The Villain Professor's Second Chance-Chapter 739: Iron Blazing towards The Leaves (2)

An hour later Vostyr pushed through iron-banded doors into the council vault. The chamber felt like the belly of some ancient beast: ironwood ribs arched overhead, meeting at a spined ridge; the air was thick with tallow smoke and the coppery tang of spilled wax. At the circular war table, commanders straightened as he entered.

A massive map of Valaroth dominated the tabletop—parchment darkened by grime, its inked rivers gleaming like snake backs under lantern light. Iron daggers pinned strategic sites; one dagger stabbed the tiny fortress icon of Ironleaf, a shard of red crystal impaled on the pommel to mark catastrophe.

Vostyr's gaze swept the faces around the ring.

Captain Maelis Reave sat forward, scarred hands splayed on the wood. Her braids were bound with wolf teeth; pale eyes studied the map as though scenting prey. Across from her loomed Commander Thorne Vaskar, a mountain of flesh and iron, half his face puckered with old flame scars. He idly twirled a spiked gauntlet, impatience radiating from every gruntled breath.

Beside Thorne reclined High Magister Orvath Nox. The magus's skin had the sickly translucence of candle wax; veins traced blue filigree at his temples. Fingers tipped in silver rings drummed an occult rhythm. Where the others smelled of steel and sweat, Orvath carried the faint perfume of alchemical salts.

Serik filled the last seat, scrolls tucked beneath one elbow, quill already poised like a drawn dagger.

Vostyr did not sit. He planted both palms on the table, armor creaking. "Ironleaf is burning," he said without preamble. "Lieutenant Harken is dead, the storm-witch slave has slipped her collar, and rumors—untended—are blooming into legends."

A ripple passed through the council. Thorne's scarred jaw flexed. Reave's eyes narrowed to predatory slits. Only Orvath smiled, thin as a blade. Vostyr felt a spike of annoyance at that twitch of amusement.

"To some," the magister drawled, "legends are useful tinder."

"Useful when we strike the flint," Vostyr snapped. "Not when they flare on their own and set the forest alight."

Reave's gauntlet thunked on the table. "Give me fifty riders. I'll run down every elf within a day's gallop. Their tongues will wag no more."

"Fifty?" Thorne scoffed, voice like gravel in an iron bucket. "Send the heavy shield wall. Crush Ironleaf under foot. Let the survivors drag the story back—humans conquered you, not phantoms."

Serik cleared his throat, sliding a parchment forward. "Numbers from the last muster: Ironleaf listed one hundred twenty men. Reports suggest fewer than thirty remain alive. Some have fled into the Red Pines."

"And carry rumors with them." Vostyr tapped the map. "Containment first."

He let the word hang, then turned to Reave. "Your wolf-riders deploy immediately. Twenty will suffice. Fast, silent. No elf escapes alive. No witnesses."

The captain's answering grin was all teeth. "They'll not see dawn, General."

Next, Vostyr's eyes drifted to Thorne, who cracked knuckles in eager anticipation. "Your infantry will march at dusk. Reclaim the fort. Burn whatever remains—stone, scroll, and sinew. Smoke thick enough to choke memories."

Thorne thumped a fist to his breastplate. "With pleasure."

Finally his gaze settled on Orvath. The magister folded long fingers, pupils glimmering like ink droplets. "High Magister, superstition is your domain. People whisper of a Silent Hunter. Trace this story to its spine."

Orvath dipped his chin, pale lips curving. "A thread spun in fear is easily followed if one knows the weave. I will unravel it."

Vostyr leaned closer, voice dropping. "If it is a single hand guiding this shadow, remove it. Painfully, publicly, if need be. But quietly at first."

"Consider it done," Orvath breathed, almost lovingly.

Satisfied, Vostyr straightened. From a sheath at his belt he drew a short, broad-bladed knife and stabbed it into the map beside Ironleaf. Waxed parchment puckered. "No word of weakness escapes this room," he said, letting his voice glide over the command like frost on iron. "Only victory reaches the king's ears. Understood?"

Four voices answered—a mutter, a growl, a hiss, a crisp aye. It was enough. Vostyr left the blade quivering in the map, a silent oath.

_____

Orders rippled through the castle like shockwaves.

Serik supervised the purge in the slaver annex, torches illuminating rows of trembling captains. One by one they knelt, reciting oaths while sweat ran in rivulets down their collars. Those who stammered met steel. Blood slicked the flagstones, but the executions were mercifully swift; fear, not gore, was the lesson.

Elsewhere, Reave's wolf-riders saddled lean grey destriers, each mount possessing the rangy grace of its mistress. Armor was minimal—dark leather, muffled gilt; they would rely on speed, not force. Reave walked the line, checking girths, tugging reins. To every rider she whispered the same instructions: No survivors. Tear out the root before rumor sprouts new heads. The riders answered with curt nods and the low growl of sharpened blades sliding home.

In the treasury wing, Orvath secluded himself before a basin of rippling mercury-glass. Incense of wormwood coiled upward, stinging the nostrils of his apprentices. As the silver surface stilled, the magister whispered a name—an ancient syllable older than the kingdom. Images flickered across the liquid: Ironleaf's charred gates; a silhouette moving through smoke; a pair of violet eyes rimmed by lightning. Orvath's smile returned, sharper this time.

Vostyr, meanwhile, strode the slave pens. Iron bars still rang from recent violence. Elves pressed against the far side of their cages, wary as deer scenting the hunter's musk. Guards forced two prisoners forward—a woman with a torn ear and a youth whose wrists bled from fresh chains. Vostyr's greaves clicked to a halt. He crouched, meeting the woman's gaze.

"Tell me," he murmured, voice almost tender, "do you see ghosts?"

Her lips parted, but no sound came. Tears pooled. The youth swallowed, shaking.

Vostyr's gloved hand tilted her chin upward. "Ghosts are stories. Stories spread. Stories burn." He released her and rose, cloak swirling. "Remember that, and you'll live longer than most."

He signaled a guard. Whips cracked behind him as he walked away. Harsh, but necessary—the fear would tamp down embered hope.

_____

Night fell across Valaroth like a hood pulled over a restless beast, muffling the city's bustle until only the distant clang of a closing portcullis and the hiss of rain on slate remained. High above, storm clouds bruised the moon, filtering its glow into wan shreds that bled through shutter‑gaps and arrow slits. In his private chambers—an austere cube of ironwood planks whose knots resembled half‑closed eyes—General Lyran Vostyr stood alone.

He had stripped away his armor piece by piece, laying each blackened plate on a low rack beside the wall. Breastplate, pauldrons, vambraces—each one thudded softly, the sound swallowed by the thick rugs of woven wolf‑fur. When the last clasp clicked free he felt lighter, yet somehow more exposed, as though shucked steel revealed hollows no robe could hide. A single lamp burned on the worm‑eaten desk, its glass chimney sooted from nights spent charting blood routes and bribe ledgers. Its tiny flame cast a trembling nimbus that failed to reach the far corners, leaving them in conspiratorial dark.

Vostyr filled a clay cup from a flagon of blackwine. The liquor sloshed like ink, rich with the scent of charred juniper. He lifted it to the lamplight, watching ribbons of steam rise and coil, as though reluctant to depart their obsidian pool. A sip scorched his tongue, spreading heat down his throat until it pooled in the pit of his stomach where dread had made a nest.

Containment is motion, he told himself, rolling the cup between scarred fingers. Motion is control. He had spoken those words to recruits who trembled at their first sight of a riot line; he spoke them now to steady the war drum in his chest.

A rustle sliced the hush—so faint he might have dismissed it as wind under the door. But Vostyr's instincts were tuned to threat. He pivoted; the cup hovered inches from spilling.

The lattice window stood ajar, its latch dangling on a frail leather thong. Curtains of midnight‑blue tapestry stirred, carrying the green, damp fragrance of night‑blooming yarrow from the royal gardens five terraces below. Silhouetted against that faint perfume of starlight perched an owl. Not the mottled brown common to farm lofts, but a creature of almost luminous silver, wings folded with practiced elegance. Its dark, depthless eyes reflected the lampflame in twin sparks.

Memory lunged—snow‑ringed pines, a clandestine fire, a youth swearing oaths he believed unbreakable while that same owl watched from a frost‑laden branch. That was decades ago, before campaigns ground idealism to grit. The man behind that memory should have been dead—must have been dead—yet the messenger's presence perched on his sill like proof of ghosts.

"My old messenger," he whispered, voice raw with surprise he rarely allowed himself.

The owl blinked once—slow, deliberate. Then it stretched a leg, revealing a scroll no longer than Vostyr's finger, tied with silver thread so fine it shimmered like captured moonlight. The bird did not so much as ruffle a feather when he crossed the floor in two silent strides, nor when his calloused hand untied the cargo.

He turned the parchment in his palm, heart tapping harder. Wax, pale as bone, sealed it—a crescent moon bisected by a jagged lightning stroke. He traced the sigil with a thumb, feeling the indentations left by an old signet ring. Impossible. That seal had been shattered on a battlement the night Wraith‑Company burned. Yet here it was—whole, mocking the ruin of its owner.

He broke the seal. The crack sounded loud as splitting ice. Inside, three words marched across the thin vellum, penned in the same elegant, knife‑straight script he remembered from billets smuggled under siege walls:

I've found you.