Villainous Instructor at the Academy
Chapter 199: What follows the flame

Chapter 199: What follows the flame

I didn’t expect silence to be so heavy.

The walk out of the crypt should’ve felt like freedom—like stepping out of a coffin—but instead it felt like wading through ash. Every step reminded me of what I’d just done.

I could still feel them.

The ancestors.

They didn’t scream anymore. That was the worst part.

They watched.

Lucian waited at the edge of the collapsed chamber, arms folded. His platinum hair looked almost silver in the torchlight, face unreadable as always.

"You didn’t die," he said. "Congratulations."

I opened my mouth to respond but nearly choked on air. My throat still tasted like rust and smoke.

"Water," I rasped.

Wallace shoved a canteen into my hands before Lucian could even blink.

"You were in there for over an hour," Wallace said. "Your mana flared so hard the crypt nearly collapsed. Also, you smell like old books and bad decisions."

"Thanks," I croaked, taking a long swig.

Julien crouched beside me, eyebrows raised. "So... what’s it like fighting a spectral worm made of family trauma?"

I shook my head, still breathing hard. "Exactly like that."

Lucian finally moved, kneeling before me. "Show me your wrist."

I held it out. The runes shimmered—red and sharp-edged, like they’d been carved with a blade instead of drawn with ink.

Lucian studied them silently.

Then he nodded once. "You burned your contract."

"Was that... bad?" I asked.

He gave a thin smile. "For the Dorne family legacy? Absolutely. For you?" He stood. "It’s the only thing that might’ve saved your spine."

Malrin was gone. Left before I even woke, apparently. Probably off to warn the elders or vomit into a noble wine cask.

No one spoke about him. Not yet.

Later, at the Dorne Estate

Dinner was a hushed affair.

Servants moved like ghosts. Food was left untouched. Every noble in the hall could feel it—that something sacred had been shattered.

The Dorne crest above the hearth no longer glowed with ancestral light.

The pact was broken.

"Felix," said a soft voice.

I turned to see my sister—Lyria. Younger by two years, still dressed in that half-cloak of mourning our family made children wear after failing a rite. She didn’t wear it like shame, though.

She sat beside me. Slid something under my plate.

A key.

"To the vault," she whispered. "They’re going to try to bury this. You should see what they kept hidden."

Before I could ask anything, she stood and walked away.

Lucian raised an eyebrow at me across the table.

I slipped the key into my sleeve.

Midnight

The vault was beneath the west wing. Hidden behind a false bookshelf and guarded by a binding rune. I touched the fresh mark on my wrist.

The lock clicked.

Inside were scrolls, ledgers, swords, and dozens of relics sealed in crystal. One caught my eye—a twisted medallion etched with the same runes I’d just burned.

I lifted it.

It pulsed against my skin.

Memories poured into me—not from the ancestors, but from the pact itself.

Agreements made in blood. Bargains with spirits. Power granted in exchange for silence.

It wasn’t a legacy.

It was a leash.

And the Dorne family had worn it proudly for generations.

Aboveground

Lucian stood by the training yard, watching the stars.

When I returned, vault dust still on my hands, he didn’t turn to look at me.

"You’re going to make enemies," he said. "Not just here. Nobles, families, cults—you just burned a thread woven into the old world."

"I know."

"They’ll call you a heretic."

"I know."

He finally looked at me. "Good."

Elsewhere

Malrin knelt before a circle of robed figures. Their faces were hidden, but their voices oozed from the walls.

___

"The pact was severed."

"The Hollow stirred."

"The boy is... different."

___

Malrin didn’t speak.

He only nodded.

___

"Then we’ll watch," said the voice in the center.

"And when the time comes... we’ll remind him that inheritance isn’t just blood. It’s debt."

___

The next morning, the sky was gray and unkind.

Rain dripped from the edges of the Dorne estate like the walls themselves were weeping. It matched the mood well enough—quiet servants, cold stares, and whispers that scattered like dry leaves when I entered a room.

Our bags were packed. We were to return to the Academy today.

But I wasn’t the same boy who had arrived.

And the House of Dorne... wasn’t the same house.

Breakfast

No one said it aloud, but it was clear from the arrangement: I had been seated at the head of the table.

Not the Patriarch. Not my uncle.

Me.

Most of the elders hadn’t even shown up. The ones who did kept their eyes on their plates like I might speak a curse into their marrow.

Lucian stood behind me, arms folded, gaze ice-cold as ever. My classmates sat further down, watching everything with the kind of wary silence usually reserved for detonating spells.

Cassandra sipped tea without a word.

Julien whistled low. "Damn. Never seen nobles eat so quietly. Did someone die?"

"They wish," muttered Mira.

Felix: one. Generations of ancestral puppets: zero.

I didn’t feel victorious. I just felt... awake. Like I’d finally crawled out of some deep grave I hadn’t realized I was buried in.

After Breakfast

I found Lyria waiting by the stables. She held a sealed letter and a small, rune-inscribed blade wrapped in crimson cloth.

"It’s for when they come for you," she said. "And they will come."

"I know."

She glanced back at the estate—its cracked towers, the faded crest above the gate. "You didn’t just break the pact, you humiliated them. The Hollow was our inheritance. You turned it into ashes."

"I didn’t want power that fed on chains."

Her eyes met mine. "Then make sure no one binds you again."

She pressed the blade into my hand.

Then she hugged me.

It was awkward. Clumsy. The kind of hug people give when they’re not sure it’s allowed anymore.

But it mattered.

"I’ll hold them off," she said. "Be more Dorne than they ever were."

On the Road

We left before noon.

The wagons rattled down the old stone road that cut through the fog-choked marshlands. I leaned back against the wooden side and let the rain patter against my cloak.

Wallace fiddled with a smoke-bomb prototype that hissed every time it rained on the fuse. Julien tried to prank Garrick and got tackled into the mud. Mira cursed at the soaked map. Leo complained about trench foot.

Cassandra just watched the mist.

It felt normal. Which was... comforting.

Lucian rode beside our wagon, silent and sharp-eyed, reins in one hand, the other resting near his sword. He hadn’t spoken much since the Hollow’s defeat. But his eyes lingered on me now and then—not suspicious, not cold.

Measured.

And something else. Like he was waiting to see what I would become.

Nightfall: Campfire

We set camp beneath an overhang of old pine trees. The canopy held back most of the rain, but the air was still wet with the smell of moss and smoke.

Lucian finally spoke when only a few of us were awake.

He stared into the fire. "You severed a soul-contract bound in blood. That doesn’t happen without cost."

"I know."

"Do you?"

He turned to look at me then—eyes like cyan flame, piercing and impossible to lie to.

"You’ve stepped off the road nobles built for you. Which means the only map you have left... is the one you draw."

"I’m not afraid."

"You should be." His voice was quiet, but not cruel. "Because they are. And terrified people start wars."

I swallowed.

"What do I do now?"

Lucian tossed a branch into the flames. "You live. Loudly. Shamelessly. In ways they can’t ignore. Make yourself so vivid the world can’t pretend you’re dead."

Then he smiled.

The first real smile I’d seen on his face.

"Because if you don’t... they’ll find a way to bury you again."

Far, Far Away:

In a high chamber lined with crystalline mirrors, a man in a white mask knelt before a whispering veil.

"The pact is gone," he said. "The Hollow was burned."

A voice—older than language—sighed through the chamber like a breeze through bone.

___

"Then the boy has awakened."

"The Thread of Severance stirs."

"Balance must be preserved."

___

The masked man nodded. "Shall I kill him?"

"No," the voice replied.

___

"Let him rise. Let the world remember why it trembles when a chain breaks."

"Let him gather the ashes."

___

The man stood, cloak rustling like a dying flame.

"As you will, Reverie."

Returning to the Academy wasn’t the victory lap I thought it’d be.

If anything, it felt like I’d brought something cursed back with me—dragging the soot of a fallen house behind my boots, even if I’d burned it for good reason.

They didn’t say anything at first. The instructors, the nobles, the aides in gold-trimmed robes—they smiled politely, nodded with clipped formality, and moved like I was wrapped in glass and they were afraid to touch me.

But I felt it.

Whispers in the halls. Eyes that turned away too quickly. Teachers who suddenly had "other tasks" and sent aides instead.

Even in Class C, the shift was obvious.

Julien was the first to say it.

"I liked you better when you were a coward."

I blinked. "Thanks?"

He nudged my shoulder. "Now I have to take you seriously. Do you know how exhausting that is?"

Mira added, "To be fair, you’re less annoying now. You don’t flinch every time someone raises their voice."

"I still flinch," I muttered.

"Yeah, but now it’s hot."

Leo groaned. "Can we not thirst over traumatized classmates for five minutes?"

Wallace piped up, "Five minutes is a long time."

Even Garrick laughed.

And just like that, the ice broke.

A Letter Delivered in Silence

Three days after our return, a raven landed on my windowsill with a scroll bound in dark violet string.

No seal.

No name.

Inside, a single line written in thin, spidery ink:

"They know you’ve broken the pact. Others will come now—some to bind, some to beg, and some to bleed."

There was something else tucked beneath it. A folded parchment with a rune in the shape of a blooming chain.

Lucian took one look at it and swore under his breath.

"Warlocks," he muttered. "Of course they’d smell it."

"Warlocks?"

He nodded grimly. "Not the kind with pointed hats and broomsticks. The kind who think soul-chains are sacred. Cults that believe broken bloodlines are signs of apocalypse."

"...cool."

"Not cool," he growled. "They’re lunatics. They’ll try to kill you or convert you."

"So... standard religious outreach."

That earned a twitch of a smile. Barely.

After Hours – Training Yard

Lucian didn’t wait. That night, he dragged me to the training yard.

No lights. No students. Just cold air, damp grass, and steel.

"You have power now," he said. "The kind that draws attention. Which means people will try to test you. Kill you. Use you."

"I know."

"Then prove it. Show me you’re not the same boy who begged me not to make him run laps in a marsh."

I didn’t hesitate.

We clashed.

Sword against spell, instinct against control. I wasn’t stronger than him—not even close—but I was different now. Faster. Sharper. Hungrier.

There was something in me that felt awake in ways it hadn’t before. Like the blood I’d spilled in the Hollow had unlocked some forgotten part of me—something coiled and bright, like fire made solid.

When we stopped, I was panting, hands trembling, but still standing.

Lucian studied me, and for once, his voice wasn’t cold.

"You’ve changed."

"I had to."

"No," he said. "You chose to."

Then he stepped closer and tapped the center of my chest. "That’s what makes you dangerous."

Elsewhere: A Man with Two Faces

In a chamber far from the Academy, beneath a ruined cathedral swallowed by swamp and time, a man sat before a cracked mirror.

He had no name anymore. Just two faces—one for prayer, one for blood.

He stared at the rune Felix had triggered.

The Blooming Chain.

"A child severed the Hollow," he whispered. "A child made of shame and softness."

Then he smiled.

It split his face too wide, like his skin didn’t fit him properly.

"The gods are watching. Let the flame bearer rise."

He dipped a quill in blood and scrawled a name.

Felix Dorne.

And then he lit the parchment.

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