The Villain Professor's Second Chance-Chapter 735: Shadows at Ironleaf (4)

The smoke coiled upward from Ironleaf Fortress like a wounded serpent, its grey scales shimmering whenever a fresh tongue of flame licked through the shattered ramparts. Each lazy twist carried the scent of burnt pitch, charred timber, and something sweeter—cauterized flesh. Draven stood motionless beneath the broad canopy of an ancient oak, its trunk thick with lichen that glowed faintly in the failing light. The moss beneath his boots felt damp, spongy, almost warm—as though the forest itself were collecting the heat pouring out of the ruined stronghold.

Through a narrow gap in the foliage he tracked every darting figure within the broken walls. Sentries hauled stretchers fashioned from splintered doors; soot-streaked soldiers barked half-formed orders to one another, their discipline fraying with every shriek that rose from the courtyard. Two men struggled to right a toppled ballista, only to drop it again when the winch sparked and spat molten iron across their greaves. Farther back, where the slave pens hunched against the curtain wall, rows of elves pressed gaunt faces to the bars—eyes luminous in the gloom, ears pricking for news too dangerous to speak aloud. Their whispers were thin but steady, a rustle like dry leaves: Did you feel the ward break? … Lightning—real lightning … Maybe the chains will fail next.

Exactly the hum Draven wanted.

To his right, Sylvanna shifted her weight, boots scuffing soft earth. The slight noise felt loud in the hush beneath the boughs. She drew a calming breath, but it rattled at the edges—an involuntary tremor that betrayed nerves despite her practiced composure. Silver-white hair brushed her cheekbones as she tilted her head, sparks of static crackling where stray strands grazed the blue-steel lip of her pauldron.

"You made a battlefield," she said, voice pitched low to keep the forest from listening, "only to plant a whisper of hope?" Her eyes—stormcloud grey rimmed with electric blue—searched his profile for something human.

Draven did not answer at once. He catalogued the way the fortress's northern watchtower leaned five finger-breadths east, how soot haloed the windows where guards had fired oil pots only to have the wind spit flames back in their faces. He noted the rhythm of the triage calls—short, sharp, then trailing off into silence when a healer shook her head. Every fragment added weight to his mental ledger until the situation balanced to perfection.

Finally he spoke, tone flat, quiet, certain. "Hope is a tool. Rumor is a weapon." A faint pause—a sliver carved for emphasis. "Tonight I need something sharper."

The words had barely left his lips when movement rippled through the haze inside the gate. A broad-shouldered man stomped into view, helm cast aside to reveal a weather-creased face bisected by an old burn. His crimson left pauldron, though dented, gleamed bright as arterial blood. Lieutenant Harken. Draven's gaze sharpened the way a blade kisses a whetstone.

Harken's gravelly voice carried even through the churn of smoke. "Line the shields across the breach—yes, there! You—get those prisoners secured. If one collar flickers, I will flay the rune-smith myself." The confidence in his bark was palpable; wounded men straightened, raw recruits snapped to stations, and the gatehouse—once a tangle of shattered beams—began to resemble a wall again.

"Efficient," Draven murmured, half to himself, half for Sylvanna's benefit. "He's stitching the artery before the fort can bleed out."

Sylvanna's brow furrowed. "Then cut deeper. End it now." Her fingers flexed on the bowgrip, knuckles whitening. A bead of violet light slid along the bowstring, dying where it touched the treated sinew—she was leaking power unconsciously, a sure sign her patience thinned.

"Precision first," Draven replied. He tapped the pad of his glove against a mark he'd scratched in the oak's bark earlier: the symbol for right moment not yet reached. "Remove one stitch and the whole wound reopens."

Below them Harken paced, cloak snapping at his calves. Beside him stood a figure so starkly out of place it drew every eye—Serewyn. Chains rattled at her wrists, their sigils pulsing a feverish red that cast unhealthy shadows across her sharp features. Despite the collar clamped around her neck, strands of white-silver hair floated as though charged by a storm only she could sense. Each time she inhaled, the runes brightened—draining her surge before it could spark.

The slaver commander addressed her with something like satisfaction. "Behave, witch, and you may keep that pretty tongue." He turned away—too slowly. Serewyn's eyes flashed cobalt. A fork of lightning snapped from her fingertips, spearing the nearest guard in the chest. Metal popped, flesh charred, the man crumpled.

Harken wheeled, roaring, "Subdue her! Reinforce that collar!"

Two burly soldiers lunged. One seized her shoulder; the other tried to clamp iron around her ankles. She fought like a feral cat—teeth bared, wrists twisting—until a stun rod slammed into her ribs. She doubled, breath escaping in a ragged hiss. For a heartbeat her gaze lifted, locking on Draven's hiding place as though she sensed the architect behind her brief taste of freedom. Then she was dragged toward the kennel block, lightning sputtering futile sparks along the mud.

Sylvanna tensed, muscles coiling beneath leather. "They'll clamp her power down again. She's the only spark those elves have seen in years."

"Exactly why she must endure," Draven said. He pivoted, soft footfalls leaving no imprint on the moss. "Fear can be erased. Awe lingers."

She stepped after him, frustration nipping her words. "If they tighten security, our window closes."

"Not yet." He lifted two fingers, signaling silence as a pair of patrolmen trudged near the treeline, torches guttering. Their armor clinked arrhythmically—left greave cracked on one, dangling mail strap on the other—signs of a force stretched thin. They trudged right past the oak, never glimpsing the two figures pressed against its shadowed side.

When the torchlight receded, Sylvanna thrust her chin toward the fort. "You're gambling on slaver panic."

"I'm counting on calculation," he corrected, eyes following Harken's progress through the yard. "See how he positions veterans on the eastern parapet? He's preparing for an assault that isn't coming. His mind is disciplined but predictable."

Sylvanna's lips parted in a half-smile that hurt to hold. "Predictable or not, he still commands two dozen blades and what's left of their ward-mages."

Draven's answer was a thin breath, almost a sigh. "Which is why we siphon his support first."

A horn blared from inside the fortress—three short notes, one long. Draven's eyes narrowed. "Prisoner surge alert," he murmured. Indeed, at the pen rows elves rattled bars, emboldened by Serewyn's defiance. Their voices rose—not pleading now, but chanting in their lilting tongue, words that meant storm and rise. Hope was swelling faster than the slavers could drown it.

Sylvanna's gaze drifted to the elven faces, something soft and painful flickering across her own. She spoke without tearing her eyes away. "Tell me the plan before the tide turns."

He obliged, voice low, precise. "I need you in the slave trench. Whisper that the Silent Hunter stalks the walls. Tell them collars will crack tonight if their courage holds until dawn."

She bit back a skeptical laugh. "A myth born of tavern stories?"

"Stories move quicker than steel," he reminded her. "Let rumor erode discipline while I excise the head."

"And the head is Harken."

A nod—barely a tilt of his chin. He pulled a small vial from his belt, the fluid inside swirling between violet and pitch black. "If he rallies, the spine stiffens. Remove the rally point, the body collapses."

Sylvanna accepted the task with a crisp nod, though worry crept into her eyes. "And how will you reach him? The inner bailey is crawling with guards."

Draven lifted a gloved hand. Threads of living shadow writhed across his palm—two, three, then a dozen, coalescing into gaunt silhouettes. Eyes—if they had eyes—glimmered faintly like moonlight on obsidian. The shadow-wraiths bowed as one before dissolving into the forest floor.

"I will have quiet corridors," he said simply.

Sylvanna shivered, not from cold but from the unnatural hush that followed the wraiths' departure. She drew her cloak tighter, grounding herself with a deep breath scented of pine and smoke. "If you fail—"

"I do not," he cut in. The conviction in those three words felt heavier than iron.

Beside them the oak groaned, dropping a cluster of leaves that drifted across Draven's shoulder like a silent benediction. He brushed them away and turned, giving her a final glance—a spark of something unreadable in eyes otherwise hard as flint.

"What am I whispering again?" she asked, already stepping out from the trees.

"That the Silent Hunter walks unseen," he reminded gently. "And that tonight he sharpens his blades on tyrant's bone."

She managed a grim smile. "Poetic for someone so direct."

"I speak the language the oppressed remember," he replied, then melted into the undergrowth, body sliding from moon-lit outline to stitched shadow in a breath.