Villainous Instructor at the Academy
Chapter 198: The hollow inheritance

Chapter 198: The hollow inheritance

The Dorne estate was a corpse pretending to be a house.

I could feel it as soon as we crossed the threshold of the outer walls. The scent of mold and blood lingered in the air, masked only slightly by age and dust. The once-proud gates groaned as they opened, iron vines curling like claws, rust flaking like dead skin.

Felix stood in front, unmoving. His shoulders stiffened as he stared at the manor ahead, a jagged silhouette beneath a storm-dark sky. Behind him, the rest of the class fanned out cautiously, all on edge.

"I always thought this place would feel smaller when I came back," Felix murmured. "It doesn’t."

"That’s trauma for you," Mira said gently. "It stretches rooms like skin."

He gave her a wan smile. Then looked at me. "Lucian. You’ll want to stay close. They won’t like you."

"They don’t like anyone," Wallace muttered.

Felix walked forward, every step heavier than the last. As we approached the grand doors, they swung open on their own. No creak. No sound at all. That silence again. The one that followed screams.

The butler who greeted us looked like he’d been embalmed decades ago. Tall, gaunt, dressed in fine grays and blacks that clung to him like cobwebs. His eyes were all pupil.

"Young master Felix," he said, bowing deeply. "The House acknowledges your return."

Felix nodded. "Has my uncle arrived?"

"He waits in the ancestral hall."

"Of course he does," Felix muttered. He turned to us. "Don’t drink anything. Don’t eat anything unless I do. Don’t sleep without a barrier rune."

"You’re making this sound very welcoming," Leo said dryly.

"I’m still deciding if you’re worth the inheritance trouble," Felix replied with a ghost of a grin.

The interior of House Dorne was a museum of decay.

Tapestries hung in tatters. Portraits stared with cracked eyes. Dust coated everything except the black runes etched into the walls—they pulsed faintly, warding off something we couldn’t see.

I examined them as we walked. Most were protection glyphs, but some were prison seals—and others, memory locks. House Dorne didn’t just bury secrets. They embalmed them.

In the ancestral hall, a fire burned cold.

That was my first impression. It looked like flame, but it gave off no heat. The hearth glowed with a dull blue light, and seated in front of it was Felix’s uncle.

Lord Malrin Dorne.

He had a nobleman’s poise and a vulture’s smile. His hair was white, not with age but with power, and his eyes had the same bleak hollowness I had seen in the tree-woman guardian.

"Felix," he said. "You’re late."

Felix bowed stiffly. "I brought witnesses. As the will demanded."

"Students?" Malrin sneered. "Hardly neutral observers."

"They’re all I trust."

"Then you’ve already lost."

The air grew colder. Not metaphorically. The fire—if that’s what it was—flared and dimmed. A ripple passed through the runes on the walls.

I stepped forward. "He hasn’t lost anything yet."

Malrin looked me over. "And you must be the stray mutt with the Grimoire. Drelmont, was it?"

"That’s what they call me."

"You smell like old blood and broken promises."

"Takes one to know one."

Malrin chuckled. "I like you. I’ll enjoy watching your throat slit when this inheritance dispute is over."

"You talk like you’ve already won."

He stood. "Because I have. The House already chose. Felix is not the heir."

"The House is a corpse," Felix said, stepping forward. "And I’m its last breath."

Something screamed through the runes. The fire went out. Darkness fell like a curtain.

And in that moment, I saw them—the true ancestors.

Not ghosts. Not spirits. Memories. Trapped in loops, bound by broken promises and cursed bloodlines. They gathered around Felix, whispering, judging.

I raised the Grimoire.

Another page turned.

___

Entry #96: Legacy Arbitration Ritual.

Participants: 2 Claimants. 1 Arbiter. 1 Flame of Origin.

Stakes: Inheritance of Name, Power, and Burden.

___

"He invoked the rite," I said. "This isn’t politics anymore. It’s binding law."

Malrin’s smile twisted. "Then let us bleed for it."

The ground cracked.

Chains rose from the floor, binding Felix and his uncle in place. The cold flame surged back to life, now blazing a furious blue.

And I, Lucian Drelmont, was the arbiter.

I would judge which man carried the true will of House Dorne.

And in the firelight, the dead began to speak.

The stone basin at the heart of the Dorne crypt began to glow faintly. Old runes etched along its rim pulsed, their light a sickly green that flickered like a candle dying in the wind. Lord Malrin Dorne stood at one side, hand outstretched, his black-ringed eyes unmoving. Felix, pale but determined, stepped forward, mirroring the gesture. His fingers trembled.

Lucian watched in silence. He had seen many contracts—bloodbound, mana-forged, even soul-linked—but this was different. This was ancestral. The kind of pact that predated the academy, predating even the empire. A pact soaked in history, salt, and blood.

"I will not stop this," Lucian said, his voice even. "But I will bear witness."

The ritual began with a hum—low, guttural, as if the earth beneath the crypt groaned to life. The basin filled not with water, but with shadows. Faces swam in the murk—Dorne ancestors, some howling in rage, others watching with empty eyes. A spectral wind brushed across the chamber, carrying with it the scent of iron and old river mud.

"Felix of House Dorne," Malrin intoned, his voice cracking like dried parchment, "do you seek the inheritance of our blood, with all its curses and truths?"

"I do," Felix replied. He stood straighter, jaw clenched. "I seek the right to change what our blood has become."

That caught Lucian’s interest. Not to accept the inheritance. To change it.

Malrin gave no visible reaction, but his magic surged, and the basin erupted with mana. Green flame burst upward, forming a serpent—no, a leeching wyrm, scaled and hollow-eyed. Its body circled the two Dorne men, tail curling into the rune circle beneath their feet.

"Then bear it," Malrin said. "Let the Wyrm of Memory judge your worth."

The specter lunged.

Felix flinched but didn’t step back. The wyrm dove into his chest—and instantly, his body convulsed. His mouth opened in a silent scream. The shadows from the basin coiled up and dragged him downward. Within seconds, Felix was gone, vanished beneath the surface of the stone floor as if it were water.

The room quieted.

Malrin staggered back, clearly drained. "He’s entered the Hollow," he rasped. "Where the regrets of our House dwell. If he survives... he will carry the right to speak for us. If he fails, his corpse will not return."

Lucian stepped forward. "And how long will this take?"

"No longer than a single breath," Malrin said. "But for him, it may be years."

Lucian looked down at the still basin, where no light or ripple remained. He sensed no heartbeat, no soul. Just a cold vacuum of memory and bone.

Within the Hollow

Felix stood in a river.

Or perhaps, a memory of one. The water was too still, too glasslike. The sky was an unmoving smear of gray. All around him, pale reeds swayed though there was no wind.

He looked at his hands.

They were not his.

These were a man’s hands. Older. Scarred. Bloodstained.

"Where—?" he started, but his voice was rough, unfamiliar.

"You wear his guilt," a whisper echoed. "Now wear his sins."

A shadow emerged from the reeds—a young girl, maybe eight years old, her eyes hollow, her dress damp with blood. She stared at him.

"You left us behind," she said.

Felix tried to back away. "I don’t know you."

"You do," she said.

More shadows stepped from the water. A woman weeping. A soldier laughing. A child coughing. Dozens. Hundreds. Their faces all blurred. Their gazes, sharp.

"You must walk the river of your inheritance," the girl said. "And drown in it. Or burn the path clean."

Back in the Crypt

Lucian’s eyes narrowed.

The runes around the basin began to shift, warping. Something was wrong.

Malrin looked up sharply. "Impossible. The Hollow doesn’t shift on its own."

Lucian’s hand twitched toward his blade. "Unless the one inside isn’t drowning."

He stepped closer to the basin. The shadows trembled.

"Unless he’s trying to rewrite it."

Inside the Hollow

The river stretched endlessly, looping back on itself in twisted spirals. Each step Felix took sent ripples into memories—some his, some not. A broken carriage floated by, wheels blood-slick. A man in Dorne colors hung upside down from a tree, face blackened from rot. Every image pulled at his mind, clawed at his guilt.

He gritted his teeth and kept walking.

The shadows whispered.

___

"You abandoned us."

"You were born from cowardice."

"You will die a Dorne—weak, ashamed, forgotten."

___

"No," he growled, voice shaking. "I don’t care what blood runs through me. I’ll burn the roots if I have to."

The river surged beneath him, reacting to his defiance. The child with bloodstained clothes reappeared—closer this time.

"You speak like the last one," she said. "The one who carved his name in the roots. Do you want to see what became of him?"

The girl lifted her hand.

The sky cracked open like glass. Above him, Felix saw a scene from the past: a Dorne ancestor—young, bold, sword raised high—standing over a battlefield. His troops burned a village. Women and children screamed. A defiant expression marred the ancestor’s face, even as arrows pierced him.

Felix watched the ancestor die, not as a martyr—but as a man who believed he could cleanse a sin with a bigger one.

"He tried to rewrite our legacy," the girl said. "And failed. Like all of them. Do you still wish to try?"

Felix didn’t answer.

Instead, he pulled something from his belt.

A folded letter. Damp but intact.

His father’s words.

"The Dorne name carries a curse. Not one of blood, but of spine. We kneel too easily. We regret too late."

Felix let the letter fall into the river.

"I’m not asking to change our name," he said. "I’m demanding it."

He stepped forward—and the Hollow reeled.

The river boiled, evaporating into steam. The ground cracked, revealing twisted roots below—each one glowing with sickly green light, connected to spectral figures chained by the wrists. Ancestors. Dozens. Hundreds. All screaming. All watching.

A pillar of black flame erupted at the Hollow’s center.

The child was gone. In her place stood something taller, older—The Wyrm of Memory made flesh. A vast serpent composed of regret and bone, its empty sockets glowing with ancient judgment.

"You defy the pact," it hissed, voice echoing in a thousand dialects. "You deny your inheritance."

"I’m not denying it," Felix answered. "I’m rewriting it."

He raised his hand.

A pulse of light shot from his chest—his mana signature, jagged but bright. Not noble. Not refined. But his.

The Hollow screamed.

The chained ancestors writhed.

And one by one, the roots began to burn.

Outside the Crypt

The stone basin cracked.

Malrin stumbled, clutching his chest. "He’s... destroying it—! The Wyrm—! If it’s killed, the ancestral contract breaks!"

Lucian didn’t move.

"Good," he said coldly.

"You fool! You don’t understand! Without the pact, our House loses everything—"

"Your House already lost everything," Lucian said. "You just kept painting the rot gold."

He stepped forward as the green runes turned red-hot.

Felix was coming back.

Inside the Hollow

The Wyrm lunged, jaws open, fangs wide enough to swallow memory whole.

Felix didn’t dodge.

He charged.

And as the beast collided with him, he screamed—

Not in pain.

But in defiance.

Back in the Crypt

The basin shattered.

A wave of force blasted outward, knocking Lucian and Malrin off their feet. The spectral light vanished. The Hollow snapped shut.

Felix collapsed forward, coughing violently.

But he was breathing.

And around his wrist—new runes glowed. Not old, gnarled glyphs from his ancestors. But fresh ones. Clean. Cut in jagged lines that matched his signature.

He looked up.

"I’m done inheriting," he said. "From now on, they answer to me."