The Villain Professor's Second Chance

Amberine Polime could feel her heartbeat drumming against the inside of her ribs with such ferocity she half-expected cracklines to appear across the crystalline walls of the waiting chamber. It was an ordinary side room—no larger than Professor Astrid's office back at the academy—yet in the moments before the symposium it felt smaller with every shallow breath she drew.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

At first she thought the noise belonged to the rune-etched chronometer bolted above the archway, but the sound vibrated through her bones as well, knotted up with the pulse thrumming in her ears. She flexed her fingers, then smoothed the lapels of her charcoal jacket for the twelfth time, willing the nervous sheen on her palms to disappear. It didn't. The silk lining clung to her knuckles like damp parchment. Somewhere in the back of her mind she tried to remember the breathing technique Maris had taught her on the airship—four counts in, six out—but the numbers tangled into useless shapes.

Across the small chamber, Elara Valen sat motionless on a marble bench beneath a water-glass sconce. To casual eyes she might have looked sculpted from moonstone: back perfectly straight, silver-white hair braided and pinned with even spacing, water-blue jacket ironed so crisply the cuffs could have sliced bread. But Amberine's attention snagged on the subtle tremor that ran through Elara's fingers each time she adjusted the parchment bundle in her lap. That single quiver betrayed nerves more eloquently than any stammer.

Amberine angled closer, voice a strained whisper. "You're trembling, Elara."

The prodigy didn't turn her head. "No, I'm not."

"You are," she persisted, lowering her tone further despite the room already being empty save for them. "Look at your thumbs. They're tapping a funeral march."

Elara's brows pinched, a nearly invisible crease. "Focus."

"Oh, I'm focused," Amberine muttered, forcing a half-smile. "Focused on how the stoic Valen heir is rattling like a teacup in a quake—"

"I said shut up," Elara hissed, cheeks flushing a barely perceptible rose. For anyone else it wouldn't have shown through her usual marble composure, but Amberine had seen her friend asleep after all-night study sessions, hair mussed, guard down—she knew the small tells.

The exchange—even steeped in tension—helped Amberine's breathing crawl back toward normalcy. Teasing Elara gave her an anchor, something familiar that eclipsed the suffocating grandeur of the symposium waiting mere corridors away.

The chamber door swung in with a soft hydraulic sigh. The scent of pressed tea leaves and sweet milk drifted on the cooler air, and with it, Maris Everen glided inside. She balanced three paper cups in her hands, elbow nudging the door shut with practiced grace. Sun-streaked curls, usually loose, were tied into a modest up-knot, though a few strands rebelled against the pins and framed her gentle features. Unlike Amberine's and Elara's stiff formal wear, Maris sported an eggshell cloak fastened by a pearl clasp—elegant, but somehow inviting.

Amberine hadn't realized how tight her shoulders were until the warmth of a cup pressed into her hands and the soft smell of vanilla milk tea curled into her senses. Maris' smile—small but unwavering—flickered like a lamplight in fog.

"You two need to breathe," Maris said, claiming the cushion beside Elara and handing her a lavender-coloured infusion. "This isn't a battlefield."

Elara accepted the cup, but her jaw clenched as if she'd bitten into ice. "It feels like one."

Amberine exhaled, letting the steam moisten her face. "If it's not a battlefield, why does my stomach want to leap out of the nearest porthole?"

"Stage fright," Maris replied calmly, blowing on her own chamomile blend before sipping. "It's a sign you care."

Amberine hunched forward, elbows on knees, cradling the cup as though it might shield her from the expectation pressing on her lungs. "If 'caring' feels like this, next time I'll try indifference."

Maris' laugh was airy, almost musical. "Oh, you will repay me for the tea—" she glanced knowingly at Amberine over the steaming rim—"seeing as you're practically drowning in sponsorship gold now."

A spark of embarrassed pride jumped across Amberine's face. "Right! I do have money now." She straightened, the proclamation breaking through her anxiety like a burst of flame. "I need to make my sponsor proud—even if I have less idea who they are than how to pronounce half the runes on our slides."

Elara rolled her eyes, but the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth betrayed amusement. "Stay focused, idiot. This presentation isn't going to deliver itself."

Amberine rocked back, feigning injury. "Who's uptight now, oh pillar of calm?"

Elara shot her a side-glare sharp enough to chill water. "Focus."

"Oh, I'm focusing," she retorted, tapping her cup in rhythm with her quickening heart. "Focusing on how you'll faint first."

"I don't faint," Elara replied, lifting her chin.

Maris intervened with a light clap. "Enough. Rivalry later; survival first. Sip your teas and breathe."

Amberine obeyed—somewhat—taking a tentative drink. The sweet, silky liquid coated her tongue, and for a single beat her hammering pulse slowed. She wasn't sure if it was the taste itself or the small kindness behind it, but the effect was undeniable.

Again the silence tried to creep back in, but Amberine fought it by cataloguing the details around her. The waiting chamber's walls were paneled with mother-of-pearl mosaics that shimmered in moving blues and greens, mimicking deeper ocean currents beyond the fortress. Sigil-tiles embedded between the panels hummed quietly, reinforcing protective wards that stretched throughout Aetherion. Overhead, a shallow dome of glass revealed water beyond—inky, serene, speckled with drifting phosphorescent plankton. Now and then, the silhouette of a colossal manta or leviathan shark glided past, its presence marked only by a ripple of twilight across the windowed ceiling.

Small as it was, the room was a microcosm of the fortress: beauty braided with lethal magic. Amberine registered that truth somewhere beneath her nerves—Aetherion was as gorgeous as it was impregnable, and still the Devil's Coffin had gouged holes in it two months before. The memory hovered like the cold underside of a wave.

She shook herself. Not yet. No flashbacks now.

Elara, having finished half her lavender tea, lowered the cup and finally let out a slow, deliberate breath. Amberine watched the tremor in those fingers soften. "Better?" she asked.

"Marginally," Elara allowed, eyes closing for a disciplined three-count. "Your taunts are surprisingly therapeutic."

Amberine grinned. "The doctor recommends daily doses." She tapped Elara's cup with her own. "Side effects may include annoyance."

Elara's smirk acknowledged the hit. She raised her cup in a mock salute and drank.

Maris shifted, laying her free hand atop Amberine's knee—a small, grounding sensation. "Remember," she said gently, "we're here to share knowledge, not to pass inspection by a firing squad."

Amberine snorted. "Clearly you've never seen Professor Draven grade midterms."

The room's temperature seemed to dip at the mention of his name. Even Elara's facade wavered. Draven Arcanum Drakhan—the man whose keynote would frame the entire symposium—was both legend and ominous rumor. Brilliant, ruthless, reportedly able to assess a spell's weaknesses in the time it took lesser scholars to draw chalk. Amberine respected him; she also feared the narrow, razored curve of his expectations. Being on the same program as him felt like standing barefoot on a live volcano.

Maris, sensing the returning tension, flashed a bright smile. "Then think of it this way: we present before he does. If we crash and burn, his genius will distract everyone afterwards."

Amberine's laugh rang bright against the hush of the waiting room, a spark that crackled through the last wisps of dread clinging to the corners. She wasn't sure where the sound came from—maybe the swirl of vanilla on her tongue, maybe the look of earnest mischief on Maris's face—but it felt startlingly genuine, like the first snap of flame in a cold hearth.

Maris's answering grin grew wide enough to show a hint of dimple. "Any time, sponsor-princess," she teased, giving Amberine a playful nudge with her elbow. "Now finish that drink before your nerves turn it into ice."

Amberine took another sip, letting the heat spread from her lips to the deep knot under her collarbone. The cup smelled of sweet milk and warm spice; each breath she breathed in left a thin swirl of steam drifting past the jewels in her ear. Outside the domed window overhead, a blue-green shadow—some titanic sea beast—passed lazily above the fortress, blotting out the filtered sun for a heartbeat and turning the room's pearlescent walls a moodier shade of jade. She felt the rumble in her bones more than heard it.

The inner door gave an efficient click. A bronze automaton slid into view, joints moving with the smooth hush of fresh-oiled gears. Its torso polished to a mirror shine, it managed a curtsy that scattered reflections of the overhead sigil-lights across the floor.

"Presenters, please assemble in the staging corridor," it intoned, voice pleasantly chimed—like a choir bell pressed through clockwork. "Ten minutes to auditorium opening." Tiny runes on its collar glowed as it spoke, translating the directive into three other languages before dimming back to dull copper.

Amberine's stomach executed a full somersault worthy of an acrobat. She tipped the last of her tea back and felt the final swallow land like a warm stone in an ocean of churning nerves. "Well… there goes the countdown," she murmured.

Elara stood in a single precise motion, every limb aligned as though she were rising for inspection. She adjusted a fold of her water-blue jacket that had shifted half a hair's breadth while she sat. For a second she looked almost statuesque again, but then she extended her cup in Maris's direction—an unspoken thank-you. Amberine caught the slightest tremor in that outstretched hand, though Elara tried to hide it by focusing on the seam in the carpet.

Maris tucked both paper cups—Elara's and her own—into the crook of one arm, stacking them with Amberine's empty, and set the trio neatly on a tray waiting by the wall. Her gentle efficiency always felt like a balm: every gesture choreographed to quiet rather than dramatize.

Amberine brushed loose flecks of lint from her trousers, and her fingertips grazed the soft imprinted lines of a scorch sigil sewn into the lining. A quick burst of heat pulsed under her skin—a grumble of acknowledgement from Ifrit—before settling again. She cleared her throat, aiming for a confidence she didn't fully own. "Ready?" she asked.

Elara allowed herself a single deliberate inhale, then let it roll out like a controlled tide. "Yes."