Selenia pulled on the rains of her mount and squinted at the sun, another sigh escaped her lips as she realized that her vision was still getting worse. Now Selenia could only see vague outlines of anything more than a few feet away from her face and everything was significantly darker, enough so that she could stare directly at the sun without any discomfort.

A flick of the wrist had the horse moving at a slow trot again. The best she could do at the moment was to tell time by the sounds of familiar insects and used the warmth of the sun as a rough guide for where she was going, however, she was not sure how accurate her navigation was because she was forced to stay off of the main roads to avoid patrols.

Luckily her ears still worked well so whenever she heard any groups of animals or people moving in the scattered Forrest she was able to guide the horse in the other direction or moved around them, all this turning around had made navigation significantly more difficult to the already confused woman and now she was not sure where she was headed anymore.

She estimated that the sun was going to go down soon and she needed to find shelter for the night. Normally she would simply climb up a tree and make camp there, but she had a mount at the moment that was probably better at navigating than her at the moment and she could not afford to lose the mobility it gave her.

After deciding that this patch of blurry darkness was as good as every other patch of blurry darkness Salenia dismounted and tied the reins to a tree in a loose knot that would slip if the horse needed to run quickly.

Going through the mental checklist in her mind she found most of them did not work without her sight.

'1. is the area safe... no idea I can't see anything, I could be making camp inside a dragon's nest and I wouldn't know.

2. Do I need to set up any special defenses to stay safe... I can set up traps while blind but I can't do that one-handed.

3...

4...'

Salenia sighed once more and grabbed the closest branch she could find and started to climb the tree by touch until she found a suitable branch to sit on.

Perhaps she should just give up, her face and skin were burnt to a crisp her eyes now near useless moreover her hand was missing. At best she would live out her life as an undesirable cripple who could only rely on others to survive and at worst she would be captured and tortured to death for killing a noble. She laughed bitterly at the thought and imagined that it would not be so bad in comparison the soul branding's pain, she would probably laugh at her torturer.

Selenia found the thought slightly amusing, the last time death drew so near her sole mission became "make it as difficult as possible for my enemies to win even if I lose" and she intended to do so again.

Nails dug into her palm as a fist hit the trunk and a strange light entered her dull eyes.

After running away from home she had promised never to use this magic again, but old grudges would be of no use now. Salenia wrapped her arms around the trunk of the tree she was sitting on and poured mana into her arms. It had been so long since she had done this that she was finding it difficult to mentally direct her mana to connect with the nature spirits in the area.

At first the spirits ignored her silent pleas, then she directed a small amount of mana into her head just above her eyes. A long since dormant stone began to glow with all the colors of the rainbow and a small section of light managed to pass through her skull and gave her face a soft greenish blue glow.

Upon seeing the light the spirits immediately connected with her allowing mana to freely flow between them. The connection to the spirits filled a part of her that she had long since forgotten about. A smile bloomed on her lips for the first time in weeks as she basked in the primitive communications the spirits sent in waves of pure energy.

Now that she was reconnected with the spirits of nature she could ask for their help, at first she sent them a small amount of mana as a token of gratitude for answering her, however, what was a small amount of mana for her was a massive amount of mana for a normal person. With a plentiful source of mana the spirits began their work while sending small burst of energy to Selenia communicating happiness and feelings of being grateful for the mana.

The ground glowed a faint green while the tree grew almost twice its original size, branches weaved themselves around Selenia creating a small room with springy leaves on the ground. plants on the ground started to grow rapidly until they were as taller than the horse concealing it completely and left several edible plants growing around the animal. The roots absorbed water from below ground and filtered it through itself while bringing the water up into a small indent inside the newly created room. And finally a thick layer of leaves spread out concealing the treehouse.

Selenia thanked the spirits and drank for the first time in days and washed her tender face making sure to wash any poison out of her eyes in the process. Feeling the cleanest she had in what felt like forever she drifted off to sleep.

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flecks of light passed through the gaps in the leaves and branches lighting up the small room Salenia slept in and she woke to the sound of chirping birds. She began to rub her eyes by habit then noticed that her skin felt significantly better than the night before, after feeling around the scars she found that they were less pronounced than last time and she guessed the color would be a little better now.

The birds outside were making a racket and she wondered how she managed to sleep through that. She had been more tired than she thought, suddenly the amount of birds around the tree caught her attention, she could hear at least a dozen identifiable species by their songs and a dozen more that she could not identify.

The basic checks she did whenever she encountered something suspicious revealed that almost half of her mana was missing. She had forgotten to cut the connection with the spirits last night and now they had passively taken her mana while she slept.

After a quick message the branches opened up below her and she was able to climb down the tree and find her horse, her sight had improved slightly from last night and she could easily imagine what the spirits did with her mana, they were not particularly good at healing magic but they were effective if you just shoved massive amounts of mana at them along with enough time to use it.

Sounds of movement caught her attention just before nearly half the birds took flight, with no time to spare Salenia untied the horse and mounted before giving it a kick in the rear. Initially the grass slowed the horse's speed but once it cleared the initial tall grass it was able to get to a full gallop and was noticeably faster than before last night.

Salenia glanced behind and even with her poor eyesight, she could tell that the entire area around where she slept had overgrown into a thick forest in stark contrast to the sparse forest she was traveling in before. This would be obvious to anyone with a brain and there would be search parties converging on her location the moment that the first light of dawn shone on the area.