The Villain Professor's Second Chance-Chapter 727: The Scent of Ash and Sorrow (1)

Night breathed cold across the forest, its chill threading through the mist and clinging to the scorched branches like damp silk. Vaelira walked among the dying fires, her steps light but deliberate, every heel-press sinking softly into the spongy moss. With each stride, loose embers crackled beneath her greaves, popping like tiny stars before winking out in the gloom. Smoke curled around her legs, slipped beneath the flared edges of her leaf-steel plates, then drifted upward to stain the silver in bruised streaks of soot.

"Gather the wounded. Burn the corrupted bodies. Double the perimeter watch."

Her voice slid through the smoky darkness—soft, contained, but edged with an iron that brooked no argument. The order fell on her soldiers like a familiar mantle; they straightened, almost grateful for something clear to hold on to. They moved out, weary shadows in battered mail, the clink of dented links barely louder than the low whistle of wind through fractured boughs.

Vaelira tracked them with her eyes—counting, assessing. Rhylun, shoulder half-bandaged, still hauled a stretcher with grim determination; Kestra limped, but refused the crutch another elf tried to press into her hand. Thane—once their loudest singer—now worked in silence, silver plume scorched black and fused to his helm. Twelve left. Twelve from thirty-six. The arithmetic throbbed in her skull, an ache no salve could soothe.

They formed automatically into a crescent, shields overlapping, spears angled out—muscle memory stronger than pain. In the uncertain glow of half-spent torches they looked like tarnished statues, guardians set to watch over a graveyard of their own making. Vaelira's chest tightened. She knew the precise heft of every shield, the weight of every spear. She had drilled them herself—morning sun, laugh-laced jests, sweat shining on fresh-polished helms. Now she saw only streaks of dried blood and eyes too exhausted to close.

A gust teased the pyres, coaxing flames to leap higher. Light licked across limp forms at the fire's edge: an elf with arrow-shafts protruding from his ribs; a human Reaper whose fingers were still curled around a severed chain. Every flicker re-etched those faces into Vaelira's memory, searing them beside the names she already carried. Tyras, Ammel, Laith—gone. The weight threatened to pull her shoulders forward, but she locked her spine, refusing to bend.

Sparks spiraled skyward, turning to fading embers among the leaves. For a heartbeat she imagined each spark a soul wrestling free, seeking the stars. Most winked out before clearing the canopy, swallowed by mist. She exhaled—a thin, shaky breath—and tightened her grip on the hilt at her side. The leather was slick with resin and ash; it squeaked faintly beneath her gauntlet.

Draven was still gone. That absence was a physical thing, a hollow lodged under her breastbone. He had melted into the forest like a shard of living night, all quiet efficiency and zero hesitation. Cold, precise, unstoppable—traits she admired and feared in equal measure. And Sylvanna—storm-bright Sylvanna—had bolted after him, lightning nipping at her heels. Vaelira replayed their last brush of words:

If you think you can bring him back, then go.

Had she warned or pushed? The question gnawed at her. She closed her eyes, letting the scene re-form—Sylvanna's eyes, equal parts fury and worry; the subtle flinch when Vaelira's tone sharpened. Challenge or plea? Surrender or test? She had no answer, only the echo of regret.

Footfalls approached—soft, hesitant. She opened her eyes to find Scholar-Sapper Rennic hovering on the edge of the firelight, helm tucked against his ribs. Soot masked half his face; one cheek was slashed and swollen.

"Commander," he rasped, voice raw from smoke. "The southern watch reports no movement. The mist is thick, but—"

"Keep them vigilant." She cut gently, not unkind, but urgent. "Anything unnatural, they fall back and signal with two blasts."

Rennic straightened despite his injuries. "Yes, Commander." He dipped his head, turned, and slipped back into the gloom. She heard him cough twice, the sound swallowed by distance.

Vaelira let her gaze drift to the treeline. The mist seemed alive, thickening and thinning as if it breathed. Branches bowed under hidden weights, leaves shivering with messages she struggled to translate. She sensed the trees' unease—an old instinct all royals of Greenbark were taught to heed. Roots hummed beneath her boots, a low vibration, like a muted drum far underground.

She knelt, pressing her palm to the soil. The loam was damp, each granule clinging to her fingertips. Beneath it, she felt the sluggish pulse of the forest—steady, but strained. Corruption still seeped in veins below, but the heart had not failed. Yet. She whispered a single syllable—an ancestral word for endure. The ground warmed faintly in response, a trembling hope.

Rising, she scanned the clearing again. Her vanguard worked by small lanterns, faces half-lit and half-shadowed. Kestra paused beside a body draped in a tattered cloak, reached down, and closed the staring eyes with two gentle fingers. Vaelira's throat thickened; she couldn't tell if the fallen was elf or human—death blurred such lines quickly.

She turned toward the nearest pyre. Flames chomped through corrupted flesh, releasing greasy smoke that smelled of pitch and old meat. The heat kissed her cheeks, drying the streak of sweat that slipped from her hairline. She pictured the corruption waking inside the corpses—tendrils burrowing into muscle, twisting bone—and her jaw clenched.

Burn them before they fester. Burn them before they rise. A necessary cruelty.

Across the fire, Thane added another body, his arms shaking. Vaelira stepped closer, catching the stagger in his stride. She braced his elbow, steadying him. He met her gaze, eyes glassy, and swallowed.

"Drink," she ordered softly, retrieving a half-full canteen from her belt. He took it with trembling hands, tilting it back. Water dribbled down his chin. After a moment he exhaled, some tension easing.

"Thank you, Commander," he whispered.

She squeezed his forearm once before stepping back. Small gestures—tiny stitches to keep them from unraveling.

A hiss sounded behind her. Vaelira whirled, blade half-drawn, but it was only sap popping in a knot of wood. She exhaled, sheathing the sword. Reflexes edged past exhaustion. Good… or dangerous. She breathed slow, centering.

Beyond the pyres, empty helms sat on stakes—improvised markers for unidentifiable remains. The hollow eye-slits stared impassively, catching sparks in their depths. Each helm represented a story: glories achieved, dreams imagined, jokes told at campfires. Now silent.

Vaelira forced herself to walk the perimeter. Every few paces she paused, listening—an owl's hoot, rustle of a vole, distant drip of water. Natural sounds. If she heard nothing, then something hunted.

At the northern edge she found Rhylun propped against a stump, bandage over his shoulder seeping dark. He tried to rise, but she gestured him down.

"Report," she murmured.

"N-no movement, Princess." His breath quivered. "I—I can hold."

"You will rest," she corrected, checking the bandage. The cloth was saturated. She pressed her palm over it, whispering a gust of air that cooled the burn. His sigh of relief brushed her wrist like gratitude made breath.

She left him with two sentries, instructing one to fetch salve. As she turned, movement flickered at the edge of vision—just mist coiling across moonbeams. She swallowed the urge to chase phantoms.

Back at the fires, a hush fell. Her soldiers gathered around Thane, who knelt beside a body laid atop a broken shield. Vaelira approached, recognizing the fallen: young Silen, barely past her first century. Arrow through the lung. Thane's voice cracked as he began a low chant—an elven lullaby sung for souls returning to the seed. One by one, voices joined, ragged but earnest, weaving grief into melody.

Vaelira added her own verse, soft. The song slipped through the clearing, mingling with smoke, curling into the mist. For a moment the forest listened—the leaves stilled, the nightwind hushed.

When the last note faded, she drew a breath full of smoke and sorrow. Firelight reflected in her eyes like twin suns drowning in dusk. She glanced again to the treeline—no sign of Draven, no silver bolts of Sylvanna's storm. Only deeper black.

A flicker of doubt breached her composure. What if neither returned? What if the forest's depths consumed them both? She buried the thought, pressing it down like seed beneath snow. Leaders could not afford doubt.

"Keep working," she called, voice threading through fatigue. "We finish before dawn."

The soldiers dispersed. Vaelira turned toward the pyres, watching fresh logs ignite, sparks shooting skyward. Each crackle punctured the hush. Ash showered her pauldrons, dusting the ivy etchings like gray frost.

Draven, Sylvanna—find your way back. The silent plea hovered in her chest, flames reflecting in her eyes. But pleading changed nothing. Orders, vigilance, resolve—these she had. She would wield them until either dawn bled gold across the canopy or darkness claimed all.

The scent of scorched sap clung to her senses, mingling with the iron tang of blood and the greasy smoke of burning corrupted bodies. Her jaw clenched as she stared at the pyres. Burn them before they fester. Burn them before they rise. A necessary cruelty.

Yet her thoughts drifted again—back to Draven. Cold-eyed, calculating, a force of precision. She had watched him once on a sparring field when the war was still rumor: two trainees charged, blades bright as spring water, and Draven slipped between their arcs with the careless grace of smoke. A single turn of his wrists disarmed both; before steel struck dirt he was already re-sheathing, expression unchanged, as though physics itself had merely behaved. A man who never wastes breath, she had thought then. A blade honed past reason.

But that same coldness—that unyielding focus—was a blade that cut both ways. He hunted enemies, yes, yet sometimes, when the campfire light caught his features and everyone else had drifted toward sleep, she saw him listening to some inner verdict only he could hear. On those nights the edge in his gaze seemed tipped inward, toward a darkness she feared would one day swallow him whole.

She exhaled slowly, palm drifting to the silver-leaf pendant at her throat—a delicate sliver sculpted from moon-kissed oak, inlaid with threads of living sap. Her mother had pressed it into her hands the morning Vaelira first rode out in command: A reminder the forest breathes with you. Tonight it felt heavier than the cuirass on her shoulders, an anchor tied to a ship taking water faster than it could be bailed.

A sudden shout cracked the hush.

"Contact—north line!"