benefit, I supposed, of not being entirely anchored to reality.
Disappointed, I turned back to the hammer.
I could not escape the sense that it was somehow alive, brooding darkly, waiting for its opportunity to hurt me. It would not have long to wait.
Ben had secured a sling around it with some blue nylon rope. I blessed him, as it would mean I could descend into the river without having to hold the hammer at the same time.
Raffmir objected. 'You cannot have the rope. You must carry the hammer across yourself,' he asserted.
Blackbird corrected him. 'Actually you said it must be taken by he who stands trial from one side to the other. You did not specify the means by which it should be carried.'
He hesitated, and then allowed that it was what he'd said. He didn't look happy about it, though. 'Very well, but he may not throw it or pass it across. He must take it across the river himself.'
'Agreed,' I confirmed.
I had never liked water. Not since the day I had almost drowned. I claimed I'd never had the time to learn to swim, but the truth was that I could always think of something else to do rather than that. With the hammer, though, swimming was not going to be an option. It would weigh me down like an anchor.
Ben had bound the rope around the head and down around the end of the handle forming a sling of sorts. It looked welltied and secure.
'Which way up do you want it?' Blackbird must have been steeling herself because she looked relaxed as she went over to it. Whether this show was for my benefit or theirs I could not say.
'Put the head at the bottom. That way it will be easier to manoeuvre.'
'Just don't touch it by mistake, OK?'
The worst part was picking up the hammer. Blackbird helped me, even though it must have made her flesh crawl to do it. She slipped the nylon rope over my head and shoulder so the hammer was slung across my back. It made my bones ache, my nerves jangle and my muscles cramp and twitch, but I would bear it. I was determined to see this through.
My stomach knotted and twisted and I comforted myself that it was not the thought of the river turning my guts, but the proximity of the hammer. As I stood, finally prepared, Blackbird brushed my hair back from my face in a gesture I understood. It was enough to raise the ghost of a smile, though in truth I was feeling sick from being so close to the hammer. There was nothing left to say.
Looking down at the flow, I was sure that if I simply tried to cross the stream then I would be swept away. The current had risen while we were there, fuelled by the rain from the world above, and the whole width of it would be treacherous. For a moment my mind filled with the thought of it invading my nostrils, choking my mouth, slipping dark and cold into my lungs until it starved me of oxygen, leaving me scrabbling for air.
'Ready?' Blackbird's voice broke into my thoughts.
I nodded once, telling myself it would be OK.
'May fortune smile upon you.'
Fortune was all well and good, but I was not intending to leave this to chance. I smiled back at her, not daring to linger or I would give myself away.
I had come up with a plan.
I could try and explain to her, but it was better that she didn't know. I wasn't quite sure whether what I intended was within the strict laws of the trial, but it would meet the conditions that Raffmir had set out and I was relying on his sense of honour to hold back his sister when, and if, I endured. I was not without hope, but I would keep my secret to myself.
