CHAPTER 13: ROOT AND RUIN

CHAPTER 13: ROOT AND RUIN

The dissonant shriek vibrating down the silver bridge wasn't sound. It was agony given form. It scraped against Zhi'er's mind, a psychic assault that made his vision blur and his stomach heave. The luminous filament in the chamber thrummed with corrupted energy, its pure silver light now streaked and darkened by invasive violet tendrils that pulsed with malicious rhythm. On the pallet, Yan Ling convulsed, not with the weakness of before, but with the violent, involuntary spasms of a mind being flayed. His eyes flew open – not the deep, frozen lakes Zhi'er knew, but wide, terrified pools reflecting pure, shared horror. He wasn't breathing; he was gasping on silent screams ripped from his daughter's dreaming soul.

"Father!" The word tore from Yan Ling's throat, raw and broken, echoing the silent cry carried by the bridge. His hand, trembling violently, clawed at the air towards the pulsating, corrupted light over his chest. "Ling'er! NO!"

*Yan Ling's other hand slammed down onto the pallet. Not in weakness, but in a surge of desperate, paternal fury. Ink-stained fingers scrabbled, finding no brush, no paper. He seized the edge of the blanket, tearing a ragged strip of coarse fabric. With a guttural cry that was part pain, part defiance, he bit down hard on his own thumb. Blood, dark and vital, welled instantly. He dipped his bleeding thumb into the fabric and slashed a crude, jagged symbol onto it – not a glyph of containment, but one of *severance*. A single, brutal line crossed by two downward slashes, radiating finality. **The Mark of Sundering**.*

*He pressed the blood-soaked fabric symbol onto the corrupted silver bridge where it met his chest.*

*The effect was instantaneous and catastrophic.*

*A silent detonation of conflicting energies ripped through the chamber. The corrupted bridge *shattered*. Not with light, but with a wave of pure, concussive negation. The violet tendrils dissolved into acrid smoke. The silver filament snapped like a severed nerve, its luminous end whipping back towards the garden with a final, fading shriek of Ling'er's terror.*

*The backlash flung Zhi'er backwards, slamming him against the wall. Caretaker Chen staggered, catching himself on the doorframe.*

*Yan Ling arched off the pallet, a strangled gasp escaping him as the connection was violently torn away. The luminous veins on his chest vanished, leaving only pale, bloodless skin and the crude, bleeding symbol on the fabric strip now stuck to his robe. He collapsed back, utterly still, eyes wide and unseeing, fixed on the ceiling. The fragile stability Zhi'er and Ling'er had bought was obliterated. He looked emptier than before, a vessel drained not just of life, but of the very connection that had briefly anchored him.*

*In the walled garden, the bonsai tree exploded.*

*Not into splinters, but into a silent burst of blinding, *white* light. It engulfed the tree, the pot, the packed earthen circle Zhi'er had made. For a single, terrifying second, the garden was bleached of color, etched in stark black and white. Then the light imploded, sucked back into the center.*

*When the afterimage faded, the bonsai stood untouched. But its silver glow was utterly *gone*. The wood was dull, lifeless grey, colder and deader than ever before. No pulse. No mist. No ephemeral root-glyphs. Only profound, chilling silence. The anchor hadn't shattered; it had been *muted*. Locked down. Forcibly plunged back into a deeper, colder stasis than before. Ling'er's dreaming mind had been slammed shut, sealed away by her father's desperate act. The assault was blocked, but at the cost of her nascent consciousness.*

Zhi'er pushed himself up, ears ringing, head pounding. He saw the dead bonsai in his mind's eye, felt the utter absence where Ling'er's flickering presence had been. He scrambled to Yan Ling's side. The prince wasn't convulsing anymore. He was breathing – shallow, rapid gasps. But his eyes… they held a shattered emptiness that was worse than death. Tears, clear and silent, tracked through the grime and blood on his cheeks.

"You… you cut her off," Zhi'er whispered, horror-struck. "You silenced her again."

Yan Ling didn't look at him. His gaze remained fixed on nothing. "The scream…" he rasped, his voice a ruin. "Her scream… in my mind… they were tearing her apart… through *me*." A violent shudder wracked him. "I could not… bear it. I could not… let them…" He finally turned his head, his shattered eyes meeting Zhi'er's. The raw, unvarnished agony in them stole Zhi'er's breath. "I buried her… to save her. I woke her… and brought the wolves to her door. I forged the bridge… that became their blade." A sob choked him. "What… what have I done? What kind of father… am I?"

*High in the Celestial Peaks, the obsidian mirror flared violently white, then went utterly dark. Jiang Xi snarled, a sound of pure, incandescent fury. The connection was severed. Not just disrupted – *annihilated*. The anchor's light was gone, plunged back into an impenetrable silence deeper than before. The Dream Weavers slumped, their chant cut off mid-syllable, psychic backlash making them reel.*

*"Sundered!" Jiang Xi hissed, slamming his fist onto the mirror's frame, cracking the obsidian. "The coward severed the root to save his own skin!" He paced, his cold rage filling the chamber. "The child is lost. Locked away tighter than before. But the gardener…" He stopped, his eyes narrowing, focusing on the fading image of Yan Ling's shattered form in his mind's eye. "...the gardener is broken. His power wanes. His spirit is ash." A cruel, calculating light replaced the fury. "The Suppression weakens not just from the anchor, but from the *artisan*. Break the hand that holds the brush… and the seal frays." He turned to Xiao Hong, who stood rigid, awaiting orders. "Forget the root. Target the *ruin*. The Nightless Blade is wounded. Bleeding. In spirit and power. Find him. Break him. Let his despair be the chisel that cracks the world's last seal."*

*Back in the chamber, Caretaker Chen shuffled to Yan Ling's other side. He didn't offer comfort. His milky eyes held a deep, ancient sorrow. "You silenced the scream, Prince," he rasped. "You took the knife from her mind… and plunged it into your own soul." He placed a gnarled hand on Yan Ling's arm. "But the garden remembers the gardener's hand. Even the hand that prunes to save." He looked towards the doorway, towards the silent garden. "The root sleeps. A deeper winter. But winter… ends. When the gardener is strong enough… to face the sun."*

Yan Ling closed his shattered eyes. No tears fell now. Only a profound exhaustion, deeper than any physical weakness. "I am not strong, Chen," he whispered, the words barely audible. "I am ruin."

Zhi'er looked from the broken prince to the silent garden beyond. The immediate threat to Ling'er was gone, sealed away by her father's devastating sacrifice. But Yan Ling was a ghost of himself, and Jiang Xi's focus would now turn fully to shattering the broken guardian. The siege hadn't ended. It had merely shifted its aim. The roots were silent, buried in a deeper frost. Now, the storm would seek to uproot the gardener himself.