Taboo Online

Luke felt her enter the connection.

At first, the sensation was little more than warmth moving near the frozen line inside his wrist. Then the bond widened, carrying Lauren’s attention through the Heartroot instead of sending only another feeling across it.

His breathing changed enough for Iris to notice.

"What is it?"

"Lauren. She’s inside the bridge with me."

"Has she found the residue?"

"She’s looking."

Luke could not see exactly what Lauren saw, but he recognized her caution. She tested each layer before moving deeper, the same way she sorted possible futures until one became useful.

The first touch against the dark strand sent pain tearing through Luke’s arm.

His back arched against the support root, though his palm remained against the core.

Iris caught his shoulder. "Stay still. She felt that."

The pressure eased almost immediately. Lauren had recognized the mistake and withdrawn before Iris finished speaking.

The protected circle tilted again. A fracture opened beyond the silver boundary, forcing Dorian to shift his weight while keeping Kellan’s hip fixed.

The crack widened through the remaining platform and exposed the Warden’s Forge below. Black machinery burned among fallen roots, and one of the extraction towers collapsed sideways into the smoke.

Another warning appeared above them.

[Source environment collapse continuing.]

[Protected return zone integrity: 71%.]

[Emergency return unavailable until source bridge separation.]

Kellan watched the fracture widen. "How much longer can she search?"

Iris checked the bindings around his thigh. A dark stain had begun showing through the outer cloth.

"If it breaks through that layer or starts spreading, the lifeline goes back."

"I’m still awake."

"That isn’t the only limit."

Luke forced words through the pressure in his chest. "Put it back now."

Kellan turned toward him. "No. She needs you breathing long enough to free you."

"You’re bleeding through the splints."

"And you’re holding the bridge for everyone still on this side."

Iris looked between them, then tightened the lifeline around Luke’s chest.

"I am making the decision. If that blood breaks through the outer layer, the line goes back. Until then, neither of you wastes another breath arguing about it."

That ended the discussion.

Luke closed his eyes and kept his arm as still as possible while Lauren searched.

Inside the bridge, the Heartroot’s current surrounded everything else.

Its silver-green mana pressed in slow, powerful waves against the stalled route, carrying the weight of roots, memories, and the compressed sanctuary. Each pulse answered the destination network and strained toward the living soil waiting on the other side.

Luke’s mana was smaller and warmer. It rose and fell with his heartbeat, weakening whenever his breathing faltered and tightening again when Iris’s lifeline supported his chest.

The roots showed Lauren where the mana moved. Partner resonance told her which movement belonged to Luke.

She felt the stubborn effort keeping him conscious, the sharp answer of his pain, and the concern that rose whenever fear reached him from her side of the bond. Lauren followed those familiar responses down his arm toward the wrist where the black brands had climbed during the earlier severing.

A third line crossed between Luke and the Heartroot.

It had no rhythm. Nothing answered it, and it carried no command from the Warden’s Forge. Whatever purpose the fragment had once possessed had died when Lifeblade split the hostile tether.

Lauren approached with care.

Its shape revealed what had happened. When Lifeblade severed the tether, one dead length had cinched around the mana channel Luke was already using to maintain the source bridge. The brands on his skin had broken into ash, but the fragment remained beneath them, trapped between his living mana and the Heartroot’s transfer path.

Lauren tried to lift the dead loop away.

Pain struck Luke through the bond.

She released it immediately.

Rhea felt Lauren tense beneath her hands. "What happened?"

"It’s wrapped around his mana."

"Can you break it?"

"Not without pulling part of him with it."

Aelira’s presence entered the destination root beside them. The Queen could not read the exact shape of Luke’s human pathways, but she recognized a dead obstruction caught inside a living network.

Do not tear it.

Lauren kept her attention on the point where the residue tightened.

Then what am I supposed to follow?

Aelira’s answer came slowly through the root.

Find what still answers him.

Lauren understood.

The foreign strand drew her attention because it was cold and rigid, but focusing on it only placed more pressure on Luke. She let the residue fall to the edge of her awareness and followed the living rhythm beneath it.

Luke’s heartbeat guided her through the crowded bridge. Iris’s lifeline tightened around his mana whenever his breathing weakened, giving Lauren another pattern to follow.

Their bond filled in what the roots could not. His fear sharpened whenever hers reached him. His mana pressed back when he realized she was searching, and even close to unconsciousness, he still answered Lauren rather than the Heartroot.

She traced that familiar rhythm down his arm.

Near the wrist, the dead residue crossed the living channel and looped around it.

Lauren held the location in her awareness without touching the foreign strand again.

Luke felt the bond settle around one narrow point inside his arm.

The freezing line became clearer. It had closed around the mana channel he was using to maintain contact with the Heartroot. The active tether was gone, but the dead end had tightened around Luke’s pathway while the core moved away from him.

Iris watched his face.

"Did she find it?"

Luke waited until Lauren’s warmth pressed carefully around the inside of his wrist without pulling.

"Yes."

The system responded once she held the different currents apart.

[Foreign tether residue identified.]

[Hostile control absent.]

[Source anchor remains entangled.]

[Direct severance presents severe risk to living mana flow.]

Luke read the warning and let his head rest against the root behind him.

"So we can’t cut it."

Iris looked toward the paused Heartroot. "Can Lauren move it?"

Luke felt her examining the place where the currents crossed instead of answering.

The Heartroot strained toward Earth without advancing, while Luke’s living mana remained caught beneath the dead loop between them. Lauren fixed the meeting point in her awareness and kept each current distinct.

She had found the exact knot holding Luke to the Heartroot.