The Villain Professor's Second Chance-Chapter 711: Sylara’s Inner Turmoil (1)

Sylvanna hunched closer to the camp-fire, trying to coax heat into fingers that wouldn't stop trembling. The mug she held—a plain clay thing, chipped along one rim—should have been scalding; instead it felt lukewarm, as though the chill in her blood leeched warmth from everything it touched. She watched the last tongues of flame lick a half-collapsed log, embers settling into ash like dying stars. Each crackle reminded her of Raëdrithar's lightning—beautiful, destructive, hers to command and somehow still alien.

Across the shallow ring of stones Draven shifted, the rolled map balanced on one knee ruffling as a stray breeze snuck through the encampment. His cloak, black to the eye yet glimmering where firelight met hidden rune-threads, draped around him like an inevitability. Quill in hand, he annotated columns of figures: arrow counts, salve vials, stamina rations per unit. His lips moved silently, reciting variables she would never see, let alone question. Yet between lines of supply projections his gaze returned—quick, evaluating, unreadable—to her face. Five beats, ten—another glance. He never stayed long enough for comfort, only long enough to confirm stability. She wondered if that was what chains felt like: not iron, but a gaze weighing whether you were fit to wield yourself.

Voices drifted from the surgeon's pavilion: muffled groans, the clink of metal bowls, the soft cadence of a healer chanting sap-spells. Beyond, patrol beacons winked through dense mist, their glow distorted like lanterns seen through river water. Every torch hissed where damp air tried to smother flame, and the smell of wet earth fused with bitter alchemical smoke.

Vaelira Greenbark emerged from that haze, stride crisp despite the stained splint cradled in her arm. Blood—not hers, Sylvanna guessed—freckled the moss-iron plates at her knees. She broke stride just inside the fire's halo, nodding to a scribe who scurried beside her with slate and stylus poised.

"Seventeen wounded," Vaelira intoned, voice tempered steel. "Four dead. Two missing." No tremor, no apology—just the cold arithmetic of survival.

Draven's quill paused. "Triage status?"

"Eight unconscious," the princess answered. "Three will lose limbs if the rot-vials aren't administered before midday." She offered the slate; Draven waved the gesture aside—already committing numbers to memory.

"Inventory the potions," he ordered, never looking up. "Prioritize for those with near-term combat utility. Aspirants and reserve porters take last draw."

The scribe scribbled, hurrying into the darkness. Vaelira's attention slid to Sylvanna. Wary sympathy flickered, quickly shuttered behind formality. Sylvanna lifted the mug as if to drink but found her throat too tight for water.

A breath of silence, then Vaelira spoke—quiet, knife-precise. "How long will they tolerate it?"

Sylvanna lowered the mug. "They?" She heard the thin edge in her own voice, hated it.

"The camp," Vaelira clarified. "Soldiers who watched dryads they once prayed to try to tear out their hearts." Her eyes flicked toward Raëdrithar, who crouched just outside the circle of light. Sparks whispered along his shoulders. "They see you arrive wrapped in the same storm."

Sylvanna's fingers whitened around clay. "I'm not her."

"Aren't you?" The princess stepped closer, moon-silver irises narrowing. "Virellionn led abominations two nights past. Today your lightning grazed friendly ranks by less than a breath. The wrong tremor, and admiration becomes terror."

Sylvanna's pulse pounded in her ears. "Raëdrithar shields our lines. We'd have lost double without him."

"I know." Vaelira's tone gentled, but her jaw remained iron. "Which only sharpens the blade of fear. A broken tether slices deeper than an enemy sword." She inclined her head, braid rings chiming. "If that bond twists—who will stop you?"

Wind gusted across the clearing; firelight fluttered, throwing erratic shadows. Raëdrithar lifted his massive head, silver eye glinting as if the question rolled through his consciousness as well. The tension snapped Draven's focus from parchment to conversation.

"She won't," he said, voice smooth as glacial runoff. He rose, towering in the gloom, parchment rolled tight in one hand like a command baton. "Because variables are monitored. Deviations corrected before escalation."

Vaelira's brows arched. "You speak of her as mechanism, not person."

Draven's gaze was slate and winter sky. "Potentialities don't care for feelings. I mitigate risk. She understands the necessity." He didn't glance at Sylvanna, yet the words shackled her all the same.

"So I'm a threat to be managed?" The question escaped before she could temper the hurt.

Draven's head tilted, analyzing. "No. You're a weapon. And weapons—"

"Need direction," Sylvanna finished bitterly. She felt the label drop onto her shoulders, heavier than armor. Weapon. Not ally, not partner—instrument.

Vaelira inhaled, perhaps to mediate, but Sylvanna was already rising. The mug slipped from numb fingers, shattering against stone, shards scattering like miniature lightning bolts. Raëdrithar's ears flattened, uncertain whether to follow. She spared him one silent plea—stay—and turned into the mist.

Boot soles crushed wet leaves, each step a punctuation of betrayal. The forest swallowed her shape; only the echo of broken pottery remained in the vacated firelight.

The words struck like a slap. Sylvanna rose, the cup slipping from her grip and shattering against the damp earth. She turned, boots crunching against wet leaves, walking fast, the mist swallowing her in silence.

_____

Sylvanna walked, and the mist swallowed her.

The low fog rose in coiling ribbons as if intent on wrapping itself around every exposed inch of skin. Beads of moisture collected along the iron lacing of her arm-guards until they fattened and slid away in tiny streams, leaving chill tracks that seeped under the leather. She wasn't sure when dawn had happened; the sky overhead was a dull pewter with no horizon line, only a vague lightening that pressed down like a damp cloth. Birdsong, so constant on untroubled mornings, stayed muted—just the occasional croak of a distant marsh rook or the soft clatter of a squirrel scrambling out of sight.

Each step sank deep, moss squelching under her boots with the wet sigh of a sponge. The smell of crushed fern mingled with the sharper scent of resin leaking from wounded trunks. In the haze the trees looked taller, their trunks tapering into ghost-white at the crowns where the mist thickened, as though the forest had lifted its own roots and walked away, leaving behind pale silhouettes. She breathed in, expecting the damp to calm the raw scorch at the back of her throat, but every breath tasted of burned bark—a memory of last night's battle she could not rinse from her lungs.

A shape kept pace on her left flank. Raëdrithar glided through bramble and vine soundlessly, great paws spreading his weight so evenly that dew stayed undisturbed on the leaves. Static crawled beneath his fur, silver filaments dancing in lazy arcs from flank to shoulder like fireflies too sluggish to fly. Now and then a strand of ethereal fur brushed Sylvanna's elbow, gifting a warm tingle, urging her to steady her breathing. He made no sound, yet she felt the depth of his attention: broad skull tipped toward her, ear tufts angled back to catch the cadence of her boots, nostrils drinking the rise and fall of her pulse.

"I thought I left her," she whispered, unsure if her voice would carry farther than her collar. The mist absorbed most of the sound; it felt almost sacrilegious to break the hush. "But she's the mirror, and I'm just… unfinished."

No reply came—at least none shaped from language. Instead Raëdrithar used the oldest means: he stepped closer, shoulder brushing her arm, and bowed his massive head until fur softer than spider-silk grazed her cheek. A pop of warm energy leapt between them, bright as summer static. The sensation wasn't shock; it was a promise. Gone was the battlefield roar—this was a hearthfire hum, something that settled into bone marrow and said, I choose you again, regardless.

Sylvanna closed her eyes. Tears swelled hot, blurred her lashes, then cooled as they slid into the fur at her temple. She angled her forehead against him, breathing the scent of ozone and rain-washed lichen. Heartbeats—hers too fast, his impossibly slow—found a compromise rhythm in the space they shared. For an instant she could almost believe the forest's stories: that a bond like this rewrote destiny's ink. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com

A memory intruded: Virellionn astride her own storm beast, ember light bleeding from gouged runes. The image knifed through the calm, cracking her breath. She pulled back, forcing her eyes open. "I can feel her," she murmured. "Like she's a pebble in my boot I can never shake out."

Raëdrithar exhaled—a low, ocean-deep rumble that vibrated through her ribs. Pride laced the sound. It reminded her that a pebble can't move a mountain.

She managed the ghost of a smile. "You're certain of me when I'm not certain of myself."

His tail made one slow sweep through the mist, scattering droplets into faint arcs of blue-white sparks. In that simple motion was an entire lecture on certainty, loyalty, and storms choosing their horizon.

A breeze teased the fog, thinning it just enough for Sylvanna to glimpse the distant glow of campfires. Orange halos wavered behind skeletal trunks, lanterns swaying on guide ropes like pocket suns. Voices drifted at the edge of hearing—urgent, hushed, as though the entire war effort had caught cold.

She drew in a bracing breath. The air still tasted of ash, but under it lay the clean bite of pine. She turned back toward the camp, each stride a deliberate reclaiming of ground.