Taboo Online

Aelira turned toward him. "We just saved it."

"We saved it from the machine. That bought time to move your people, but it didn’t close the wound."

"You expect me to destroy it now?"

"The brands are already inside. If the anchor stays connected, they reach the central tree."

Aelira planted both palms on the silver root. It answered with a deep pulse of pain, and her grip tightened when black veins flashed beneath the surface.

The leader reached the end of the southern bridge and smiled when he saw her understand.

"You can feel me in there, can’t you?"

Aelira’s living blade curved into her hand.

He continued walking. "Keep it attached. I would rather take the whole root network at once."

Luke stepped between him and the Heartwood. The leader studied the blood covering Luke’s shoulder and the spear hanging low in his hands.

"You can barely hold that."

Luke raised the point anyway. "Come closer and check."

The masked woman laughed behind the leader. "The Oracle chose a cute guard dog."

"Boyfriend," Luke corrected.

She laughed again. "Even cuter."

Threads flashed toward Luke’s arms. He turned the spear and caught the first group around the shaft, but the second slipped past his shoulder and reached for the Heartwood.

Luke stepped across them and dragged the spear down. The blade cut several strands before they reached the pale bark, though the movement sent pain through his wounded arm.

"Luke," Lauren’s voice reached him through the Heartwood bond. "Three steps right."

He obeyed immediately. A thread passed through the space his neck had occupied and buried itself in the root behind him.

Luke twisted the spear around the strand and pulled. The masked woman had expected him to cut it, and the sudden drag jerked her arm toward the gap between the platforms.

Kellan raised one hand. A precise arc followed the thread toward the masked woman’s fingers.

She hissed and severed the connection before the current reached her hand.

"Better lightning," Iris said beside him.

Kellan kept his attention on the bridge. "I remember."

The hammer wielder charged. Every collapse, gunshot, and cracking root had fed the weapon on his shoulder, and the air distorted around him as he crossed the final stretch of the southern bridge.

Rhea formed her remaining panels into a slanted wall instead of meeting the strike directly.

"Dorian, low."

His bronze circle narrowed beneath her shields.

The giant brought the hammer down. Rhea turned the panels at the moment of impact, sending most of the stored force across their angled surfaces and into the empty terrace beside them.

The force that remained still drove her onto one knee.

Dorian thrust the black hook into the giant’s damaged chest plate. The oath’s bronze glow sank through the crack Aelira had opened earlier, but the hammer wielder slammed one forearm into him and sent him skidding backward.

Iris’s lifeline flashed around Dorian’s ribs.

A strip of exposed metal showed beneath the shattered chest plate.

"Kellan, left side of his chest!" Luke shouted.

Kellan’s first arc struck the giant’s armor and vanished into the vibrations surrounding him. He adjusted the angle of his hand and released a thinner current, allowing the second bolt to slip through the broken seam.

Lightning spread beneath the giant’s armor. His next step faltered, though he remained standing.

"That hurt," he said.

Kellan leaned against the railing to keep his injured leg from folding. "Good."

The leader moved while everyone watched the giant. He laid his marked palm on one of Aelira’s rescue roots, sending black brands across the inner platform and around the Queen’s ankles.

The living wood tightened hard enough to crack the remaining plates around her boots.

Luke drove his spear beneath the nearest root and forced the shaft upward. Without Reinforce, the movement tore at his shoulder and barely lifted the wood.

Aelira brought her blade down and split the corrupted root away from her leg, but another immediately curled into its place.

"The fifth anchor," Luke said through clenched teeth. "You have to cut it now."

"There are still defenders crossing from the fifth ring."

Inside the Heartwood, Lauren searched for a route through the evacuation. Three rootkeepers were guiding three injured elves toward the inner paths, while the fifth anchor’s outer terraces collapsed into the ruins behind them.

If Aelira severed the connection immediately, all six would fall with the infected root. If she waited, the brands would reach the central network.

Farther along the fifth ring, several weaker lights still moved across paths too distant for Rhea’s panels to reach. Lauren could not save them from here, but the six on the nearest passage still had a chance.

She tested one route after another. Every rejected future consumed more mana, and the Heartwood’s steady drain had begun hollowing out her reserves.

At last, Lauren found a sequence that brought all six nearby evacuees onto the inner spine before the corruption crossed the final channel.

The plan entered Luke’s mind.

"Rhea, two panels beneath the fifth-ring passage," he said. "Dorian holds the south. Kellan cuts the chains over the evacuees."

Rhea moved without questioning the source of his orders. She sent two shields beneath the damaged path while Dorian shifted his oath circle across the open approach.

Kellan waited for the exact instant Lauren had shown Luke, then cut through a pair of branded chains moments before they dragged the remaining walkway down.

The trapped elves ran. One rootkeeper carried a wounded woman over his shoulder. The second supported an elderly rootkeeper whose left leg no longer touched the ground, while the third dragged a young defender whose burned leg could no longer support him.

All six reached Rhea’s panels just as the fifth-ring passage separated beneath them.

"Now," Luke said.

Aelira stood over the fifth anchor. Her living blade lengthened in her hands, but she did not move.

The Heartroot trembled beneath them. Through Lauren’s bond, Luke saw fragments of everything the doomed anchor carried. Homes grew along silver branches, children took their first steps across living bridges, and families gathered beneath the leaves during the final years before the Black Rain swallowed the forest.

Aelira’s fingers tightened against the bark. She was feeling those memories too.

The leader smiled from the southern edge. "Go on, Queen. Cut your own kingdom apart."

Aelira’s face hardened as the black brands inside the anchor pulsed again.

She raised her blade.

"Every living path withdraws from the fifth ring!" she shouted. "Release the fifth anchor!"

The silver channels clenched around the infected connection. Even the Heartroot resisted letting another piece of itself go, and the entire platform groaned beneath the strain.

Aelira struck the root with her bare palm.

"Release it!"