The Villain Professor's Second Chance

Vaelira steadied his wrist with one hand while the other rooted for a vial of coagulant powder on her belt. The pouch clattered—empty. Behind her, medics canvassed the sand for splints and bandages, the orderly cadence of their ministrations already collapsing under the weight of too many mangled bodies. Marrin's breathing hitched, a stutter in the wet rattle of his chest.

Wind whistled through shattered spars littering the flats, threading uncanny notes through the air like a half-remembered battle hymn. Every gust swirled brine and blood into pink froth that slapped against discarded shields. Somewhere inland a gull cried, a thin, ragged sound far too normal for the carnage on the beach—and that thin splinter of normality pierced Vaelira worse than grief.

"Commander…" Marrin's voice rasped again. His eyes rolled, pupils blown wide as night pools, yet a flicker of command steel lingered behind the glaze. "Listen. The lads— they'll follow. You've got to steer them past regret."

Vaelira clenched her jaw. Regret was already a specter here, drifting amid the sea-mist. But she nodded, because nodding was easier than promising.

A cough convulsed Marrin. Foam bubbled at the corner of his mouth. "Take it," he hissed, forcing stiff fingers toward the tattered banner pole still strapped across his back. "Symbol's heavier than axe and twice the reach."

She hesitated—absurd, when the man lay dying—but taking the banner felt like signing an irrevocable charter. Snow-fractured moonlight flickered across the shredded standard: once vibrant green and silver, now only sea-stained threads dancing free in the wind.

Marrin's lips drew back from his teeth in a grin more skull than man. "Don't let 'em see you flinch, Commander. Banner raised, they'll think the tide itself obeys."

A healer knelt beside them, steam blooming from her pouched tinctures. She leaned close to Vaelira's ear. "Acid's spread to the lung lining. If we cauterise, he'll drown in his own blood. We can give dreamleaf and—"

"No," Marrin interjected, catching a frayed thread of their whisper. "Save the leaf for those who'll march tomorrow. I'm old wood; burn me bright."

Vaelira shook her head once—violent denial—but Marrin's free hand clamped her wrist, surprising strength flaring a final time. "Take the tassel," he rasped. "The lads need it. Water forgets blood, aye, but cloth keeps the story."

His gaze lurched toward the healer. "Do it," he ordered, voice suddenly sharper than a saluting blade. The healer swallowed, struck flint to steel. A thin blue flame fluttered in the shielded cup of her hand. Marrin's breath caught—startled, maybe from the sudden brightness—and he managed one last smirk at Vaelira.

"Damn fine view, this," he murmured, eyes glazing toward the aurora still wavering overhead. "Makes a man believe the gods paint their war banners in the heavens."

The healer pressed fire to an iron spike, heated it until it glowed white. The smell of scorched blood rose, a copper-sharp tang mixing with rotting kelp. Marrin jerked once—no sound, teeth locked—then sagged, breath easing out in a long, gentle sigh that sounded almost like relief. The coil-worm's corpse slid from his side with a wet plop, acid hissing weakly in the sand.

A hush coated the immediate circle. Sergeants lowered their voices, even the gulls seemed to break off their cries. Vaelira lifted her palm from the inert wrist, fingers sticky with mingled blood and ointment. A single drop of blue-tinged ichor crawled across her gauntlet's knuckle guard before freezing in the cold air.

She bowed her head, only for the briefest heartbeat, then reached over Marrin's shoulder. Leather straps came away easily under her knife, leaving the banner pole loose. It felt unexpectedly light in her hand without the weighty figure behind it, like a sword missing its balance pommel. The frayed tassel fluttered at the pole's end, threads catching stray sparks from the still-burning wreckage nearby.

Silence fractured when a junior lieutenant ran up, skidding to one knee. "Commander, western pickets report movement—no automata signatures, looks human. Possibly Justiciar remnants flanking under cover of wrecks."

Vaelira stood, forcing the sorrow back under command steel. "Post archers atop the high prow, douse their arrowheads in quicklime. I want night lanes lit until we confirm intentions."

"Yes, Commander." The lieutenant's eyes flicked to Marrin, then away. He saluted, fist to breastplate, and sprinted back through the dark.

Vaelira inhaled deep, scent of salt and burned flesh scoring her lungs. She lifted the stump of banner to eye level, studying the tattered weave. Where once the silver stitching had traced a leaf over rippling water, only stray threads remained—indistinguishable twine on first glance, until a stray ember caught one thread and it glittered faintly. The metallic shimmer looked like new dawn on ripples, perhaps, if one squinted hard enough.

She wrapped the cords around her forearm twice, knotting them tight. Blood—hers, Marrin's—darkened the strands until color bled uncertain between red and blue. With a sharp tug she tethered the banner back to the pole, shortened but unbowed. Satisfaction flickered across her face, too swift to read.

Then she turned to address her officers. "He dies a captain," she said, voice low but carrying. "We remain his shield." She raised the banner—the ragged heirloom now more scar than standard—and every soldier who saw it straightened, as though the wind itself shored their weary backs.

Across the torn flats, Draven climbed from a rent in the seabed—the same fissure that minutes before spewed plumes of memory-laden water skyward. He moved with deliberate economy, boots finding footholds almost before eyes traced them. Fluid still steamed off his gloves, leaving lace-thin trails of silver residue that hardened into fractal patterns across the leather. Pain radiated up his forearms—nerve endings scorched—but he compartmentalised the sensation into a mental darkroom: label it, shelve it, proceed.

Azra followed, slower, clutching her side where a shard of valve plate had grazed her ribs. Blood seeped between her fingers, but her gaze remained locked on Draven's silhouettes as though tethering her will to his momentum. Two scouts emerged last, hauling satchels of spent rods. One passed Draven an approving nod; the other hawked seawater, spitting it into the sand with a shudder.

"The back-pressure?" Azra panted once they crested the ridge of silt collapsing into lazy rivulets.

"Equalised for now," Draven answered. His voice held no tremor. "Your reroute held."

Azra's brows pinched, half pride, half disbelief. "Then why does the air still taste like forgotten names?"

Draven tasted it too—the metallic ozone, the faint whisper of overlapping syllables at the edge of hearing, voices half-born and half-erased. "Because memory resists drowning," he said. "It floats."

He checked the sky. The aurora had dimmed to thin gauze, but slim spirals still pulsed at intervals. Timing those pulses, he counted heartbeats—thirty-five and holding. Good. Any faster meant the amplifier's mirrors realigned. They'd bought hours, maybe.

Wind gusted, carrying shouts from the forward pickets. Torches flared, blotting night vision for a heartbeat. A column of ragged shapes trudged into view—Justiciar survivors or deserters, hands raised, weapons abandoned. The frontmost wore no helm; his face muddy, eyes wide in a mixture of relief and desperation.

Azra leaned close, ribs hitching at the movement. "They'll kill prisoners now. Too many mouths, not enough dry rations."

"Not if they prove useful," Draven said, already calculating resource gaps: barricade builders, water haulers, torch lighters. Grief warped armies; pragmatism fed them.

They trudged toward camp. Each step left prints that filled instantly with faint blue water before seeping away—traces of the sea reluctant to relinquish new land.

Sylvanna clambered down from the wind-spire's skeletal frame, every muscle screaming with tremors that weren't entirely physical. At intervals her braid chimed—small static pops as residual lightning crawled the storm-touched wire woven within. Korin descended behind her, lantern now a dim gold but still warm against his chest.

Raëdrithar followed above, wings beating erratic from exhaustion. Lightning spidered across its pinions in half-hearted snaps. The chimera landed near the supply wagons and folded down, feathers shuddering. Sylvanna placed a palm against its beak, murmured a thank-you in the old tongue of beastkeepers. The creature rumbled approval, eyes shuttering halfway.

Korin tugged her sleeve. "Lady Syalra?" He used the name shyly, as though still uncertain if speaking it summoned consequences. "The lantern flame— it turned white again when we hit the peak. And I—I heard a man singing the lullaby with you."

Sylvanna's throat tightened. She crouched, meeting the boy's searching eyes. "Sometimes the lantern offers history," she said. Her voice felt hoarse, scraped raw by sea wind and sudden revelation. "Sometimes history wears a familiar voice."

"Was it Sir Draven's voice?" he pressed, curiosity sharpening to conviction.

She nearly said yes. But the memory—Draven's younger face awash in smoke-lit cradle shadows—felt too fragile to share. Instead she ruffled Korin's hair, a brief gesture that crackled static across his curls. "Keep listening," she whispered. "The lantern chooses what truths we need, not always the ones we want."

Korin nodded, hugging the glass chamber as if the warmth might stitch bravery into his bones.

Night deepened, bringing the bitter edge of maritime winter. Makeshift braziers sprung along the re-pitched camp perimeter—scraps of broken hull timbers and torn automata shells fed into jittering fires. Blue light flickered off faces: weary, streaked with grime, scrapes crudely bound. For many the firelight's comfort was brief; tasks waited.

Draven entered the ring just as Vaelira finished her rounds of the wounded. Their eyes met over the glow: hers rimmed red, him unreadable. He noticed the banner tassel coiled round her forearm, soft threads sodden with what looked too dark for sea water. They spoke without preamble.

"Pressure valves stable?" she asked.

"At tolerance," he replied. "But I'll assign a watch—they groan under every pulse."

"Which means we still dance to the Gate's rhythm."

"For now."

Vaelira surveyed the exhausted ranks. "I lost Marrin."

Draven dipped his chin—a soldier's nod to another soldier's loss. "He bought us minutes. We spent them well."

Vaelira inhaled, voice tight. "Spend minutes, spend men. We're nearly bankrupt."

"Then we invest in information," Draven said. He gestured as Justiciar prisoners were ushered toward the triage tent, Edrik among them, hands bound. "Loyalty may be scarce, but motive can be leveraged."

Her gaze followed the prisoners. "When the tide returns again we'll be outnumbered."

"Not if we meet it farther down the throat," he countered.

Before she could reply, a distant horn blared—thin, wavering, twice repeated. Scout call: approaching messengers. Draven and Vaelira exchanged a glance laden with possibilities: Vostyr's envoys, Helyra's observers, or new foes entirely.

Moments later two riders emerged, horses lathered in salt. One bore the raven crest—ink-black wing over torch—Vostyr's seal. The second wore astronomer's blues under a layer of road dust. The camp grew quiet as they dismounted.

Vaelira accepted the scroll from the raven rider first. Wax cracked, parchment unfurled. She read silently, throat bobbing. Draven caught snippets: capital failing, mobs breach wards, water glows faint. The final line: Return with cure or prepare to burn. Vaelira's jaw set; her fingers crushed the scroll's margin.

Helyra's messenger offered a leather tube sealed with constellations drawn in silver. Draven broke it. Star charts spilled out, hastily amended with new coordinates. Helyra's scrawl curved urgent: Stars realign ahead of cycle. Amplifier sleeps, not dies. Seventy-two hours.

His eyes narrowed. "We halved the window."

Vaelira cursed under breath. "Then we strike again before the moon moves."

Draven's mind raced, mapping new assault vectors while simultaneously assessing troop readiness: too many sprains, half rations, morale fraying. He needed leverage—knowledge, weapon, untested alliance.

Azra, hunched by a brazier, studied him across the flames. Blood still seeped from beneath her hastily wrapped ribs. She lifted a shaky hand, brush of acknowledgement. Their earlier cooperation had held; trust's seed might yet root.

He crossed the camp toward her. Halfway, Sylvanna intercepted, Raëdrithar ghosting behind like living smoke. She planted herself in his path, expression hard but eyes stormy.

"You saved me twice," she said, voice pitched for his ears alone. "Once in cradle. Once on spire. Stop calling that coincidence."

Draven's gaze remained flat. "You're grasping at ghosts."

She stepped closer, defiant. "Since I bound Raëdrithar, fragments come—memories not mine. The lullaby you sang matches the one the lantern hums. And my name— it's not the alias you gave me. It's Syalra."

Nothing changed in Draven's posture, but he flicked a glance toward Korin's lantern glow across camp, measuring who else listened. Then he met her stare, mercury eyes unnervingly calm.

"It means nothing," he said. Each syllable was a wall. "Names change to keep people alive."

Sylvanna's shoulders squared. "Yet memory floats, you told Azra." She tilted her chin. "Where does that leave lies?"

Draven said nothing. He stepped around her, deliberate, cloak brushing her knuckles. She didn't follow. Lightning crackled faint at her temples, sparks that hissed into the sand.

He reached Azra's brazier. She looked up with a weary half-smile. "I knew you," she murmured, voice barely above the sizzle of burning kelp. "In the monastery. Before the purge. You gave me the rune leaf. Said it would teach me patience."

Draven poured water from his canteen onto a scrap of cloth. Steam rolled up as he wrung it. "Patience is seldom a wasted gift," he replied.

Azra's eyelids fluttered. "But wasted on me, maybe."

He passed her the cloth to wipe blood from her hands. "We decide that tomorrow."

Thunder grumbled far offshore—unnatural, considering the cloudless sky. The sea, perhaps, warning them that time marched too.

Nearby, Vaelira stood vigil beside Marrin's shrouded form. She had draped his cloak over him, clasp folded hands atop the banner pole laid lengthwise across his chest. Each ripple of surf drew closer, depositing shards of sea glass at the corpse's feet like ocean-born gifts.

A junior trooper approached, holding Marrin's dented helm. He cleared his throat. "Commander? Protocol says we melt the metal for pike rivets, but—"

Vaelira's gaze hardened. "Protocol can wait. The helm rides with him to the flames at dawn." She closed Marrin's fingers around the pole tassel. The torn threads slithered between his stiff knuckles, as though seeking to lash themselves to flesh one last time.

She straightened, banner stump clutched like a scepter. Around her the camp's fires guttered, smoke coiling upward to mingle with the thinning aurora. When the next tide came—tomorrow, tonight, perhaps hours—she would hold what remained of the banner high, and pray that water forgot the blood beneath her boots.

Far below the cliffs, past labyrinthine tunnels veiled in coral dust, Orvath knelt before the conch-throne. Deep azure light bathed the cavern in liquid radiance, making scales of salt crystal shimmer like fish-skin. The corrupted heart-wood fragment pulsed at the throne's base, each glow flushing fresh runes to life along the spiral walls.

Orvath's arm hung limp, skin charred to the elbow from feedback that had scorched through every blood channel. Pain should have driven him senseless, yet exultation burned hotter. He pressed his forehead to salt-slick floor, lips moving in a subvocal hymn older than sky.

A voice answered—neither male nor female, booming yet whispered—rising from the throne's whorled chambers. It spoke in pulses, cadence synchronised with his heartbeat.

"Smother their dawn."

Orvath lifted his gaze. Tears mingled with sweat, streaming down soot-burned cheeks.

"Bring me," the voice hissed, vibration rattling loose stalactites, "the storm-child."

He smiled, shards of charred tooth gleaming. The blue glow flooded his pupils until irises vanished. A pulse shuddered overhead—the cliff face groaning like waking leviathan.

His eyes glowed blue.