Addison pushed one hand against the ground to rotate her weight to the opposite side and stand up. Her weight was primarily leaning on the uninjured leg, but she knew she would have to test the weight eventually — and deal with it regardless of the severity. It wasn’t exactly she could spend a few days in the woods because she had taken a tumble.

She liked to think the queen would eventually send someone, or another of the fey would stumble upon her. But she was at a point in her life that she couldn’t promise it. That meant relying more on herself.

Even if it hurt.

With a deep breath, she even out her weight, and flinched. It didn’t feel good — but closer to a bruise than a broken bone, and she needed to be thankful for small victories. She hopped backward with one foot, and immediately regretted it. Her thoughts had decided it would be the easiest option to step forward and test her weight, when in reality it should have caused a new fall backward, giving her another spot to heal later.

She got lucky time though, and when she caught her breath and thought out her next few steps a little more rationally, she stepped forward again. She flinched, again, but her leg continued to hold her weight, which was all she needed to know. With a small nod to herself, she focused her attention on the vine.

It was thick indeed, would probably take both her hands to move it. She would also need it to be long enough to throw over one of the branches, but not so long that she couldn’t manage to pull it out of the woods; especially with a limp.

On either side of her path was trees, and the thing seemed to extend both directions. She knew it could be her ticket to the door. She didn’t know how to access its usefulness. Her lips pulled to one side of her face, and she wonderer ed if she didn’t need to just pick a direction.

Move to one side and see if she could find where it met the ground or a weak place to begin pulling it apart. If she could grasp onto a thread or two instead of the entire thing at once, she might have better luck. Without any tools, however, there seemed to be a thousand variables in her way.

Neither side looked much more promising, but light was filtering in heavy toward her right. Light was valuable, and darkness meant more work for her, so she turned on one heel and began to limp that way, keeping her feet close to the vine/lifeline.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

One heavy footstep followed by one light as she made her way off the path and between the trees. The vine didn’t weave or move up and down the wildlife. It was almost as if the trees and bushes had found ways around it, instead.

It was bright green except for the brown leaves and dead grass. Green meant harder to cut, but sturdier and better weight baring. Every detail seemed to tip the scales both ways, she thought as she continued her limping stroll.

She passed a rabbit that was running in the other direction, and a bush that had berries so ripe they were falling off of it. She passed a gigantic tree that she would call an oak if anyone asked, and a tiny sapling that couldn’t have been more than a few months old — even by fey time.

Her thoughts were fragmented, wanting to stop and take time on every little thing, but she forced herself to stay focused. Her hunger wouldn’t kill her — if she could complete her task and get on with her life. So she tore her eyes away from the forest and stared at the vine and the ground around it.

She watched her feet kick up tiny amounts of dust, and listened as the forest went on living around her. A scuttle would pass by, and her eyes would jerk forward. She would need to remind herself to look forward; she had a goal and if she got too distracted she would have to wander through the forest. When she looked back, she realized that the ground in front of her was baren.

It was still the forest, but her lifeline had disappeared.

Her heart thumped against her chest and stopped for a brief second. The sensation caught her breath in her throat, and the panic rose like bile; fast and out of her control. Her chest heaved and she turned around, nearly losing her breakfast before her eyes spotted the thing.

She hadn’t lost it, which meant she hadn’t gotten lost. She had simply walked right past the end. It did wrap around a tree, about two feet and to the left from where she stopped. A lump sat in her throat despite the fact that nothing had changed, and a sound left her mouth.

Addison didn’t have a word for the sound, but she didn’t spend long trying to figure it out. The vine only stopped halfway up the tree — she had found the end.

Limping forward she reached her hand out, gently touching the living things she would soon kill to be her tools. Her fingers ran over the tendrils of the vine, then moved to the rough bark of the tree. It felt like the bark of the queen's tree, but on a much smaller scale. The pieces were closer together, the branches lower to the ground. It was every day, regular tree, with a green vine climbing upward to find the sun.

She pulled herself up onto her tiptoes, her teeth clenching together as her wounded knee yelled at her. Getting as tall as she could get, the fingernail of her middle finger reached the tip of the vine. She hooked her finger a few degrees, and let her arm drop just a little.

Let gravity do a little bit of the work.

Her arm fell away with nothing to hold it upright. Her shoulder burned and her legs were getting tired. But when she looked back up, she saw all the progress she needed at that moment. The vine had pulled away from the tree by a half an inch.