The Villain Professor's Second Chance
Chapter 773 - 773: Half a Face, Half a History (5)

"Pulse frequency accelerating—sea vent is primary amplifier."

The lantern in Korin's hands pulsed azure, answering the invisible beat beneath their boots. Vaelira followed the light as if it were a living compass. The soft wash of color reflected against her cheekbones, lending her frost-pale face an otherworldly glow. For a breath she looked less like a commander and more like a statue dedicated to lost victories.

"The vapor?" she asked.

Draven shifted a fraction to signal the boy. Korin obliged, tilting the lantern until light spilled on the snow. Crystals of ice reflected the blue, turning the ground into a field of drowned stars.

"Same signature," Korin whispered. Even hushed, the words carried the tremor of prophecy. "Like the root, but deeper—salted."

A low ripple of conversation threatened among the captains. Draven raised one hand—a small motion, but the ridge fell still. He had learned early that silence, properly timed, could control men as surely as any rank badge.

Vaelira inhaled—a slow, steadying pull of air. He watched her square her shoulders, feel the weight of command settle again like armor, and step forward. "We split at dawn," she declared. Her voice, iron-edged despite fatigue, sliced through the dusk. "Causeway, tunnels, sky wheel. We break the weirs before first tide, or nothing upstream matters."

The captain who'd flinched earlier opened his mouth—whether to question or protest, Draven never learned. Vaelira's bare blade flashed, not as threat but as punctuation, and the words died in the man's throat. She returned the sword to its scabbard with a snap that felt final.

Draven knelt, the motion fluid despite terrain, cloak pooling like poured ink around his boots. The ridge's top layer of snow had frozen to a crust; it shattered under the dagger tip in a fine spray, revealing the dark earth beneath. He sketched in swift strokes: the serpentine marsh channels leading west, the raised stone causeway crossing them, the weir complex shaped like three interlocking star-wheels. As he worked, he narrated for those who lacked his ability to read raw lines.

"Here," he said, marking a crescent on the southern approach, "natural bottleneck. Vaelira's phalanx forms shield wall. Primary purpose is noise: draw brine-automata out of sluice tunnels and up onto the open flats."

A lieutenant frowned. "Won't they bypass if they sense a ruse?"

"Machines built to protect a function will always choose threat over purpose," Draven answered, never pausing the dagger. "They are less vain than people."

Soft, uneasy laughter dripped from one corner of the group and was quickly swallowed by the wind.

He scored a second line, a thin gut-channel beneath the causeway. "Sub-sluice tunnels here. Two entrances if sediment maps hold. Collapse charges along this spine will drop the central gear axle. We vent the river surge into the old salt flats." He turned the blade, nicked a crosshatch to indicate likely standing water. "Controlled release prevents pressure rebound toward the capital. Uncontrolled release sweeps us off the map."

Cold clarity, Sylvanna thought, watching the knife slash earth. The same economy he used on flesh translated effortlessly to strategy—every cut purposeful, no flourish. A shiver flicked her shoulders that had nothing to do with temperature.

She stepped closer, tugging loose strands of hair behind her ear, and spoke toward the group though her eyes fixed on the dirt-map. "The spire housing the mana wheel sits here." She extended her bow to point. "Stone's eroded; only lightning rods keep it intact. Raëdrithar and I can ascend the leeward side. Once I reach the override diaphragm, I can bleed its current into the storm front. Controlled pulse buys us nine, maybe ten minutes of wheel paralysis."

One of Vaelira's scouts—a wiry woman with a scar like cracked glass across her scalp—shifted weight. "And if 'controlled' fails?"

Sylvanna's smile showed too many teeth. "Then the ridge will become a new waterfall and you'll get to name it after me."

Several soldiers grunted, uncertain whether to laugh. Vaelira didn't. Her attention darted between her two specialists: the archer with storms in her blood, the knife-man who hoarded secrets like coins. She saw the gulf forming—lightning versus scalpel, impulse versus restraint—and understood both would be required.

Draven finished the last glyph—a small triangle marking his personal ingress point. "I go alone," he said. "One body is quieter than two. Echo-leeches track vibration variance; paired heartbeats double risk."

Sylvanna felt her heartbeat spike exactly as he said the word. She inhaled through her nose to steady it, but he'd already noticed; his gray eyes flicked up, caught hers, and held a beat too long. The ridge air felt suddenly thinner.

Vaelira cleared her throat. "We've eight hours of darkness and the marsh between," she stated, repeating her earlier command but layering it now with implied dismissal. "Break into detachments. No campfires. Rations on the move."

Orders rippled back through officers like wind scudding over tall grass. Captain Marrin barked for torch wicks to be smothered. The sudden dark felt predatory—alive with listening stone and unseen pulses. Horses pawed the slush; their breaths plumed in the lamplight before the wicks died.

Sylvanna lingered as others dispersed, her boots crunching in packed snow. She reached unconsciously for the braid-charm again. The small coil of storm-touched silver was warm despite cold air, as though a pulse of its own beat beneath the metal. Syalra, the name thrummed. She traced the outline of the charm with a thumb, grounding herself in the weight of an identity only recently reclaimed.

Draven straightened from the map, snow dusting his knees. He brushed the frost from his glove with swift flicks, eyes never leaving the dirt drawing. She stepped into the fringe of his cloak's shadow.

"I need a count of your arrowheads fitted for conductive burst," he murmured. His voice, though low, held the same scalpel gravity as during his report. "Mana wheel will resonate at prime. If you miss calibration by even half a breath—"

"I know the math," she interrupted, not brusque but firm. "Storm tongues speak in pulses. I can feel them." She tapped her sternum where lightning often gathered. "I'll feel the wheel's heart before I release."

He studied her, assessing. The wind threw a lock of her hair across her cheek; she defiantly brushed it back. Draven nodded once, satisfied, and his attention drifted to the charm in her fingers.

"You've steadied it," he observed. No question, merely statement.

Sylvanna let the charm fall against her braid. "For now. But every interval the sea echoes the root, the resonance tries to pull memories up like weeds. I can manage short bursts. Beyond that…" She shrugged. "Lightning doesn't bargain."

Draven's eyes flickered—rare hint of… not concern, but calculation adjusting to new variables. He cataloged her limits the way a fletcher gauges timber grain. "We'll minimize exposure time," he said. "You strike, then withdraw behind Vaelira's crest line. No heroics on the descent."

"Heroics are your indulgence," she teased, half-smile softening the words. Yet her gaze lingered on his profile, on the narrow scar above his brow that never quite healed, the small tell that even Draven bled given time.

He ignored the bait. "Korin," he called without raising volume.

The lantern boy trotted up, boots squelching. In the dim glow he looked both younger and older: cheeks smeared with soot, eyes carrying the weight of secrets grown men avoided. He peered at the dirt map as if reading runes no one else could see.

"Lantern's pulse shifted ten heartbeats ago," Draven told him. "Document frequency at each mile marker tomorrow. If the interval drops below thirty-five on the approach, you flash twice, then retreat to Vaelira's standard. Understood?"

"Yes, sir." Korin's voice cracked but held. He glanced sideways at Sylvanna. "Miss? About the sea… The note—it's changing. Not louder, just… wider."

"Like a chord?" she asked gently.

He nodded, brow furrowing. "More voices inside. Not angry yet. Curious." He shivered despite his thick cloak.

Draven laid a hand on the boy's shoulder—only long enough to steady, not comfort. "Curiosity precedes feeding," he said. "Keep listening."

Korin swallowed and stepped back, lantern held high. Its azure glow shimmered across Draven's gauntlets, painting them in ghost-blue flame. The effect made his blades, sheathed at his back, glint like ice freshly forged.

A new pulse rumbled through the ground—a heavier resonance, as though the unseen heart had grown muscle since the last beat. Snow leapt from branches, settling like dust around their boots. Thirty-seven seconds exactly, Sylvanna counted, feeling the pulse slide up her spine. She wondered how long before thirty-six became the new rhythm.

Vaelira returned after checking perimeter sentries. "Columns ready," she reported. Her voice rasped—throat raw from days barking orders into winter wind—but her will radiated the crispness of tempered steel. She glanced at the map Draven had etched. "Leave it," she told him. "The snow will cover within the hour."

"And if Iron Justiciars sweep the ridge before then?" he asked.

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