Free The Arena (Ultimate Soldier Book 1) by Tessa Escalera

her knife to hack at the vines if she had no other option.
     
    After a few hours of struggling through the dense forest, Lila was sweating and panting despite the chill that her wet clothes imparted. She and Seeker sat in a hollow in the trunk of a massive tree that created a shelter just large enough for the two of them. Lila fed the dog a few bites of the food she carried, and ate just enough to quell the growling in her own stomach. The tree that sheltered them bore few branches until several dozen feet above where the trunk abruptly ended and spread into a concave platform with a branch emerging from the edge every few feet like the spokes of a wheel. Protector had called these Bowl trees, and taught Lila to spend the night in one of them whenever possible. Most of the trees were just big enough to hold a few people and supplies, but some grew to the point where they pierced the canopy and could hold an entire house―the purpose for which Protector said that the trees had originally been bred. Lila had never been able to figure out how someone “bred” a tree, though that was the exact word Protector had used. Something about rich people who had nothing better to do than build houses to suit their particular taste and whim. The bowls had often been claimed by birds, squirrels or even snakes, but dealing with any of these was far easier and safer than expecting to survive a night on the ground with the wolves, or trying to sleep while balanced on a branch in a normal tree.
    All too soon, Lila folded the food pouch and set it back in her backpack, settling the pack into place on her shoulders and twisting her hair into a knot on the back of her neck that she secured with a rope made of braided bits of vines. “Time to go,” she told the dog. Seeker yipped happily and licked Lila's hand. “At least one of us is enjoying this,” Lila rolled her eyes tolerantly at the dog, rubbing Seeker's ears.
     
    Thunder crashed overhead and the dripping of water turned into a rush as the skies opened. Lila found a deer path that led in the general direction that she wanted to go and they followed it between the tree trunks, heads lowered against the onslaught of rain, Lila watching the ground to make sure that a misplaced step did not result in a twisted ankle. The trees stood out starkly against the vivid green, their trunks darkened by the water. The cloying sweet scent of honeysuckle hung in the air, joined by the smell of dead leaves disturbed by their passage.
     
    After a while Lila realized that the rushing of water she heard in the distance was more than just the pounding of the rain on the leaves. The path twisted around the trunk of a massive Bowl tree and plunged down the mossy edge of a rushing stream that wound between deep banks. The water was too narrow and rocky for Lila and Seeker to walk in it and small trees grew too densely on the banks for them to walk alongside. After several moments of trying to hack a path through the undergrowth a couple dozen feet from the stream, Lila found hints of an animal path that let them quicken their pace. The path was narrow, and the branches of saplings grabbed at Lila's arms as she passed, but despite this she was able to settle into a mile-eating jog. Winding through trees, jumping over roots, ducking under branches. Seeker trotted along behind. The rain did not let up, and the water streamed steadily from the leaves, making the day seem much cooler than it was. Lila hoped to reach the mansion―and if not, the plains―by nightfall, but the more time that passed, the more her optimism waned. The spaces had seemed deceptively small on her map. Protector had told her that the Arena was approximately two hundred miles wide east to west, and a little less from north to south. This meant that even if she were to travel in a straight line from the Cliffs to the edge of the forest, she would have to run at least ten miles. Even now with no grassland in sight she had already traveled