The Villain Professor's Second Chance-Chapter 707: The Call From The Elven Council (End)

"Raëdrithar."

The glade inhaled.

Bolts of white‑blue exploded from her shoulders, racing down arms in branching rivers, converging in the hollow of her palms. She did not scream; the power was fierce yet felt designed for her bones, a glove sliding onto a long‑empty hand. The rivers surged into a single torrent that punched downward.

The lake responded. Lightning tore from surface to sky, mirroring the strike she loosed into the unseen spiral beneath her kneeling form. For an instant she glimpsed the mortal chamber overlaying this dream: wooden dais, blue sap flaring, runes erupting like silver flowers where bark split. She heard wardancers shouting in alarm far above, felt Raëdrithar's physical body howl—a triumph‑note, not pain.

The vision shifted. Trees bowed, thunderheads unfurled into calm cirrus. Stars winked out one by one until only the name remained, blazing overhead in letters of living storm. Then even those letters folded inward, accepted by the sky like a secret kept.

Silence arrived—the deep, refreshing quiet after thunder rolls away over distant hills. In that hush she sensed approval, not just from the Guardian but from the forest that bore witness. Stable bond, the roots seemed to say. Equilibrium restored.

Her surroundings bled colour, returning starlight to sensible hues. The ground beneath her grew solid, real. She felt the gradual heaviness of flesh reclaiming her limbs, the tug of normal gravity gathering loose threads of spirit back into skin. The last thing she saw in the dream‑forest was Raëdrithar's gaze: moons soft with pride, storm‑jaws parted in silent promise—You will not bear this alone.

Fare well, storm‑sister.

White radiance surged one last time—no violence, only a firm push—and reality snapped around her like a clasp.

She was kneeling on the spiral dais, fingers still fused to warm bark. Smoke curled from the wood where new glyphs smouldered—lines neither elf nor human had carved. Her arms trembled, but not with weakness; residual electricity flicked between fingertips whenever she flexed. Somewhere above, Raëdrithar's physical roar rolled through the Hollow, and the chamber's living walls answered with a satisfied creak.

She eased upright. The world spun once, then steadied. Her vision felt sharper, colours oversaturated; every breath tasted of petrichor. She knew this heightened sense would fade, but for now it made the chamber look freshly painted.

Root‑spirals dimmed to their usual cool glow, and the sizzling sap quieted. In the hush, a single drop of blue resin fell from the ceiling, landing in the fresh‑burned rune at her feet. It hissed, then cooled—sealing the mark like wax on a letter.

The rite was complete.

_____

Shock rippled through the council like a pebble hurled into still water—first the nearest elders stiffened, then the outer circles reacted a breath later, robes and leaf-braids swaying in the shared jolt. Sylvanna felt the pulse as a pressure change, her ears popping. In that suspended moment sap-lights seemed to dim, unsure which way this revelation would bend history.

Draven remained perfectly still, hands loose at his sides, as though the storm he'd conjured around his name meant nothing more than a shift in weather. Only the faint rise of one eyebrow suggested he'd registered their alarm.

"And in return," he said, voice knifing through the hush, "I give you what you lack: victory."

He didn't raise his volume, yet the promise crashed across the hollow like a wave. The word victory echoed, caught and amplified by sympathetic runes in the walls. Elders glanced at one another, measuring the taste of that possibility: bitter, sweet, or poisoned?

The bark-armoured war-warden turned, maple-dark eyes slipping to Velthiri for guidance. She answered with a single nod—an elegant tilt that nonetheless felt like a gavel strike. A signal.

With a groan that reverberated down Sylvanna's spine, living roots along the far wall twisted, braiding together, then unbraiding until they formed a platform of interwoven branches. It descended slowly, petals of leaf-light falling from its underside. The rumble shook dust from beams overhead; Raëdrithar snorted, hackles rising until Sylvanna's gentle pulse along the bond soothed him back into stillness.

From the platform stepped a woman in moss-iron armor, the metal verdigrised to a midnight green that drank the glow. Her stride was clipped military precision—heel placed before toe, weight balanced to spring forward or back at a heartbeat's notice. She paused at the ramp's foot, then continued across the chamber, the curved blade at her back swaying like a silent metronome.

Even before she bowed, Sylvanna recognized the regal poise. The silver ivy tattoos winding her temples were no fashionable flourish; each curlicue denoted a branch of her lineage, the knots marking victories in skirmishes Sylvanna had only ever read about in smuggled field reports. The ink shimmered with quicksilver mana, as if announcing: Greenbark blood stands here.

She bowed low—palms outward, fingertips grazing the bark-plank floor. A respectful gesture, yet not overly humble; the angle conveyed strength held in reserve.

"Vaelira Elen'shyra," Velthiri announced, voice pitched for resonance. "Princess of Greenbark, Field Commander of the Third Vine Vanguard. She will be your watcher." Her words bore subtle weight: Not chaperone, not jailor—watcher. Observing, judging, perhaps intervening if chaos flared beyond useful range.

Vaelira straightened and finally faced Draven fully. She was tall enough to look him nearly in the eye. Up close, the age lines around his mouth contrasted her flawless elven skin—yet Sylvanna sensed no naïveté in the princess's gaze. Silver irises flicked over Draven's scar, his shoulders, the slight outward cant of his hips that betrayed readiness to draw blades. She catalogued these details with the brisk efficiency of an officer appraising incoming reinforcements: strengths, liabilities, the unknown.

"Your chaos," Vaelira said, tone soft but carrying, "will be measured." The statement hung between challenge and professional courtesy.

Draven met her gaze without the slightest tilt of head. His answering smile was thin, almost academic. "Good luck."

A stir of almost-laughter rippled among the younger scribes; older elders remained grim, sensing sparks but unsure if they would kindle into alliance or conflagration.

Sylvanna blinked, momentarily jarred by the dynamic. Vaelira, clad in battle honors and a century of disciplined status, radiated lethal competence—yet Draven, who had walked through more than two centuries of cataclysms, regarded her like a promising postgraduate who had yet to defend her thesis. And Vaelira's chin lifted a millimeter, reading his appraisal, vowing silently to exceed it.

The tension thickened—not cruel, more like the electric tautness of air before the first thunderclap. A promise of kinetic potential.

Council business wound down with the dusty efficiency of ceremony concluding. Elders conferred in hushed clusters; quill-scribes raced to capture every outcome in fresh sap-scrolls. One by one platforms retracted, restoring the Hollow to its arterial stillness. Wardancers guided Raëdrithar back to a perch wide enough to hold his bulk, though several kept respectful distance from constantly arcing antlers.

When the last echo died, Sylvanna discovered she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Vaelira at the hall's threshold. No attendants fussed over the princess; she shook them off with a crisp hand wave, favoring instead a direct path that converged with Sylvanna's own route to the outer ramps.

Outside, dawn had matured into bright mid-morning. Sun-shafts speared through layered leaves, catching motes of dust kicked up by hurried messengers. High walkways hummed with new urgency—archers carrying bundles of war-fletched arrows, menders lugging crates of wound-wort bandages. The settlement had inhaled fear and was now exhaling preparation.

Vaelira matched Sylvanna's stride, greaves glinting where moss-iron met sunlight. She moved with that effortless elven quiet, yet her presence filled space like a bell tone.

"You speak to monsters like old friends," the princess observed, head angled just enough to keep Sylvanna in peripheral view.

Sylvanna adjusted the leather of her bracer, feeling new runes stitched along her shoulders tingle beneath cloth. "I am one," she replied without embellishment. It wasn't bravado; it was admission. Raëdrithar's thunder hummed along the bond in muted agreement.

Vaelira's composed façade didn't crack, but curiosity flashed behind silver eyes. She chose no retort, only silence that invited further revelation if Sylvanna wished. A polite tactic of negotiation: leave space, see what fills it.

Ahead, Draven stood with the war-warden over a living map grown from interlaced root threads. The topography shifted as saplines redirected, forming glowing ridges and river valleys. Miniature red motes—enemy forces—clustered at the southern edge, creeping north like embers blown across dry grass. Draven's hand moved in swift darts, rearranging blue tiles that represented elven patrols, sliding small rune-stones to mark supply choke points or potential ambush gullies. Each motion was crisp, decisive; when the warden asked a question, Draven answered in spare syllables: "Four days if unopposed—two with cavalry strike—need skirmishers here."

Sylvanna, lingering at the fringe, marvelled at how quickly he had assimilated elven logistics: recognizing which sap-bridges could bear war-elk weight, which old dryads along routes could be coaxed awake for entanglement spells. The warden nodded often, grunted occasionally, only once frowning when Draven recommended pulling a sacred border detachment back to reinforce a less storied but tactically critical bottleneck. Tradition, Sylvanna guessed, still tugged at even pragmatic commanders.

A courier arrived—sleeves stained with sweat, breath snagging in quick hitches. He carried a bark-tablet whose etched characters glowed fever-red. freēnovelkiss.com

"Spryghold has fallen."

The sentence landed like a dropped ax. The map branches darkened at the corresponding grove symbol; red motes flared, then steadied—victory recorded. A hush spread outward, leaping dizzy quick between footbridges: sentence fragments—"burned"—"corrupted wells"—"survivors routed"—whispering through leaf and stem.

Draven's jaw set. He placed one fingertip on the map ridge, then slowly withdrew it. "Then we are already behind."

Vaelira's measured breathing hitched so slightly Sylvanna almost missed it. She cleared her throat, composure reasserting. "Spryghold's root-network bastions—gone?" The courier nodded, eyes glassy.

"Then the enemy paves a road," Draven concluded. His voice stayed level, but Sylvanna saw a spark light behind the steel grey of his gaze—the same spark that had chilled her the first night they met, when he dismantled her chimera snares in thirty seconds. The spark meant adversary identified.

_____

Night arrived like ink poured slowly over the canopy, turning the sky into a basin of black glass speckled by hard white stars. Sylvanna sat on a high outcropping root that jutted beyond the uppermost platforms—technically outside curfew boundaries, but no sentry challenged her. Perhaps Raëdrithar's shadow looming across moss tiles dissuaded patrols. The Guardian lay close, body curved protectively, head resting on crossed paws larger than Sylvanna's torso. Every exhale gusted cool across her face, ruffling stray hairs.

Above, constellations she barely knew shimmered, but the new rune-sense let her pick out fresh details: the Twin Stag, emblem of ancient alliances; the Caged Ember, omen of sieges. She traced them with a fingertip against her knee, mapping possible fates.

Then, without warning, the bond thrummed like a struck harp string. No words—Raëdrithar communicated in sensation and image—but the message clarified nevertheless, shaping itself inside her head: You are not the last. But you may be the first to choose.

She swallowed, pulse climbing. Not the last—others would come? Other tamers? Other Storm-Kin? The thought fluttered her stomach with mingled hope and dread. First to choose: choose what? Allegiance, sacrifice, the shape of storms yet uncalled? She blew out a shaky breath. "I'll try to choose well," she whispered, palm stroking fur alive with faint static.

The beast's eyes half-closed, content with her promise. Lightning drifted lazily across its antlers like lazy summer fireflies.

Footsteps crunched on the secondary path. Sylvanna didn't need to turn—Draven's mana signature brushed her awareness before his boots came into view, cool as mountain stone. He wore his travelling cloak loose, only one shoulder caught beneath the fabric so the Drakhan sigil remained visible—a deliberate provocation or reminder, she wasn't sure. He stopped a respectful pace behind her, gaze lifting to the stars she'd been measuring.

"Tomorrow we march," he said. No preamble, no apology for shattering quiet.

She nodded, thumb rubbing a groove in the root. "Will they follow us?" Doubt weighed the question—elves anchored by tradition, suspicious humans, a Guardian few understood.

Draven's lips curved in something not quite smile or grimace. Starlight hazed on the scar across his brow, turning the mark into a sliver of moon. "No," he acknowledged, and she admired that honesty despite the cold bite. His voice lowered, as though letting the still night testify with him. "But they'll watch. And soon..." He glanced over his shoulder at the lights of Verenthal flickering through leaves—sentinels, skeptics, seeds of future trust. His cloak rippled in a high breeze.

He turned, cloak swinging like a curtain closing on one act, opening on another.

"They'll have no choice."