The Villain Professor's Second Chance

Farther back, Draven watched the press unfold with a detached precision that felt almost inhuman. His gray eyes ticked from gap to gap—measuring stress points in the shield curve, counting how many brine-automata had adapted to the lightning residue, noting the subtle hitch in Vaelira's sword arm each time she redirected weight to protect Marrin's exposed side. Every movement, every falter, became data to store for later.

The basin's center yawned half a mile away, but he sensed the Gate's breath even here in every rising plume of memory-fog. Timed surges rattled under his boots, pushing warmth up through fissures like the exhalations of a buried furnace. They had minutes—less if the automata's next evolution ignored the cage's conductivity and attacked with sheer mass.

He signaled the infiltration team.

Two scouts—Rye with the crooked nose and Kale the silent—stepped into his shadow without question. Both carried disruptor rods bundled in rawhide, plus small powder charges shaped like fat dragonflies. Azra, wrists still encircled by the remnants of shattered cuffs, fell in beside Draven, cradling her own kit against her chest. Blood had dried in cracks across her left gauntlet, but there was new resolve in the set of her jaw.

"Watch their formations," she murmured, nodding toward the automata tide. "They're learning from each fallen unit. One cycle ago they charged single file; now they flank cages in pairs."

"I accounted for three iterations," Draven replied. "If they reach a fourth, Vaelira pulls back to the ridge and we lose the window." He tilted his head at the blue crackle playing through the mud. "Keep your eyes forward."

Azra almost smiled—habit rather than humor. "Yes, teacher."

They slipped between the rear ranks as Vaelira shouted fresh intervals—"Hold—two—three—Drive!"—and reached the slanted trench that led beneath the basin. Mud sucked at their footwear. Somewhere overhead, an automaton's limb sheared off under a hammer-blow, thudding beside them like a felled girder. None of them flinched; their focus was the gaping throat ahead, barnacle-ribbed and throbbing.

Beneath the basin the world changed pitch.

The spiral shaft swallowed them in wet twilight, its walls alive with barnacles the size of fists and translucent tube worms swaying like pale streamers in a sluggish current that no longer existed. Each timed surge thrummed through the stone—throat muscles flexing just beneath their feet. Draven slid one palm along the inner wall, feeling minute vibrations. Thirty-five seconds between pulses now, maybe thirty-four. Acceleration.

"Lights low," he ordered.

Rye pinched shutter plates over a lantern, reducing it to a dull ember. Even so, hundreds of bioluminescent motes sparked awake in ceiling cracks—tiny crustaceans disturbed by the intrusion. Their ghostly glow outlined the corridor like a ribcage.

Ahead, the first echo-leeches drifted into view. They resembled jellyfish carved from opal: teardrop bodies trailing ribbon-thin feelers that shimmered with memory static. They chose prey by intention, not flesh—magnetized to thoughts held too tightly.

Azra saw them and slowed. One leech broke formation, bobbing toward her brow. Its filaments quivered, scenting the urgency in her pulse. Before it could latch, Draven's voice sliced through the air—a calm, resonant vibration born from deep diaphragm instead of throat.

"Eva'rel lun thar."

Three simple words.

The leech recoiled, bobbing like a buoy struck by sudden wind. Its filaments tangled on themselves, sparkled for an instant, then drifted off, confused. The scouts, already breathing shallow, felt purpose leak from their terror; the chant anchored them, turning jagged fear into cold utility.

"Keep that phrase in mind," Draven said softly. "It gives them nothing to chew."

They advanced another twenty paces. The air grew warmer, almost humid. Steam beaded on Azra's brow. Where the wall stones met overhead, milky veins of quartz glowed faintly—pulse conduits carrying stolen memories toward the Gate's throat. Draven counted junctions, matching them to a mental diagram. One conduit for every hundred souls lost in the valley, if his math held. Too many.

"Disruptor positions," he whispered.

Azra dipped to one knee, producing a rod half an arm's length long. She thumbed a rune etched into the copper housing; the sigils flared, preparing to fuse with the living stone. Rye took the opposite pipe, planting charges in a precise diamond.

Kale hovered at Draven's elbow, eyes huge. "That singing… it's louder now."

Draven listened.

Faint threads of sound—no, not sound, but pressure—flowed through the valves ahead. It reminded him of prayer wheels he'd once seen in Monasteria: perfumed wind spinning cylinders etched with scripture. Only these scriptures were names, and the wind a cannibal.

"Don't follow it," he warned. "Task first."

They spliced each rod into a pulsing artery. The moment Azra's final clamp bit down, the rod thrummed, absorbing a fraction of the memory current. Blue swirls inside the conduit dulled to sluggish grey.

Azra wiped sweat on her sleeve. "Three more junctions."

Draven eyed her loosened cuffs. "Faster."

She dipped her head, dark hair swinging. "Yes, teacher."

Above the basin the wind-spire loomed like a rusted lighthouse, its skeletal frame creaking in every new gust. Sylvanna paused on an angled rung, shoulders shaking from exertion and the altitude's sting. Raëdrithar spiraled beneath her, ready to catch if the metal betrayed.

Korin, halfway up, wedged the resonance lantern between two pitted struts. The globe's glass went milk-white, then dazzling silver until the boy's face was washed pale. He squinted up at Sylvanna, wind tugging his hood. "When it shifts to clear," he shouted, "that's your mark!"

"Understood!" she called back, though the wind snatched half the syllables.

She scaled the last ladder segment and hauled herself onto a service platform, knees striking corroded grate. Up close the amplifier mirrors were nothing more than curved bronze sheets riveted to spokes, but each face shimmered with runic frost. They tracked the sky on clockwork bearings, crankshafts creaking. One mirror now pointed squarely at the drained sea, drinking reflections of stranded wreckage. Another sought the moon still hidden behind afternoon cloud.

Sylvanna unstrapped her bow. The carved storm runes across the wood prickled her fingertips—never quite still, always humming. She nocked a heavy signal arrow, silver filigree glinting. Somewhere below, Vaelira's line crashed shields into a fresh automata wave; metal rang like bells shattering glass. She tuned it out, breathing deep into her belly.

Words came—soft, hesitant—rising from a place older than language. A lullaby. She let the first phrase hover on her lips, shaping vowels without voice; air carried only the memory of song. Lightning coiled in response, finding resonance.

Flash.

Memory hit like a thrown spear: a stone crib bathed in flickering lamplight, wind battering shuttered slats, the scent of rain-soaked pine. A man's silhouette bent over the cradle, broad shoulders casting deep shadows on the wall. His voice—gentle, deliberate—wove that same lullaby. For a breath she tasted safety.

She opened her eyes, tears cold on cheeks, and the silhouette resolved into a familiar figure: Draven, younger by decades, hair longer, eyes softer yet still unblinking. He placed a rune leaf beside the baby's pillow—protection glyph, musician's signature. The image blurred as the present roared back: wind, blue light, impending collapse.

"Not now," she whispered, gripping the rail until metal groaned. "Steady."

Below, Korin's lantern snapped from white to perfect, crystalline clear. Mark received.

She drew.

Electricity crawled from her chest through shoulders, arms, into the bow. The arrowhead—silver veins etched for harmonic discharge—began to glow. Static lifted strands of hair, painting them white-blue. Overhead, clouds wrinkled like fabric caught in a gale, thunder growling.

With voice barely above breath, Sylvanna sang. The lullaby—those six repeating notes—threaded into the chaotic wind. Each note tightened the storm's spiral, pulling wild energy into rhythm. Raëdrithar echoed with a low harmonic hum, adding a bass line older than speech.

She loosed.

The arrow screamed downwards in a streak of cobalt. The moment it struck the highest mirror, a corona of lightning arced across the entire wheel—jumping spokes, fusing rivets, racing into the core. Sparks cascaded like molten stars, and for a heartbeat the whole spire was a cage of white fire.

Sylvanna staggered, vision spotting black. She clutched the rail as the structure bucked. If she lost balance now she'd plummet into the memory fog churning far below.

Hold. Breathe. Count.

The wheel's glow dimmed to a sullen amber. Lightning leaked off into the air like soap bubbles popping.

She exhaled, shoulders trembling.