Villainous Instructor at the Academy
Chapter 190: In the quiet

Chapter 190: In the quiet

We didn’t speak of what we saw in the crypt.

Not that night. Not the next day.

The moment we stepped out of the Dorne estate’s depths, something unspoken settled between us. Not fear—something colder.

Truth.

The kind you couldn’t deny once you’d touched it.

Felix helped bury what was left of his father’s ledger in the swamp. Not a ceremony. Just a quiet, tired act. A child laying to rest the debts of a house too proud to admit it had drowned long ago.

I watched from the porch. Cassandra stood beside me, arms folded. The morning mist clung to her like a second skin.

"You didn’t strike it when it showed you your past," she said without looking at me.

"No," I answered.

"Because it wasn’t a lie?"

"No," I repeated, softer this time.

She nodded. "Good."

"...Good?"

"If you believed the lie, we’d all be dead."

Right. Encouraging as ever.

The students were subdued, but not broken. Garrick began sharpening his blade the moment we returned. Julien tried to lighten the mood with a sarcastic quip, failed, and instead settled into silence beside Mira. She sat with her back to everyone, scratching something into her spellbook.

Leo wandered off after breakfast. I let him go. Sometimes, misery needed to breathe alone.

Wallace, though... he approached me.

"You said the crypt ran on a Pattern, right?" he asked.

I nodded.

He held out a thin brass ring.

"I took a piece of the mechanism that sealed the door. There’s engraving under the corrosion—old runes. I want to study them."

My eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"Because something in there wasn’t just dead. It was programmed. Like a puzzle box of grief."

He paused, then added, "Maybe I can find out who built it."

Not what I expected.

"Fine," I said. "But if it starts whispering to you, burn it."

That night, I sat alone on the balcony of the guest manor. The stars were low, thick, like you could pluck one and hide it in your coat pocket.

I opened the Grimoire.

Not to study. Not to draw.

Just... to listen.

It hummed faintly. Not quite a voice. Not quite thought.

And then I saw it.

A new entry.

I hadn’t written it. It was just there.

___

Pattern: Mirror Echo

When the self speaks back with different eyes.

Usage cost: Unstable. Memory risk. Temporal tether suggested.

___

I stared at the ink, fresh and wet like it had been etched with blood.

I didn’t know what it meant. But I felt it. Deep in my spine.

Something reached out and touched the book.

Something that had seen me before I opened it.

And maybe... it had always been watching.

The next morning, a raven arrived.

Not a messenger.

Not a spell.

An actual raven—jet black, soaked in red mist like it had flown through a storm.

It dropped a scroll at my feet and cawed once, then burst into ash.

I unrolled the parchment.

It read:

___

"To the one who severed the echo —

The Eye stirs. The Threads fray.

The next Reaping begins in eight nights.

Bring your students.

Or bury them."

___

No name. No seal.

But the handwriting—

I recognized it.

It belonged to Roderick Vaughn.

And Roderick Vaughn was supposed to be dead next month.

We left the Dorne estate two days later. The swamp was quieter than it had been since our arrival—no more whispers in the water, no more eyes behind the mist.

Felix said nothing as we boarded the carriage. I didn’t press. He’d buried more than a legacy back there.

The students were restless.

Not in the usual way—no banter, no complaints.

They were... listening.

To the silence between words.

To the weight in my eyes.

They could feel it. Something was coming.

I hadn’t told them about the letter.

Not yet.

Back at Noctis Ardentis, the Academy greeted us like nothing had changed. The guards at the gate nodded. The Training Hall buzzed. Gossip flickered through the halls like wildfire.

But my eyes weren’t on the students.

They were on the sky.

The clouds.

They weren’t... right.

Too still. Too red at the edges. As if something behind them was watching.

Waiting.

That night, I visited the Faculty Hall.

It was empty.

The chair where Roderick usually lounged with his half-polished boots and flask of bitterfruit brandy? Dusty. Untouched.

The records said he was out on an extended leave to "escort Class A on a practical hunt." A flimsy excuse.

I knew Roderick. He didn’t escort. He led.

And he didn’t vanish without a fight.

The scroll still burned in my coat pocket.

Eight nights.

I didn’t know what the Reaping was. Not in this context.

But I had a sinking feeling it wasn’t a school event.

That night, I opened the Grimoire again.

No new Patterns.

Just the same entry:

___

Mirror Echo.

___

And beneath it—barely visible—

___

See me.

___

I touched the text.

The world shifted.

Not like a spell. Not like a dream.

Something folded. Like paper, creasing along the seams of my soul.

And suddenly, I was standing in a ruined hallway.

Not mine.

Not the Academy.

Old. Familiar.

And then I saw him.

Me.

But not me.

Red hair. Older. Scarred. Holding the Grimoire like a weapon. Eyes bloodshot, half-crazed.

He looked up.

And smiled.

"You’re not ready," he said.

I blinked. "Who are you?"

"You, obviously. One of the many. One of the leftovers."

His grin widened.

"I burned the world to keep them alive. You think you’ll do better?"

I tried to step forward, but the space fractured. Cracks ran through the air like glass.

The other Lucian—no, Allen—raised a hand and whispered:

___

"When the Reaping comes, don’t trust the ones who forget."

___

And then I was back.

In my room.

Sweating. Breathing hard.

The Grimoire was still open.

But now, the words had changed.

___

Pattern Update: Mirror Echo – Level II unlocked.

Access to Echo-Chamber permitted once per cycle.

Warning: Exposure to alternate selves may corrupt Identity Pattern. Proceed with caution.

___

I spent the rest of the night writing letters.

One to the Headmaster.

One to my students.

And one to myself.

In case I forgot who I was by the end of this.

I didn’t sleep that night.

The Echo-Chamber left a hum in my skull, like a thousand voices whispering beneath water—fragments of selves, scattered across decisions never made.

At dawn, I was already at the training grounds, staring at the sky.

Still red at the edges.

Still wrong.

Julien found me first. Predictable.

"Professor." He sounded cautious. No smirk. "You look like hell."

"Good. Then it matches what I feel."

He blinked, and for once, didn’t offer a comeback. Just stood beside me in silence. I could feel his tension. He’d grown sharper—less concerned with winning duels, more aware of things he couldn’t name.

Mira arrived next, followed by Wallace, Felix, Leo, and Garrick.

Even Cassandra.

They stood there, in that early morning haze, as if summoned by a shared instinct.

They knew.

Something had shifted.

I turned to them.

"Classes are suspended."

Felix’s brows furrowed. "Because of the swamp thing?"

"No. Because of what’s coming."

They waited. No questions this time. Only breath held in a quiet hush.

"Eight days from now, something is going to happen. Something the Academy isn’t prepared for."

"Another beast tide?" Garrick asked.

I shook my head. "Worse."

Their expressions darkened, but I didn’t give them comfort. I couldn’t afford to.

Instead, I reached into my coat and pulled out the Grimoire.

The runes along its spine shimmered faintly. One of them pulsed with a mirror-like gleam.

"I have access to something called the Mirror Echo. It connects me to... other versions of myself. Or rather, of the person I was."

Wallace squinted. "So like—time travel?"

"No. Parallel outcomes. Choices I never made. Mistakes. Victories. All of them... still happening somewhere."

Leo groaned. "Why does this sound like a headache?"

"Because it is," I muttered. "But it also gave me a warning. Whatever’s coming—this ’Reaping’—it doesn’t just affect here. It echoes across all outcomes. Some of me didn’t survive it. Some... became monsters."

Silence again.

Then Cassandra tilted her head. "And what did the others do differently?"

I met her gaze. "One of them burned the world to protect his class."

That made them shift uncomfortably.

"So..." Julien crossed his arms. "What’s our plan?"

I exhaled. Slowly. Carefully.

"We prepare. Not for a beast. Not for a battle."

I looked at each of them in turn.

"We prepare for a fracture in reality."

Later that night...

I returned to the Echo-Chamber.

The Grimoire opened willingly now. The ink no longer waited—it drew me in.

I stood once again in the fragmented hall, where the walls changed with every blink. This time, I wasn’t alone.

A girl stood ahead of me.

Red-eyed. Black-veiled.

She looked like Cassandra.

But wrong.

Off.

Her smile was cruel and far too wide.

"I remember you," she said.

I stepped back.

"You’re not from here," I said. "You’re from another echo."

She nodded.

"In mine, you died. Quickly."

My blood chilled.

"You shouldn’t be here."

"Neither should you," she whispered. "But here we are. Dragged across timelines like puppets caught in a knot."

She stepped forward, and the Grimoire in my hand began to tremble.

"Tell me, Lucian Drelmont... do you know which one of us is real?"

And then she was gone.

I woke up gasping.

The mirror in my room was cracked.

Not broken—cracked. From the inside.

The Reaping wasn’t just coming for us.

It was coming for all of us.

Across echoes.

Across selves.

And we had only seven days left.