Villainous Instructor at the Academy
Chapter 183: Shadows in the glass

Chapter 183: Shadows in the glass

Cassandra raised her hand.

Not in threat.

In invocation.

The ceiling’s runes responded like loyal hounds, bursting into complex rotations, dragging unseen forces into alignment. My Grimoire shuddered violently. The script on its pages bled—literally—like ink cut open from veins. I pressed it closed and steadied my breath.

"You never wanted to be saved," I murmured, more to myself than to her.

She heard it anyway.

"No," she said. "I wanted to be understood."

A dozen shadowy figures formed behind her—echoes cast from the vault’s history. Instructors, students, soldiers... All bound in runes. Their faces were featureless, but I felt them. Each one tethered to the heart on the plinth. Evanar’s legacy wasn’t just blood and bone—it was memory, stolen and sealed.

And Cassandra?

She was offering herself to it.

"You don’t have to do this," I said, taking one step closer.

A thin barrier shimmered into existence between us—violet in hue, humming like a dying breath.

"I do, Lucian. Because you won’t."

I laughed once. Bitter. "You’re right. I won’t sacrifice my soul for the sake of a myth."

She tilted her head, curious. "But you’d sacrifice mine?"

"If it meant saving yours? Yes."

That cracked her. Just for a moment. A flicker of emotion. Pain? Gratitude? Something.

But the ritual didn’t stop.

The ground beneath us trembled.

A massive rune circle erupted from under the plinth—layered, ancient, complex beyond reason. I recognized only fragments: Containment, Transfer, Echo.

Cassandra stepped into its center.

I leapt forward.

Too late.

Light exploded—brilliant, searing, alive.

When I opened my eyes, the Vault was gone.

Not literally. But transformed. It was now... a battlefield. Not of stone or steel, but memory. Visions played out in fragmented loops.

Screaming mages. Severed limbs. A boy with crimson eyes standing atop a mountain of corpses—his sword humming with sorrow. Evanar Drelmont. The First Severance.

He looked like me.

No. He looked like what I could become.

If I let go.

If I gave in.

Cassandra appeared beside him.

Her body flickered, overlaid by a thousand spectral versions of herself—each from a different time, a different choice. Her Phobia—her core—had activated fully. She was walking through the threads of her own fractured selves, all merging toward a single truth.

"You were always curious," she whispered. "Even when you pretended not to care. That’s why I let you follow."

The real Cassandra turned, eyes no longer just dusk—they were starlight and ruin.

"I needed someone to kill me," she said.

I stared.

"No."

"Then I’ll kill myself becoming something worth stopping."

The battlefield collapsed inward.

The runes fractured, and we were back.

She stood by the heart—now beating faster, louder.

And in her hand... a blade.

The same sword Evanar held in the memory.

She held it loosely, as if uncertain it belonged to her.

"I can still walk away," I said quietly.

She shook her head.

"No. You can’t."

And then she lunged.

The clash rang through the vault like a bell of mourning.

Steel screamed. Runes flared. My instincts screamed louder. She moved like someone possessed—not by rage, but by purpose. Every strike calculated. Every feint loaded with meaning.

She didn’t want to win.

She wanted me to see her.

I parried a downward blow, pivoted, and struck her shoulder—not deep, but enough. Her blood hit the stone, and the runes reacted violently, flaring like a dying star.

The heart on the plinth pulsed one last time.

And stopped.

She collapsed to her knees.

Breathing hard.

Alive.

I didn’t sheath my weapon. Not yet.

"Was this your plan?" I asked. "To wake him... and burn with him?"

She nodded once. "Better than being forgotten."

"You idiot."

She smiled. Weak. Tired. But relieved.

"You noticed."

I dropped to one knee beside her.

Pressed the Grimoire to her chest.

It absorbed her blood, her magic, her choice. The pages turned on their own—writing a new pattern into its veins. One I couldn’t yet read.

But I knew this much:

She wasn’t gone.

And Evanar?

He was finally dead.

I carried Cassandra.

She weighed nothing.

Her body, still warm, was slung across my back, limp as a broken promise. Blood soaked the back of my uniform—hers and mine. I couldn’t tell which was which anymore. The Vault’s entrance had sealed behind me, leaving only the echo of silence and the faint trace of burnt mana in the air.

And the heart—the cursed relic we’d fought over—was gone.

Absorbed into the Grimoire.

A trade I hadn’t intended to make, but one I couldn’t refuse.

What did you see, Evanar?

What did you bury there?

The walk back to the Academy was not quiet.

Students parted before me in the halls. Some whispered. Some stared. Felix tried to approach but faltered the moment he saw Cassandra’s unconscious form. Mira didn’t say a word, just turned on her heel and vanished, cloak trailing behind like smoke. Wallace looked like he wanted to throw up.

It was Garrick who finally broke the silence.

"Is she...?"

"Alive," I said, flatly.

He opened his mouth, then closed it. Good boy.

I reached the infirmary.

And met her.

Lysaria stood at the entrance, arms folded, eyes sharp enough to cut through delusion. Her white robes shimmered faintly—power restrained, authority coiled like a blade.

"You took her into the Vault."

It wasn’t a question.

"She took herself," I replied.

"She shouldn’t have known how to enter."

My eyes didn’t leave hers. "Then someone else told her."

A beat passed. Her expression shifted. Disapproval, worry, then—strangely—understanding.

"Put her down. We’ll tend to her."

I did.

Lysaria knelt beside Cassandra, her hand glowing as she pressed two fingers against the girl’s temple.

"She’s fractured," she muttered.

"Spiritually?"

"No. Worse. She’s... rewritten pieces of herself."

"Can she be brought back?"

Lysaria didn’t answer.

I stepped outside before I punched a wall.

Augustus Evercrest was waiting.

Of course he was.

The Headmaster stood beneath the white-barked tree at the center of the courtyard, cane planted gently against the ground. Wind rustled his long coat—black, with gold trim, like a military commander waiting for a report. His silver hair caught the light like polished iron.

"You went below," he said calmly.

"I didn’t plan to."

"Plans mean little in the face of fate."

I frowned. "That’s what cowards say before letting it win."

He laughed, low and dangerous. "Indeed. That’s why I’m not angry with you."

I blinked.

"I’m interested."

He turned, gesturing for me to follow. I did, silently, through a corridor I hadn’t walked before. It twisted like a serpent, lit by floating spheres that pulsed faintly with spellwork I didn’t recognize.

We stopped before a door. Solid obsidian, engraved with the Drelmont family crest.

"You’re not the first Lucian to enter the Vault," he said. "But you may be the first to survive intact."

I didn’t answer.

"You awakened something," Augustus continued. "Not just in the Vault. In yourself."

"The Grimoire responded," I admitted. "It ate the heart."

His eyes lit with genuine curiosity. "Did it now? Fascinating. That book has slept since your ancestor’s final duel. Perhaps it found a worthy hand again."

"I’m not Evanar."

"No," he said, pausing. "You might be worse."

He left after that.

Just walked away.

No warnings. No reprimands.

Just... approval?

It felt like poison in my lungs.

I returned to my quarters that night, exhausted.

The Grimoire sat on the desk, pulsing softly. Pages turned slowly, revealing new script etched in dark red. Cassandra’s name appeared at the top of a page, followed by something else.

___

Runic Designation: Echoborne.

Status: Unstable Integration.

Access: Deferred.

___

I closed the book before it could say more.

Outside, the moon hung low.

Students still whispered in the halls.

And Cassandra slept in a warded room, teetering between girl and ghost.

I poured myself a drink.

And waited for morning.

Because when it came, I’d have to explain.

Everything.

To my students.

To Lysaria.

To myself.

The morning came in pieces.

A soft chime from the Academy bell tower. A knock at my door. And then another. Then a voice—nervous, brittle.

"Professor? It’s Felix."

Of course it was.

I didn’t respond. Not at first.

The Grimoire still sat on the desk, shut tight, but I could feel it humming. Whatever had happened in the Vault, it hadn’t ended. It had only begun to uncoil.

I stood, straightened my coat, and opened the door.

Felix looked worse than usual. Pale. Tired. His usual frightened-dog demeanor replaced with something heavier.

"How is she?" I asked.

"Still unconscious. Mira hasn’t left her side."

"...And the others?"

"Waiting in the strategy hall."

So they’d gathered.

Like survivors at the mouth of a ruined temple.

I nodded once. "Let’s not keep them waiting."

The room was quiet when I entered.

My students were seated around the old map table. The one we used during war theory. Usually, the air was filled with sarcasm, complaints, and Mira insulting someone’s intelligence. But today?

Silence.

Julien was leaning forward, elbows on the table, eyes unusually serious. Garrick looked down at his hands. Wallace fiddled with a rune-core but didn’t activate it. Even Leo, the master of complaints, said nothing.

I walked to the head of the table and didn’t sit.

"Ask," I said. "One at a time."

It was Mira who broke the dam.

"What the hell was that place?"

I looked at her.

"At the bottom of the Vault lies a remnant. A relic from the war before this age. We call it the Heart of the Obscured Flame. It shouldn’t exist anymore."

"You let Cassandra touch it," Julien said.

"She touched it before I could stop her," I replied. "And I didn’t expect her to... resonate with it."

Garrick grunted. "Resonate?"

"Something in her called to it," I said. "And it responded."

Wallace looked up, suddenly pale. "Does this mean... she’s—?"

"Changed. Yes."

No one spoke for a long moment.

Then Leo finally muttered, "Is she going to die?"

"No," I said, firmly. "Not if I can help it."

I watched that promise settle into them.

It didn’t bring comfort.

Only weight.

Later, I sat in the infirmary. Alone.

Cassandra lay beneath pale wards, barely breathing. Her expression was blank—no frown, no twitch, no sign of dream or nightmare.

Lysaria entered with silent footsteps.

"She’s stable, but something’s working inside her. We don’t know what."

"I do," I said.

She blinked. "Explain."

"She’s bound to the Vault now. To the Heart. And the Grimoire has recorded her as ’Echoborne.’"

Lysaria flinched.

"You’ve heard the term," I noted.

"I’ve seen one. During the Eclipse War." Her voice tightened. "It didn’t end well."

"Then this time, we make it end differently."

"Do you really believe that?" she asked.

"No," I replied. "But I’ll fight for it anyway."

She smiled, just faintly. "Good."

That night, I dreamed.

No.

Not dreamed.

Remembered.

But not my memories.

Dark water. A mirror breaking. Screams from a hundred mouths. A girl in white walking down into a ruin with her eyes wide open.

And a voice—familiar, horrible—whispering: "Do you remember what you buried?"

I woke in sweat, fingers clenched around the Grimoire.

The mirror on my desk had cracked.

Something is coming.

Not just for me.

But for all of them.

And this time, I won’t be the first to fall.