Taboo Online

A young rootkeeper collapsed behind her with a jagged splinter of silver wood buried beneath his collarbone. The hammer’s shockwave had torn it from the platform and driven it through his armor.

Iris turned toward him, but all three golden anchors tightened around their current targets. One supported Kellan’s thigh, another held Dorian’s chest together, and the third remained wrapped around Rhea’s injuries.

When she reached for another anchor, nothing formed.

Iris dropped beside the elf anyway and pressed both hands around the wound.

"Stay with me."

His breathing came too quickly, and blood spread between her fingers while a Thornmender fought through the retreating defenders toward them.

"I need one of the anchors," Iris said.

Kellan looked down at the light around his injured leg. "Take mine."

Iris followed the lifeline to the torn muscle beneath it, then glanced at the widening gaps around the inner spine.

"No. You would bleed out before we reached the next crossing."

"Then drag me."

"I’m not trading one dying person for another."

The young elf convulsed beneath her hands. Despite her own words, Iris reached toward Kellan’s lifeline, but the Thornmender caught her wrist as she arrived.

"Leave it," the healer said quietly. "He’s gone."

Iris went still as the rootkeeper released one final breath beneath her palms. She remained over him for several seconds while the battle continued around them, then closed his eyes and rose.

All three lifelines continued to glow as she placed herself between Kellan and the southern bridge.

Rhea glanced at her. "Keep the three you can still save alive."

"I know."

The answer came out rough, but Iris returned to Kellan’s side and checked the anchor around his thigh instead of looking back.

Beside the wounded fifth anchor, Aelira planted one hand against the blackening bindings. Her roots tried to push the brands back, but every new strand gave the corruption another route, and the damaged anchor shuddered beneath her.

Lauren touched the inner spine and opened herself to the Heartroot. Pain and panic struck her all at once. She felt the fifth anchor splitting beneath the fresh bindings, defenders dying in the outer districts, and the leader’s brands digging toward the central root network.

A dull ache gathered behind her blindfold as Oracle’s Glimpse scattered possible futures across the platform. They overlapped too quickly for her to separate them. In some, the fifth anchor tore free. In others, Aelira held it together long enough for the corruption to reach the Heartroot.

"I need three seconds and a piece of ground that won’t move," Lauren said.

Aelira looked toward her. "For what?"

"Oracle’s Heartwood."

Luke tightened his grip on the spear. "You’ll be Rootbound."

"And useful. I can’t separate the futures while the platform is tearing itself apart."

"It might keep tearing."

Lauren pointed toward the inner spine beneath them. "This section stays connected longer than anything else I can reach."

"That doesn’t make it safe."

"No, but it gives the Heartwood time to form."

Aelira drove her blade into the root and opened a circular patch of living wood between the retreating defenders.

"Use the spine. I’ll keep the corruption away from it."

Luke moved beside Lauren as pale roots gathered around her boots. She caught his wrist before he could take another step.

"Rhea needs you."

"I’m staying until the trunk seals."

"I learned this skill so you wouldn’t have to stand over me during every fight."

"I remember."

"Then trust it."

The roots began winding around Lauren’s calves.

Luke cupped her cheek with his uninjured hand and kissed her before the bark climbed any higher. It lasted only a second, but he did not hesitate or wait for her to close the distance.

"Seal the tree," he said. "I’ll stay in range."

Lauren’s lips curved. "Mhm. My boyfriend is learning."

"You don’t make ignoring you easy."

"Go."

Luke released her and moved toward Rhea as Oracle’s Heartwood rose around Lauren.

Pale bark wound around her calves and thighs before widening into the base of a young silver tree. The trunk grew around her hips and waist, then curved across her chest as the living chamber opened behind her.

Lauren stepped backward into the hollow, and the bark sealed in front of her.

[Oracle’s Heartwood activated.]

[The Oracle has become Rootbound.]

[Current bonded ally: Luke.]

[Oracle stability increased.]

[Warning: Active Heartwood may be traced through connected roots.]

The Heartwood began drawing steadily from Lauren’s mana as soon as the bark sealed. The living network restored some of what the skill consumed, but not quickly enough to keep it active forever.

The roar outside dulled to a distant throb. Lauren’s awareness entered the clean roots Aelira had isolated beneath the inner platform, and the Heartwood separated the overlapping futures into paths she could follow.

The brands had already slipped below the fresh bindings.

They moved through the wound left by the extraction blade, using the damaged mana channels as a route toward the central Heartroot.

Lauren followed one outcome to its end. Aelira kept the fifth anchor intact, but the brands reached the central tree less than a minute later and turned every rescue root against the elves using them.

In another, the Heartroot sealed the infected channels. The corruption simply traveled around the barriers and entered the final two anchors from below.

She searched again, changing Aelira’s response, the placement of the bindings, and the flow of mana through the wound.

The result never changed.

The fifth anchor could remain, or the Heartroot could survive. Lauren found no future that allowed both.

She sent the clearest vision through her bond with Luke.

For a heartbeat, he no longer saw the terrace.

Black brands moved through silver veins inside the anchor and entered the central tree. They spread through every surviving path, opened barriers for the Ruinborn, and turned rescue roots against the wounded elves relying on them.

Then the scene changed.

Aelira cut through the fifth anchor’s connection. The infected platform dropped away before the brands reached the Heartroot, though the entire fifth ring died with it.

The terrace snapped back into view.

Aelira still had one hand against the blackening root.

"What did she show you?" the Queen asked.

"Every future where we save the anchor loses the Heartroot." Luke forced himself to say the rest. "You have to cut it."