The Villain Professor's Second Chance

"Even Professor Astrid's nervous, huh?" she murmured, a tease laced with empathy.

Elara and Amberine shared a glance—a flicker of understanding, an unspoken you-too?—then let it pass. With shared resolve they filed behind the professor, heels clicking in near unison.

The corridor spilled into another corridor, this one lit by vertical bands of aquamarine mana that ran floor to ceiling, like pillars of liquid light. At intervals, security glyphs pulsed outward in silent sweeps—Amberine felt each ripple brush her skin, tasting for anomalies.

Two months, she thought again. Two months since these same corridors flooded with smoke and screams. She remembered the coppery tang of burning insulation, the way alarm runes sputtered under hacking spells, the terrifying moment she'd thought the entire fortress would crumble into the abyss. Aetherion had healed, but scars lay beneath the polish.

Her steps faltered a fraction. Elara noticed instantly, nipping the lapse before it spread. She rolled her parchment into a tight cylinder and tapped Amberine's crown.

"Oi, Amberine. No room for daydreaming."

Amberine rubbed the spot, forcing a crooked smile. "Wasn't daydreaming. Just… remembering."

"Remember later. Walk now."

"Tsk, bossy as always."

"Maybe if you listened the first time…"

"Here we go again," Maris sighed, her voice soft but her eyes fond as she stepped neatly between them, nudging an elbow into each ribcage like a mother herding wayward toddlers.

Amberine grumbled, but the playful spark in Maris's brown gaze tugged a reluctant smile from her. Elara only arched a single pale brow—­as close to a grin as she ever showed in public—­before smoothing the sleeve of her water-blue uniform and matching Maris's pace.

They followed the glowing inlay of guide-lines that braided across the polished floor—­thin threads of turquoise mana that pulsed steadily toward the grand hall. The lines were new, Amberine realized; last season they had been a subtler pastel hue. Now each vein shone brighter, woven with a reinforcing lattice that made the current inside hum audibly when she focused. A small but unmistakable sign that Aetherion had been rewired from the bones up.

On either side of the corridor, the walls rose in seamless arches of translucent crystal. Behind the glass, twin rivers of spell-light flowed—­one gleaming emerald, one a cool silver—­spiraling upward in slow counter-rotation. The currents reminded Amberine of double helixes in a biology illustration, except each strand here was a living circuit pumping barrier-mana through the fortress's skin. Occasional flares of blue sparks leapt between the streams, little flashes that made Ifrit twitch irritably beneath her robes.

Maris glanced at the walls, her expression a mixture of wonder and academic curiosity. "They've doubled the conduit capacity," she murmured. "Look at the resonance nodes—­see how each spiral forks into three now?"

Elara leaned closer, eyes narrowing behind pale lashes. "Tri-branch layering. Clever. If one node overloads, the current can re-route without losing phase coherence."

Amberine whistled low. "Cost the Council a fortune, I bet."

"Worth every coin after last time," Elara replied, her tone clipped. Memory flickered behind her stoic mask—­flames, screams, water crashing through shredded wards—­but she blinked it away.

Ahead, a pair of armored wardens marched in lockstep. Their armor resembled overlapping plates of polished abalone, each segment etched with tiny runes that glimmered when they turned. Aetherion's old guard had worn standard issue mithril mail; these new suits, Amberine guessed, could channel ward-mana directly into kinetic barriers. One warden raised an arm as the trio approached.

"Identification glyphs," he announced. His voice resonated oddly, as though filtered through water.

Amberine extended her wrist, revealing the fresh ink of her symposium pass—­a stylized conch shell stamped in violet. The warden's gauntlet emitted a thin beam of light that washed over the glyph, then flicked green. Elara and Maris repeated the gesture.

"Proceed, presenters," the warden said, and stepped aside.

Once past, Amberine exhaled a breath she hadn't realized she'd trapped. "Paranoid much?" she muttered.

Elara shrugged. "Reasonable. Aetherion was embarrassed. They won't allow a repeat."

Maris nodded agreement, but her gaze lingered on the warden's retreating back, thoughts turning behind her gentle eyes.

The corridor opened into a lofty intersection. Overhead, a chandelier of interlocking water-manifolds hung like an inverted bloom: dozens of liquid petals suspended in air, each petal a thin membrane of water swirling with faint stardust-like motes. Every few seconds, the membranes pulsed, beating in sync with a deep bass thrum hidden in the structure. The pulses sent ripples of blue light through the ceiling, feeding smaller spokes of energy that raced away into the adjoining hallways.

"Heartbeat lanterns," Maris murmured, tipping her head back to watch. She spoke as though describing constellations. "Each pulse is timed to the fortress core. The entire system breathes together now."

Amberine felt that rhythm in her ribs—­a counter-beat to her anxious heart. She wondered if the engineers had designed it intentionally to soothe, or if calm was a lucky side effect of immense power held in perfect equilibrium.

A gentle ting shivered through the air as a floating lift descended nearby. The platform was a circle of transparent crystal, rimmed by a silver railing, gliding on a column of water mana. Two scholars stepped off: one wearing desert-red robes embroidered with shifting sand dunes, the other draped in cloud-white silk. They exchanged hushed remarks in a language Amberine didn't know, but their narrowed eyes and furtive glances told a universal story of rivalry.

Elara watched them depart, expression unreadable. "Everyone's tensed like drawn bows," she observed.

Symposium of the decade," Amberine said. "Maybe the century. Even the coral are probably nervous."

That earned her a snort from Elara—­a rare sound, half amusement, half exasperation.

They resumed walking, weaving through a growing flow of presenters. A trio of storm-callers passed, their cloaks stitched with thundercloud embroidery. Tiny sparks cracked over the cloth, dissipating before they could sting anyone. A pair of alchemical botanists wheeled a glass terrarium containing a spiraling blue rose that seemed to breathe fog. Farther on, two sword-mages stood nose to nose in an intense debate about sigil harmonics, their voices pitched just low enough to maintain professional decorum.

Amberine's gaze caught on a group of Regarian chronomancers. Each wore a circlet inset with a small hourglass, sand trickling upward. They whispered into crystalline tablets, checking some private time-table. Implicit warning: despite the fortress's upgrades, temporal sabotage was still a fear.

She tightened her grip on her parchment scrolls. The edges crinkled under her fingers.

"Relax," Ifrit growled beneath her ribs. A curl of heat radiated through the fabric, soothing her tense stomach muscles. "You're squeezing that parchment like you want to set it on fire."

Amberine hid a grimace. Maybe I do, she thought—­but only sent back a quick, silent apology.

A sudden melodic chime rippled down the hallway. All conversation dimmed for a heartbeat. An orb of light blossomed overhead, projecting a three-dimensional roster of presenters. Lines of text scrolled by: session times, amphitheater tiers, assigned platforms. Near the top, Amberine spotted "Polime Research Collective—­Hybrid Elemental Orb of Emotions."

Seeing their title glowing in the air made her stomach swoop, but it also sparked a fierce pride. Their work had begun as a half-baked idea scrawled in her dorm notebook: What if fire and water could harmonize instead of annihilate? And there are emotions within them? Months of sleepless nights, of arguing with Elara about golden mana tolerances, of Maris coaxing illusions to shape raw datasets into art—­all of it had culminated in those luminous words.

Elara followed her gaze, nodding once. "Our slot is third. Good."

"Why good?" Amberine asked.

"Early enough to avoid a restless audience," Elara answered, "late enough to observe initial expectations and adjust tone."

Amberine rolled her eyes. "Spoken like someone who scripts applause."

Maris chuckled. "She's not wrong, though. First presenters set the bar; second suffer nerves. Third can capitalize."

Amberine gave an exaggerated bow to Elara. "Then lead on, oh master tactician."

Elara pretended to ignore the theatrics but relented with a tiny, satisfied nod.

They entered a smaller antechamber marked "STAGING WEST." Immediately the hum of the main corridor dimmed, replaced by muffled thuds—­soundproofing runes etched in the archway were hard at work. Rows of polished benches lined one wall, each carved with the sigil of a different academy. Floating crystal panels hovered near the ceiling, displaying live vitals for the presenters waiting here: heart rate, mana fluctuations, mental focus index. Amberine's statistics flashed on the leftmost panel, a scatter of orange bars dancing.

"Someone's pulse is sprinting," Maris observed, her tone playful but her hand sliding to Amberine's back in comfort.

Amberine made a face. "Tell the panel to mind its own business."

Elara stepped closer to the vitals readout, angled her head, then tapped one fingertip on a control rune. Amberine's heart-rate bar shrank a fraction as the display recalibrated. "There. Optical calibration was off," Elara said.

Amberine blinked. "You just hacked the Council's monitoring panel?"

"Adjusted." Elara's smirk surfaced again—­a ghostly crescent. "Precision matters."

Before Amberine could retort, Professor Astrid swept through the archway, a swirl of green robes and focused energy. She held a quartet of lanyards bearing luminous sigil-badges and distributed them quickly. Each badge flickered once, syncing with its wearer's mana signature. Astrid's own badge glowed soft orchid.

"Five minutes," she announced, professionalism restored. Yet her eyes—­flint-bright—­betrayed a flicker of nerves. She inhaled, then spoke more gently: "Remember your opening. Engage the audience early."

Maris lifted a thumb in acknowledgment.Elara set her notes aside, flexing her fingers in a quick series of mudras—­short gestures that aligned her internal mana with external flow. Golden sparks traced the edges of her fingertips and vanished.

Amberine rotated her shoulders, feeling Ifrit's heat pool low in her core. She pictured the presentation's first harmony rune: a circle of water sigils intertwined with flames, perfectly balanced. She imagined igniting it—­soft crimson meeting cool azure—­and the holographic swirl that would bloom for the crowd. Her pulse quickened, but this time excitement rode with the anxiety.

A door at the opposite end slid open, releasing the low murmur of the amphitheater beyond. A Council usher, face half-hidden behind a veil of rune-script, motioned them forward.

"Relax," Ifrit whispered again, but this time the edge of irritation had softened into something almost gentle. "You can do this."

Amberine's fingers tightened briefly around her parchment. Are you still ready to fight? she asked him silently.

The spirit's answer arrived on a curl of warmth, as steady as embers banked beneath ash. "Always. You know that."