The Villain Professor's Second Chance
Chapter 759 - 759: Ashfall and Echoes (1)

The grove lay in the uncanny hush that follows calamity, a silence so complete it felt borrowed from some older, emptier world. Ash drifted like lazy snow, settling on the battered helms and torn banners of the fallen. Lanterns—blue-glass globes cradling pale spirit-flames—flickered low, their colors fading between frost-white and bruised indigo as the fuel inside guttered. The once-towering heartwood tree was now nothing but a blackened crater, its splintered roots curled outward in frozen agony, sap hardened to amber pearls that glimmered wanly in the failing light.

Vaelira moved through this aftermath with the fragile deliberation of someone binding wounds that could never truly close. She carried a pouch of taper-thin candles, each one no longer than her smallest finger. At every warrior's body she knelt, pressed a candle upright into the ash, and struck flint. Sparks caught, hesitated, then bloomed into meek flames. Wax pooled almost instantly on the hot earth, trapping the candle in place—an anchor of light against the encroaching dark. With every ignition her lips shaped the same silent phrase: Forgive the delay; we came as swiftly as we could.

Sylvanna ghosted behind her, hood thrown back to let smoky breeze tug loose strands of hair. She whispered names—Ilnor, Taleth, Captain Seryn—the syllables trembling like glass against teeth. When she reached a mask of bark fused to what might once have been a face, her voice stalled. She crouched, brushing soot away in futile hope of some identifying mark, but only splinters met her fingertips. A faint shudder rippled through her shoulders. Raëdrithar fluttered down, talons clacking softly on a ruined shield, and released a low, rolling croon that vibrated in the hollow of Sylvanna's chest, steadying her.

Across the clearing, a child's timid hum bloomed into a thin thread of melody. One lantern-bearer, no more than eight winters, began the ancient mourning song—a tune older than borders, older than the split between elf and human tongues. Another child joined, then another, until the small choir wove harmonies so frail they seemed one breath from snapping. Yet the song persisted, rising and falling like distant waves, a fragile promise that grief could be carried together.

Draven watched them from the rim of the crater, arms folded, the right sleeve of his coat crusted with dried sap that smelled faintly of burning pine. The children's voices drifted over him, stirring no outward response, but his eyes tracked every lantern flare, every hesitant step. Witness, record, remember, his mind ticked—cold instructions clamping down on a heart that threatened to beat too loudly.

A boy stepped forward, clutching a rough shard of bark burned almost to charcoal. He hesitated on the edge of candlelight, eyes flicking between Vaelira's armor and Draven's shadowed figure. Then resolve stiffened his spine. "I found this," he murmured, the words scarcely more than breath. The bark bore a half-melted sigil: twin serpents coiled around a broken crown—the crest of the old Drakhan earldom, extinct since Auric's first purge.

Vaelira's jaw tightened. She accepted the artifact with reverence, but something flared in her gaze—startlement, then guarded alarm. Without turning her head she sought Draven's eyes. He met her look, expression impassive, yet the angle of his shoulders shifted, as if bracing for an accusation unspoken. After a heartbeat she returned her attention to the child, gentling her tone. "You did well. This will help us honor them." She slipped the scorched sigil into a leather pouch by her belt, fingers lingering as though the wood were hot.

Draven exhaled—a measured release—and pivoted away. The grove's hush pressed against him, heavy with questions he lacked strength to address. Ash crunched beneath his boots, each step carrying him farther from candle-glow. He stopped near a toppled standard, its fabric still smoldering at the edges, and forced himself to catalog the scene: burn patterns, trajectory of fallen limbs, the strange geometry of shattered roots. Analysis offered distance; distance offered control.

But memory bled through cracks in that control. Flash images: sap boiling on steel, a thunder arrow detonating inside living wood, the moment he'd emptied himself of self so the heartwood's hunger found nothing to devour. That void still yawned inside him, edges ragged. He flexed gloved fingers; for an instant they felt like someone else's hands.

Footsteps approached—soft, deliberate. "What part of you did you leave in that tree?" Sylvanna's voice, low and unflinching, brushed his ear like cold wind. She stopped at his side, close enough that the faint ozone radiating from Raëdrithar prickled the hairs on his neck.

He considered deflecting. Instead, honesty slid from his tongue, brittle as frost: "The part that still hoped someone else would fix things." Words tasted of iron fatigue. He watched a cinder drift upward, extinguish mid-air, and vanish. "Hope is inefficient."

Sylvanna's brows knit, but she said nothing. Instead she mirrored his stance—arms folded, weight on back foot—until their shadows merged on the scorched ground. Raëdrithar settled behind them, wings folding like silent doors.

Time stretched, held only by the children's chorus and the slow gutter of candles. Then Vaelira's voice rang out, firm as drawn steel. "Council, now."

Warriors converged, boots thudding on ash, spears tapping cadence on ruined bark. They formed a half-ring around Vaelira where she knelt, spreading a slab of pale timber across two logs. From a satchel she withdrew sticks of chalk—one white, one red, one soot-black. Her gauntlet scraped as she sketched the riverline, hills, the ragged wound of the grove itself. Ash dust puffed up at each stroke, clinging to the edges of her map like stormclouds.

Draven stepped into the circle last, eyes scanning the crude cartography with predatory quickness. In seconds he catalogued distances, choke points, potential ambush sites. His mind rifled through permutations even as Vaelira spoke.

"Orvath fled west," she said, tapping a red X near a range of jagged icons—cliff country, sparsely patrolled. "He's taken reaper remnants and at least two glyph relics. Our scouts claim he's bound for the Sunken Archive beyond the salt flats. Those ruins are honeycombed with old wards. If he attunes the relics there, we'll lose him behind shields we can't crack before winter."

Murmurs rippled—frustration, fear, weary agreement. Draven's gaze slid to Sylvanna; she gave a minute nod, confirming what her storm-touched instincts whispered: the western wind smelled of fresh sorcery.

He leaned in, one gloved finger tracing an alternate route sketched faintly in white chalk. "He'll need supplies. This ridge road is faster but exposed—good for small escort, bad for wagons. He'll choose the valley trail, hugging the river. Slower, but sheltered by canyon walls." He flicked the chalk aside and met Vaelira's eyes. "Intercept there."

A young lieutenant bristled. "We tried holding that valley last spring. Landslides—"

"That was spring melt," Draven cut in, voice clipped. "Different season, different terrain. Your engineers fortify from the north bank, not the south. Mudstone's stable this time of year."

Vaelira's mouth pressed thin, but she nodded. "All right. Then we divide." She glanced at her commanders. "My company secures the river crossing two days north—keep the flank clear. Draven, Sylvanna, you head west with a disruption cell. Harass, delay, retrieve those glyphs if possible."

Skepticism flared among veterans—rustle of armor, exchanged looks. One scarred captain muttered, "We send two blades and a bow to hunt Orvath? Madness."

Draven met the man's stare. "Better than sending fifty swords he can hear coming." He flipped a dagger between fingers, the motion lazy yet surgical. "Orvath thinks in circles. I cut lines."

Vaelira lifted a palm to still the brewing dissent. "We don't have luxury for full companies. If Orvath escapes, he'll bring winter famine on us all." She pivoted, gaze boring into Draven. "But my question stands: if the mind-tree nearly broke you, why should I trust you near something worse?"

Draven's answer came without heat, each syllable laid like tile: "Because I understand his glyph logic now. He writes spells like ciphers. I break ciphers." A pause, almost imperceptible. "And because I don't intend to watch more children sing for the dead."

Silence fell. Then Vaelira sheathed her chalk, rose to full height. "Then go," she said. "But if you fracture—"

"—you'll break me yourself," Draven finished, the ghost of a smile haunting his lips. "Understood."

The council splintered, officers peeling off into dusk to marshal squads, gather rations, bury the last of the fallen. Torches bloomed amber along shattered paths. Overhead, the moonskindle—first star of evening—ignited behind drifting smoke, pale and cold.

Sylvanna lingered, shoulders taut as bowstrings. Vaelira approached, voice lowered. "He isn't who he was," the general admitted, gaze fixed on Draven's distant silhouette sharpening blades against a whetstone. Sparks jumped, brief and bright. "But every step forward, he walks a knife."

"I've stood in storms," Sylvanna replied, a rueful curve to her mouth. "I'll be the wind that keeps him upright."

Across the clearing, Draven felt their eyes. He didn't turn. Steel rasped on stone, rhythm precise: one, two… one, two… Each pass aligned the edge with the discipline inside him.

Footsteps—all but bare—approached. The lantern boy appeared, lantern now dark, the glass cold against his chest. He held out a small carving: a shield etched with crude lines, edges uneven. "You didn't run," he said, voice unsteady yet clear. "When the tree tried to wear your face." He offered the token like a warrior presenting a sword.

Draven accepted the carving and rolled it between thumb and fore-finger, feeling every ridge where a child's knife had scraped at wood too dry to take a clean line. The shield was lopsided, one curve shallower than the other, and a bite-mark of rot had eaten the lower edge until the shape resembled a crescent more than a circle. Flawed, yes—yet carried now in fingers trained to judge the balance of steel.

He weighed it a heartbeat longer, then tucked it into the narrow inner pocket over his heart, the same place he stored field ciphers and lock picks. "Keep your lantern," he told the boy, voice pitched low so it would ride the hush without breaking it. "The dark's not done yet."

A flick—just a twitch at the mouth's corner—offered something like a smile, quick as the flare of struck flint. The child inhaled sharply, chest expanding as though that fragment of approval had slipped a plate of armor beneath his ribs. He straightened, fingers tightening around the lantern pole until knuckles whitened, and backed away with a nod that might one day become a salute.

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