Taboo Online

Her command passed through the central tree. One by one, the living channels connecting the fifth anchor closed, drawing green light away from the infected wood while the remaining rescue roots pulled toward the inner platform.

System windows appeared before the awakened defenders.

[Emergency Heartroot severance initiated.]

[Fifth anchor connection failing.]

[All living paths must withdraw.]

The leader’s brands spread faster.

"Break her concentration," he ordered.

The masked woman sent threads across the platform, while the hammer wielder raised his weapon and drew in the sound of every structure collapsing around them.

Rhea called her third panel into place beside the two carrying the final evacuees. She had no shield left for herself.

Dorian stepped in front of her and planted the black hook between the evacuees and the southern bridge. This time, he placed his line around the people instead of the ground he had been ordered to hold.

His bronze circle spread beneath the inner platform.

"No suffering soul crosses this line."

The hammer struck the barrier. Bronze light climbed around Rhea and Dorian and reinforced the three damaged panels. Cracks raced across all of them, but the wall held long enough for the last elves to reach the inner spine.

The impact forced Dorian onto one knee, and blood ran from beneath the golden bands around his ribs.

Iris kept the lifeline locked around him while using both hands to support Kellan.

"I can’t hold all three much longer," she warned.

"Hold them until the root drops," Rhea said.

Luke stayed beside the Heartwood. He cut one thread, blocked another with the spear shaft, and allowed a third to wrap around his injured arm rather than reach the tree behind him.

The masked woman pulled, sending pain through Luke’s shoulder as the strand dragged him toward the southern edge.

"Let go of the spear," Lauren said through the bond.

His fingers tightened on instinct. Then he trusted her and released the weapon before she had to ask again.

The masked woman had wrapped her thread around his arm and the spear together, so the tension changed the moment the shaft slipped free. Luke dropped beneath the remaining strands and rolled across the root while his spear flew toward the southern bridge.

The giant swatted it aside with his hammer, leaving Luke to rise beside Aelira with no weapon and one arm hanging close to his side.

Only one living channel remained between the fifth anchor and the Heartroot.

Aelira placed both hands around her blade. The anchor pulsed once, and she cut through it.

The entire city lurched.

The fifth anchor tore away from the Heartroot, taking entire terraces, extraction machinery, corrupted roots, and the black brands inside its wound with it. The southern bridge twisted away from the inner platform as the infected ring dropped through the smoke toward the burning terraces below.

The leader pulled back his marked hand and jumped toward a stable root. The masked woman looped several threads around the hammer wielder’s armor.

He planted one foot on the twisting bridge and leaped. His momentum carried both of them toward a stable root before the southern approach collapsed beneath them.

Aelira remained standing until the fifth anchor dropped below the platform. Her knees finally bent, and Luke caught her with his good arm.

Together, they watched the silver root descend through the burning terraces. Pieces broke away as it fell, scattering pale wood and black machinery through the smoke.

The shock ran through every branch still connected to the Heartroot.

Inside the Heartwood, Lauren cried out as the severed connection ripped away from her awareness. A crack opened along one side of the pale trunk, but the core remained intact.

Luke felt her pain through their bond and turned toward the tree.

"Lauren?"

"I’m still with you."

Her voice sounded strained, but the connection held.

System windows opened before Luke, Lauren, and the reinforcements.

[Fifth Heartroot anchor lost.]

[Corruption path severed.]

[Central Heartroot contamination prevented.]

[Two anchors remain.]

Aelira stared at the empty space where the fifth ring had been. The six elves on Rhea’s panels had reached the inner spine, but the more distant lights Lauren had seen beyond their reach flickered among the falling roots.

Several disappeared before the anchor vanished into the smoke.

Some of Aelira’s people had still been out there when it fell.

Her fingers dug into Luke’s arm.

"Who did we lose?"

No one answered.

A rootkeeper rushed toward them from the central terrace with soot covering his face.

"My Queen, the western survivors reached the sixth ring, but Ruinborn are already attacking its outer bridges."

Another elf appeared behind him.

"The seventh anchor is under attack from below. The decay wielder entered the lower roots."

Beyond the central terrace, the sixth ring held survivors from the western districts. Far beneath it, the seventh anchor extended through Lethariel’s lower roots.

Two warnings opened before the awakened defenders.

[Warning: Sixth Heartroot anchor under attack.]

[Warning: Seventh Heartroot anchor under attack.]

Rhea called the fragments of blue light still answering her. Two damaged panels rose, while the third flickered and failed to form.

"We split the defense," she said.

Aelira looked between the two remaining paths.

"No."

Rhea turned toward her. "We can’t hold both from here."

"That is why they attacked them together."

Inside the Heartwood, Lauren searched the futures surrounding the last anchors. Whenever the defenders divided, the elite Ruinborn isolated one group and crushed it before the other could help. Whenever they stayed together, one of the rings fell before they arrived.

The conclusion passed through her bond with Luke.

"She’s right," he said. "If we split, they destroy us separately. If we stay together, we abandon one of the anchors. There isn’t a clean path."

The leader’s voice carried across the gap from the surviving southern root.

"Choose carefully, Queen."

A distant explosion shook the sixth ring, and another followed beneath the seventh.

Aelira closed her eyes as screams traveled through the Heartroot. When she opened them again, the anger was gone. She looked exhausted, and far older than she had a few minutes earlier.

"There is no safe district left."