Taboo Online

Roots had closed around the attackers who breached the outer defenses. Elven archers fired from the bridges above while armored defenders advanced through the narrow opening.

They believed they had stopped the invasion.

A dark stain moved beneath their feet.

The thin woman Lauren had seen decaying the roots remained outside the wall, but her corruption had already entered the living wood. Black veins spread beneath the defenders and traveled toward the village through the same roots forming their barricade.

If the elves continued reinforcing the wall, they would carry the corruption deeper.

Lauren shaped her first warning.

Sever the eastern roots. The wall is infected.

The green light sank into her palm.

Pain tightened behind her blindfold as the Heartroot pulled the warning through her mind and sent it into the village. The elves did not hear her voice. Instead, the spirit showed them the infected roots, the direction of the spreading corruption, and what they needed to do.

A commander standing upon the wall suddenly looked down. He pressed one gloved hand against the root beneath him, and his face tightened when black corruption seeped between his fingers.

He shouted an order.

Elven blades struck their own defenses while archers abandoned the bridges. The roots holding the attackers began to retract from the settlement, opening the eastern path.

Several villains laughed and rushed forward, but the commander raised both arms. A line of pale trees collapsed between the wall and the village, cutting the infected roots away before the corruption could spread any farther.

The attackers gained ground, but the Heartroot remained clean.

Outside the wall, the thin woman screamed when her connection broke. Her hands sank deeper into the abandoned roots and rotted them into dark pulp, but none of the corruption could cross the severed line.

Lauren had saved the Heartroot, but the village had lost its strongest wall.

The spirit shifted her attention to the second crisis.

A guard near the inner bridge suddenly turned and drove his sword into the side of the elf beside him.

Screams broke through the defensive line as two more guards raised their weapons against their allies. Their movements were stiff and uneven, but the elves around them saw only betrayal. The royal defenders drew their bows, and several futures showed all three controlled guards dying beneath their own people’s arrows.

Lauren activated Unveiled Weakness.

Purple light entered the siege.

Foreign mana burned along the guards’ spines, shoulders, and wrists. It pulled through their bodies in ways that did not match their natural mana channels and explained every rigid, unnatural movement.

Nearly invisible strands extended from each point, crossed the village, and led back to the masked woman standing on a distant bridge.

Lauren followed the threads to the place where they met. Every strand carried mana toward a black metal ring on the woman’s left hand.

Simply telling the elves that their guards were controlled would not be enough. They might hesitate while the controlled weapons continued moving.

Lauren shaped the warning more carefully.

Do not kill the bound. Cut the threads and break the black ring.

The second light disappeared.

Through the Heartroot, the elves received an image of the threads and the ring holding them together.

An archer preparing to fire at one of the controlled guards lowered her aim, shifted toward a faint movement above his shoulder, and released. The arrow severed one of the threads, and the guard collapsed.

The other archers followed the broken connection back to the masked woman. Three arrows struck the black ring and shattered it around her finger, releasing a burst of pale mana that tore every remaining thread apart.

The controlled elves fell among the defenders they had been forced to attack. One had already killed his companion, and horror spread across his face when he saw the blood on his sword. The others dragged him away before the masked villain could create new threads.

Lauren released Unveiled Weakness as pain throbbed through her temples.

Two warnings had already drained more of her than she expected. Even with the Heartroot narrowing the siege, Oracle’s Glimpse kept shifting as every decision created new futures. Adding Unveiled Weakness made the pressure worse.

When Lauren raised one hand to her face, warm blood had already begun running beneath her nose. The Heartroot pulsed against her other palm but did not close the connection.

Lauren understood why. There was nobody else.

"I know," she murmured. "Give me a moment."

Before she could catch her breath, the Heartroot carried her toward the western homes.

A bridge collapsed.

The broad villain stood beside the remains of an elven statue. He had struck the monument only once before walking away, but now the stored force inside the stone erupted.

The statue launched across the village, tore through the bridge, and sent elves tumbling into the streets below. Part of the monument crashed into a home where several families had been sheltering.

Laughing, the villain touched a broken section of railing as he passed. A faint red mark appeared beneath his palm and faded into the wood.

Lauren followed him through several possible futures. He moved from walls to statues, then to carts and fallen weapons. He left each object alone until enough people gathered nearby, then released the force stored inside it.

Problems appeared faster than Lauren could deal with them. Children were trapped beneath the bridge, marked objects had become weapons, black-orange fire was spreading through an ancestral hall, and the Queen had left the central tree to stop three villains approaching the evacuation routes.

Only three lights remained.

Lauren searched for a warning that could save more than one person.

The broad villain slapped his hand against the remains of the bridge, and a red mark flashed across the wood. He intended to detonate it once rescuers gathered around the trapped children.

Lauren reached for the third light.

Do not touch the marked ruins. Move the children through the roots below.

The warning entered the village as an image of the marked debris, the force stored inside it, and the safe route beneath the bridge.

Rescuers approaching the ruins stopped. One elf looked beneath the broken wood and found the faint red mark Lauren had seen.

Instead of lifting the debris, the elves placed both hands against the ground.

Roots began to rise beneath the trapped children.