Chapter 208: The Silver Shelter

The nursery sounds dulled as the bark closed around Lauren. Cool wood settled against her back and warmed where it touched her clothes. Roots supported her calves and hips, holding her in place without restricting her breathing. When she tried to shift one foot, it stayed where she had placed it.

[The Oracle has become Rootbound.]

[Current bonded ally: Luke.]

[Oracle stability increased.]

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

Lauren checked the session timer. The twenty-second limit included getting out, so she would begin releasing the skill well before it elapsed.

She kept her attention close, feeling the support around her body rather than reaching beyond the tree. Mana continued to leave her at a steady rate. Without the demands of battle, she could follow the draw without losing it beneath a rush of visions. She could sense the connection she had used to reach Luke in Lethariel. She let that connection remain unused.

His counting reached her faintly through the bark, some numbers clearer than others. Lauren checked them against the timer while the living hollow remained still around her.

"Luke," she said in her ordinary voice.

When no clear answer followed, she left the question until she was outside. Sending the word through their bond would have been easy, but it was not part of this test.

As the count drew closer to the planned release, she opened Oracle’s Glimpse. One fragment showed her stepping out too soon and catching a heel against a withdrawing root. Luke reached to steady her as she stumbled toward the path. In another, she waited until both boots were free before taking the same step.

Lauren released the glimpse after those few seconds. The images had been easier to separate than they were in the open, but she did not search again to see how far that improvement went. She checked her reserve and prepared to dismiss the skill while she still felt steady.

Outside, Luke watched the seam and kept counting. He had heard a low sound from the trunk without recognizing a word. Sella remained beside the chair, watching the roots while he checked the timer again.

The seam began widening around fifteen seconds after it had closed. Bark peeled away from Lauren’s shoulders, then loosened along her legs. She remained inside while a root withdrew from beneath one heel. Luke kept his hand ready without reaching into the opening.

Lauren waited until her boots could move, then stepped onto the clear ground. Luke stopped counting as she passed him, with time still left beneath the limit.

She stood on her own and rested one hand against the edge of the hollow while the wood began withdrawing beneath her palm. The branches folded inward above them. Pale roots slid back through the grass, leaving shallow grooves in the soil, and the remaining trunk thinned into light. Lauren lifted her hand clear as the last of the opening disappeared.

[Oracle’s Heartwood deactivated.]

[Rootbound status removed.]

Luke offered his forearm, and her fingers settled firmly against the leather guard without bearing much weight. He waited for her to check her reserve before asking whether she had felt any strain.

"No headache. My legs feel steady." She shifted her weight onto each foot before looking through her status again. "I started the release before the count finished. It took a few seconds to free my boots."

"About three," Luke said. "I’ll remember that for the report."

Lauren gave him the mana readings from before and after the entry. He repeated them back so she would not be the only one trying to remember. They had spent longer positioning her than she had spent inside, and Luke was glad of it when he looked at the furrow beside her heel.

"Did you hear me?" she asked.

"A sound. I couldn’t make out the word."

"I only said your name. I wasn’t shouting." She loosened her hand on his arm. "We’ll have to check how much carries before trying spoken warnings through the bark."

After checking that the roots hadn’t crossed the stones nearest the wall, Sella joined them on the path. She crouched beside one of the grooves and worked her fingers into the disturbed soil.

"Do the roots stay down there after the trunk’s gone?"

"The skill has ended. I can’t feel its roots anymore, but I can’t tell you whether it shifted anything beneath them."

Sella pressed a loose clump of turf back into place. "I’ll check before putting pots here. Leave the stones until I’m done."

Luke helped her settle the worst of the disturbed grass while Lauren waited on the path. She checked the elapsed time, then walked back to the gate without using his arm.

Sella agreed to reserve the patch for future practice if they arranged it in advance. Lauren asked her to leave the chair by the gate for their next visit, where she would know how to find it.

Luke retrieved his spear and made sure both guards were secure before they left the enclosure. They passed the nursery bench on the way out. The graft remained beside the trough, its support undisturbed. Sella stopped to check the pot while Luke and Lauren continued toward the courtyard, leaving the seed in her care.

At the courtyard, Luke let another group of players pass before guiding her to a quiet stretch of wall. They checked the timings once more and disconnected.

In the neighboring capsule, a technician was helping Lauren remove her monitoring blindfold as Luke’s headset lifted. Luke gave the staff their starting time while she waited for the leads at her temples to be released.

Shaw matched their reported timings to the recorded mana patterns and neurological readings from their real bodies. The monitors hadn’t shown him the tree or Lauren’s exit, so he asked them to describe both while he checked the corresponding intervals.

Luke’s damaged pathway had shown no new change. Lauren’s examination found no new symptoms after the brief use, and Shaw asked her to explain whether she had dismissed the skill herself. She confirmed that she had, then gave him the remaining mana reading.

"The release took several seconds," she added. "I waited for the root at my heel before stepping out."

Shaw added the release interval to his notes and recorded the personal glimpse separately. Luke confirmed that he had received no vision or warning through the connection, and Lauren explained her attempt to speak aloud.

"We’ll review this before changing your standing authorization. One controlled use doesn’t show how you’ll respond under attack."

Lauren reached for her shoes while the technician cleared away the leads. She looked toward the monitoring station once more before putting them on. Luke waited until the staff finished with his right wrist, then collected their notebook from the monitoring station before they left.

At home, Lauren opened the notebook at the original sketch. She added the formation and release times beside the rough trunk, leaving the unanswered questions about its range below them.

"Help me put the exit in," she said when he sat beside her.

Luke picked up the pencil with his left hand and marked the root beneath the opening. He added where he had waited and the direction of the clear path, then let Lauren write the release time beside it. The plan was untidy, but the opening and the root beneath her heel were clear.

On the next page, he drew the tree without measurements. The trunk had leaned slightly toward the opening, and the lowest branch had curved away from the space above Lauren’s head. He put those in before attempting the canopy.

Lauren watched for a while, then went to check dinner. When she returned, Luke was still working on the leaves. He had rubbed a hole through one corner of the paper trying to fix a branch. The rest finally resembled what he remembered.

She sat beside him and drew the notebook closer, and Luke put the pencil down. Lauren could look at it now with her uncovered eyes, turning the page toward the light from the kitchen.

"The silver was underneath?"

"Every time the wind turned a leaf, you could see it. It looked green until the branches moved."

Lauren ran a fingertip along the unshaded edges he had left in the canopy. Luke resisted the urge to explain all the places where the drawing was wrong. She studied it longer than she had studied the measurements.

"Keep this page," she said.

He set the eraser aside. Lauren wrote the date in the corner, then left the notebook open beside them while they ate. Once or twice, Luke caught her looking past her plate toward the tree.

The revised authorization arrived the following day. It allowed one planned Heartwood use in their next supervised session, on inspected natural ground and within the same short limits. Lauren would still need to release early enough to be out before twenty seconds. Vision-sharing, deliberate impact tests, and graft integration were not cleared, and none of Luke’s restrictions had changed.

Lauren read the message at the kitchen counter while Luke put away the dry cutlery. This time, Heartwood was listed as a permitted option for that session rather than an emergency exception. She handed him the phone and waited while he reached the conditions beneath it.

"We can plan around it," he said. "For a short time."

"But not around me sending you warnings from inside. We still have to work out the rest."

Luke looked at their notebook on the table. He had drawn himself beside the exit, not between Lauren and an enemy. The trial had given them a way to practice releasing her safely, but it had not yet shown them how much ground he could cover while defending the tree.

"The conservatory has open ground above it," he said. "We should ask Sella whether the inspection is finished before we decide where to go."

"There were carvings below the stairs we barely had time to examine." Lauren set the phone beside the notebook. "I’d like to look at those without carrying seed cases or listening for the Warden."

"We’ll ask about the lower rooms too."

She turned back to the message and saved the conditions with their notes. Luke closed the cutlery drawer, then came to stand beside her. Lauren slipped an arm around his waist and drew him close enough to kiss.

He rested his left hand at her back while she leaned into the kiss. When she drew away, Lauren turned the notebook toward them instead of closing it. Luke stayed beside her as she marked the conservatory beneath their notes.