Vivienne Ashford's Arc

Chapter 1 of 8

Vivienne Ashford had counted the walls of her cell four hundred times, and every wall was made of living wood. The fortress was not stone. It was a plant grown into a mansion, its rooms woven from thick vines and layered leaves. Her captor had locked her in a chamber high inside those green walls. He wanted her here until she gave him what he'd taken her for. She wanted only one thing: out. The door was a knot of braided roots. It had no hinge and no keyhole. Vivienne had tested every seam with her fingernails until they bled. The vines held tight. Above her, a small pet watched from a shelf grown into the wall. It had the soft face and round ears of a mouse, but its body bristled with spines, and its tail ended in a barbed point. Her captor's creature. It had never left her since the day the guards threw her in. Vivienne pulled the pen from the hem of her sleeve. The guards had searched her twice and missed it. They thought it was a writing tool. She pressed the clip, and the sleek body split open. A thin blade slid out, bright and sharp as a razor. She had smuggled it in for exactly this moment. She knelt at the base of the door and cut. The blade bit into the vine. Green sap welled up and ran over her hands. The wood was tough, and each cut took long, slow strokes. Her arm burned. The spined creature crept closer and sniffed the sap. Then the door began to close the wound. The severed vines curled toward each other and knit shut faster than she could cut. The mansion was alive. It was healing itself. Vivienne stopped. She stared at the little creature, then at the wet sap on her blade. The plant felt her cutting. But it did not seem to fear the pet. She held the blade out. The creature licked the sap, hissed, and lashed its barbed tail against the door in a temper. The spines tore the vine. Where the tail struck, the wood blackened and did not heal. Some venom in the barb poisoned the living wall. Vivienne understood. She could not cut this place. She had to wound it in a way it could not close. She scooped the creature up. It squirmed and jabbed her arm, but she held on and pressed its thrashing tail against the door's weakest seam. The barbs raked deep. The wood withered and split. She kicked. The rotted vines snapped, and the door tore open. Cold air rushed in from a corridor of hanging leaves. Vivienne stepped through, the pen-blade in one hand and the furious little beast tucked under her arm. She was out of the cell. Down the leafy hall, boots struck the floor, running toward her.