The Villain Professor's Second Chance

Draven's pulse rose one deliberate beat. He acknowledged with the gentlest tilt of the tray, sending a ripple through the wine's surface. Helyra's eyes slipped away, serene. Anyone watching saw a priestess test the weight of her scepter and a servant re-balancing his service.

Beyond her, Kaela's novice robe pooled around combat boots no acolyte would dare wear, but the hem skimmed just low enough to hide them. She sang with the choir, mouth shaping holy syllables, though Draven knew her voice hardly escaped her lips—she was listening for footfalls. Beneath linen hung scaled leather fit for a knife-fight. At the lull between verses she dipped behind a red-velvet drape, vanishing into stairwells meant for stagehands centuries dead. Her pulse spiked—he saw it in the flutter of cloth—but her footsteps stayed even. Good.

Among the musicians, Sylvanna hid behind a harp taller than her shoulders. She plucked stray notes to tune the instrument—silvery glisses that melted into the audience's low murmur. At her boot rested a mahogany bow case, gilt hinges glinting like harmless ornament. Draven's ear caught the faintest chitin rattle inside. One of her chimera falcons stirred, agitated by incense and crowd noise. She touched the lid once—an intimate hush—and it stilled. When his gaze brushed hers she granted him a musician's nod, graceful, but her eyes burned hunter-bright. Arrows ready. Threads taut.

A trumpeter emblazoned with the royal wolf stepped into the colonnade furthest from the throne. He lifted his brass instrument; banners unfurled as its first note blared—a tide-pull loud enough to hush every whisper. Conversations died like candles pinched between fingers. Nobles rose in a choreographed rustle of brocade and chain.

Draven slid a pace backward, aligning himself behind a column veined in black jade. He placed the tray atop a console and folded hands behind his back—servant still, but perfectly situated. Smoke from guttering tapers coiled up the shaft, and in the wavering haze his outline dissolved to anyone not looking directly at him. From here he saw all: the thick rope that secured the dais curtain, the archers repositioning, the guard captain signaling cross-hall.

And he watched King Auric step through the triple doors, cloak of scaled crimson pooling like fresh gore. The ruler's pale face caught full torchlight; thin lips curved in a smile too sharp to be gracious. Around him flitted courtiers, each struggling to maintain stride while bowing. A cluster of foreign envoys parted, their jeweled collars flashing like collars on trained dogs.

Auric opens with a boast, Draven thought, mental voice iced to perfect calm. Indeed: the king halted at the base of the dais, lifted a hand, and declared, "Friends of Valaroth—feast your eyes, for tonight your king binds lightning itself!" Grand, empty thunder. One line.

As Auric ascended the quartz steps he unfurled more rhetoric—two lines, three—each gilded with contempt for elven "savagery," each promising stability forged by royal iron. Draven listened with only one ear. The rest of his awareness flowed outward: to the rhythm of a nervous guard drumming gauntlet on shield rim; to the staccato of Kaela's boot on a hidden stair—tap, pause, tap—that signaled runes locked to door chains; to the sigh an elderly marquess released when incense thickened enough to sting.

Four lines, five. The king reached the mid-tier. Helyra angled her staff again—reflection flicked once across the high vault, mapping the arc a chandelier would take if its chain snapped. Draven filed it with other contingencies: chandelier becomes hammer, smoke becomes curtain, fear becomes fuse.

Six lines, seven. A servant girl stumbled at the edges of the crowd, nearly dropping a basin of rosewater used for hand-washing between courses. Her cry of apology curled upward, swallowed by trumpet echoes. Eyes turned; Draven watched how the distraction bent guard attention for precisely two breaths.

Eight lines. Wine servers began their circuit; plum sweetness perfumed the air, masking the tang of torches. Draven's own tray waited for later—he needed nobles dulled, not drunk. Still, several lords drained goblets too quickly, chasing courage.

Nine. Auric lifted both arms; sleeves shimmered with stitched rubies. Light refracted, casting red rain over the nearest gallery. Gasps of awe obediently followed, though Draven saw how the queen dowager shifted in her seat, restless. Not everyone loved theatrics.

Ten. The Storm Crown, perched on its velvet pillow, pulsed anemic violet—heartbeat out of rhythm. One ward-mage's chant cracked on a note; he gulped and resumed, sweat gleaming at his hairline. Draven watched Auric's gaze flick sideways toward that stumble. He knows it's failing, Draven realized. Pride drives him faster.

Eleven lines. In the choir loft, Kaela reappeared at the rail. Her novice hood shadowed her eyes, but her hand tugged the sleeve seam: signal two—binding runes in smoke ready. Draven's pulse did not change, yet every nerve felt like a drawn bowstring.

Twelve. Sylvanna traced a lingering arpeggio down the harp, then stepped back, claiming tuning complete. Her fingertips pressed tiny clasps hidden in the bow case. Chitin rustled; the chimera inside unfolded, tense. Music drowned the faint click.

Thirteen. Draven's thumb brushed the stolen master key in his cuff. Final lock counted.

Fourteen. Auric reached the plinth. Fingers hovered over the Storm Crown, half reverent, half possessive. Torchflames behind him wavered under the rising heat of incantations. The king inhaled—a breath meant to bloom into his final triumphant claim.

Fourteen lines. The fifteenth line is the cue.

–––

A roar greeted Lirael when the double doors thundered inward—an animal sound made of polished boots, clashing rings, and the synchronized gasps of a thousand onlookers. Heat rolled toward her like furnace breath. Rows of torches burned high along tiered colonnades, throwing liquid-orange light onto galleries packed shoulder-to-shoulder with Valaroth's elite. She tasted the hall before she fully saw it: hot pitch, spiced incense thick enough to scratch her throat, a copper tang of weapon oil drifting from serried pikes.

The human tide separated into colors and shapes while she advanced. Scarlet-draped magnates glittered with garnet chains; lesser nobles wore sable trimmed in fox while foreign envoys shimmered in cloth-of-gold that flickered like candlelight whenever they shifted. Soldiers lined every stair and balcony, breastplates polished so bright each torch painted them blood-red. The reflection washed their faces in war-light, hiding nerves behind crimson glare.

Cushions rustled on the high benches as courtiers leaned for a better view. She caught their murmurs—"That's her—Greenbark's last thorn," and "The king will break her like he cracked the phoenix banner." One older countess half-rose, lace fan fluttering to hide a grimace of pity—quickly smothered when her neighbor elbowed her ribs. Even in their hunger for spectacle, a few could not stomach the taste.

Incense coils dangled from bronze cages overhead, spiraling smoke until the vaults looked drowned in storm clouds. Blue-white sparks guttered through the haze where ward sigils bled power; each pop of static pricked Lirael's skin, but the sting lacked bite. The Crown, though distant, was dying by inches.

It rested on a low plinth before the throne—black velvet swallowing its shine so the filigree spikes seemed to float, a hungry constellation of iron thorns. Six ward-magi circled it in slow step, crooning counter-harmonies that set the heartstone pulsing like a faltering heartbeat. Their robes brushed the velvet in perfect rhythm, yet every singer's gaze flicked to the fracture line etched across the central spike. They felt it failing, even if they dared not speak.

And above them all, on the broad quartz dais, stood King Auric. Torchlight slid across his ebony crown, across the scales sewn into his cloak until the fabric looked slick with fresh gore. He did not need to raise a hand; the crowd sensed him smiling and roared louder, a wave crashing against an unseen reef.

At the foot of those steps, her escort halted. Metal fingers gripped her shoulders—not cruelly, more like a sculptor steadying marble—and pressed her to her knees. She made the movement look graceful, thighs coiled, spine straight as a lance. Chains at her ankles clinked; their echo skittered up the hall's stone ribs like startled mice.

Auric's eyes gleamed—a predator sighting prey that had obligingly knelt. He lifted one gauntleted hand, and the roar collapsed into sudden, obedient hush.

"Behold," he called. His voice filled every archway, churned through every incense plume. Even the torches seemed to bend toward it. "Behold the wayward daughter of Greenbark who lays her pride at our feet, eager—" he dragged the word, savoring it—"eager to embrace civilized order."

Thunderous applause erupted, perfectly timed. Lirael could almost see the court conductor in a loft somewhere, cuing them with a hidden baton. As palms slapped, she searched faces. Some nobles beamed, others mouthed the chant without sound, but a sliver of diplomats on the upper tier watched Auric with wary calculation. A slender woman in emerald silks whispered behind her fan; the Pelorian envoy beside her frowned—counting exit doors, perhaps, instead of enjoying the show.

Remember, brother, she thought as she breathed in the incense-heavy silence that followed. I promised them no arrow would break us again. The phantom weight of Dareth's cloak on her shoulders braced her bones.

Auric descended two steps, cloak dragging like coagulated blood. "Speak your gratitude, Princess," he purred, tilting his head the way a falcon might examine a pinned hare, "before you receive the crown that tames all savage storms."

Gratitude. The word pulsed through her mind like a cracked bell. She let the silence swell, steady and cold, until even the magi's chanting faltered. Gasps rustled in the upper balconies, the sound delicate as pages turning yet sharp enough to cut. Somewhere a goblet slipped from nervous fingers, ringing against marble.

Auric's smile thinned, edges whitening. He reached—none too gently—for the Crown.

In that heartbeat time slowed to syrup.

Lirael's senses expanded. She saw an incense ribbon curl upward, silvery against vault-dark stone. She followed its path to the highest arch, where a solitary chimney-sweep crouched, mouth slack at the spectacle. She saw a bead of sweat slide from a young guard's hairline, drop glistening onto his vambrace. She noted how the guard's knuckles whitened on his spear—fear, not loyalty.

At the gallery's far rear, a servant raised a silver tray, presenting plump goblets to a duke. Under the tray's polished rim, a plain brown sleeve shifted, exposing a single band of violet-touched leather. Draven's eyes met hers across the torchlit gulf—cool shards of winter dusk—and in them she read affirmation. Fourteen lines. The fifteenth was coming.

Auric's fingers closed on iron filigree.

Cold raced up his arms as soon as the metal left velvet. He felt the fracture crack again, a sighing split like ice yielding beneath bootheel, but he ground his jaws and lifted. Gold traces bit his palms. Pain—a warning flavor—yet his pride devoured warnings whole.

The king turned toward her, crown poised. Ward-magi intensified their chant, voices keening higher, desperation creeping under practiced harmony. Blue arcs spider-webbed across the heartstone.

Fourteen lines, Draven counted behind the pillar, fingertips brushing twin blades. Around him the hall's soundscape rearranged: choir breathing in unison, nobles rustling silks, guards tapping boots in anxious rhythm. The fifteenth line perched on Auric's tongue like a viper ready to strike.

High above, in a tower throat-deep in storm clouds, Orvath's mercury pool rebounded the white flash as the crack widened. The magister's thin lips split in something between awe and dread. "It has begun,"