The Villain Professor's Second Chance

"Match my rhythm," he instructed, guiding her onto the disc he'd just vacated. The platform rang again, brighter this time; it recognized the pair as a harmony rather than a mistake. "No deviation. If your pulse stumbles, the song collapses."

"Zero pressure," she deadpanned, but the chamber's hush stole any real sarcasm from her tone. She inhaled, letting the cool air settle in her chest, and felt for the faint echo left by Draven's previous step. It was still there—an after‑note nestling in the runework underfoot. She placed her weight slowly, coaxing that echo instead of crushing it. The disc answered with a shy, midrange chime.

Draven's eyes flicked sideways—a silent good.

He moved again, this time up to a higher disc veiled in mist. The leap looked effortless, coat tails fluttering like dark wings. A bell‑like tenor note drifted down. Sylvanna followed, springing to a sister platform a half‑step behind. Her landing produced a matching tenor, and for a heartbeat the tones braided in perfect interval, delicate as spun silver.

The room responded.

Vines hanging along the circular walls quivered, sliding back to reveal carvings of constellations etched along the stone. Starlight illusions overhead brightened, as if the music coaxed night to widen its eyes.

Draven absorbed the shift with a subtle nod. "The hall is listening. Keep steady."

They advanced, step after measured step. Each disc remembered the tone of the one before it, building chords that hovered above the fog like layered auroras. Whenever Sylvanna's boot scuffed, Draven adjusted his cadence, adding a grace note here, an elongated pause there, compensating before the melody could sour. To her surprise, she began to anticipate his timing, feeling the tension in his wrist a fraction before he launched to the next disc.

Halfway through the spiral, she risked conversation—low, so as not to shatter concentration. "You play this role well."

"Which?" Draven asked without breaking stride.

"Choir director. Thought you preferred blades to ballads."

"Tools," he replied. "A tune can silence a battlefield more effectively than steel if leveraged correctly."

Ahead, the platforms began to rise in steeper tiers, forcing them higher above the mist. The air cooled. Sylvanna's breath puffed in visible crowns. She glanced down; the floor was lost in swirling silver vapor, as though they'd climbed into a star‑latticed sky.

She felt her heart accelerate—heights were not her favorite arena. The next disc wobbled minutely beneath Draven's heel, vibrating out a warning. He halted, gauging her tenseness the way other people might read headlines.

"You hesitate," he observed.

The mist carried the observation around them like gossip. Sylvanna swallowed. "It's a long fall."

"This room isn't designed to kill," he said, voice softer than she expected. "Only to correct. Trust the song."

Easier said than believed. Still, she inhaled the memory of Laethiel's lullaby—the gentle, triple‑meter hum that had settled in her bones back in the Hall of Petals. She matched that cadence with her pulse. The tremor in her limbs eased. When she jumped to the next disc it met her with a serene alto note, no wobble.

Draven pushed onward, guiding her in a leap‑and‑step pattern that spiraled ever toward the chamber's unseen heart. Under his tutelage she began to hear the hymn in full—not just isolated notes but a complete, sorrow‑tinged melody that wrapped around her skull like warm silk. Dreamlike images flickered at the edges of her vision: elves cradling crystals, petals drifting over still ponds, moonlit vigils for saplings crowned in silver dew.

A sudden flare of violet light snapped her back to reality. One platform up ahead glowed the wrong hue—indigo instead of pearly white—and its rune sputtered like a candle in wind.

"Discordant," Draven warned, barely audible. He pivoted mid‑air, redirecting toward a safer disc two strides left. Sylvanna mimicked, though her landing skidded an inch. The note that followed warbled, then tried to correct. She felt more than heard the melody sag under the strain, like a tower leaning.

Mist swirled upward in curious tendrils, sniffing for error.

"This is where funerals express doubt," Draven said, guiding her wrist to steady her balance. "Grief second‑guesses itself. Maintain the heartbeat anyway."

"How philosophical," she muttered, but the focus in her eyes sharpened. She touched her free hand to the pendant vial at her throat—liquid chimera essence sloshed within—and seemed to draw courage from its weight.

Their ascent resumed. Draven increased tempo, leaping two discs at a time at diagonal angles, forcing her reflexes to catch up. Each successful chord brightened the rosette constellation overhead; each near‑miss dimmed a star for a heartbeat before it re‑ignited, forgiving but watchful.

Sweat prickled along Sylvanna's hairline. Her bow bumped lightly across her spine with every jump. She wondered whether arrows would even obey physics in this room or break into harp strings mid‑flight. Better not to find out.

They reached a narrow wedge where three discs formed a triad only centimeters apart. Draven landed on the apex; two nearly simultaneous tones spiraled around each other in perfect fifths. He turned, extending his other hand now. "Quickstep," he instructed. "Left, right, lift."

Sylvanna obeyed: left disc, right disc, onto his. The triple pulse of notes blossomed into a chord so resonant she felt it behind her teeth—a minor sixth resolving, bittersweet and strangely comforting. The vines along the walls unraveled further, streaming downward like ribbons released at ceremony. Where they touched the mist, droplets crystallized into tiny flower shapes, floating on invisible currents.

"Almost there," Draven breathed, though his pulse remained steady as ever.

They hopped three smaller discs that flickered like candle wicks. Each note was unbelievably soft—the hush just before lullaby gives way to sleep. Sylvanna, nearly mesmerized, almost forgot to bend her knees on the landing. But Draven's hand tightened in silent reminder, and she sank with the note rather than slamming it, letting the chord sigh instead of snap.

At last the spiral thinned into a single line of five broad platforms leading to a pale marble dais. From below, the dais seemed suspended in moonlight. Draven touched down first; his disc thrummed a deep, chest‑hollow bass that set the whole chamber trembling in sympathy. He signaled her forward: three steps, each lower than the last, like the final measures of a song descending into hush.

She stepped, disc by disc. Sweat traced her jaw; breath frosted the air. The hymn wrapped around them now, whole and luminous, no longer built by their steps but carrying them like a gentle tide. With every pulse, mist retreated, revealing carved runes in the floor—spiraling lyrics too ancient for her to read.

Halfway across, a splinter in the wood of her platform snagged the heel of her boot. She pitched a fraction sideways—just enough.

The tone wavered.

Sylvanna's boot slipped no more than the width of a fingernail, yet the disc answered as if she had tried to stomp a hole through it. The chord frayed, its upper register screeching like metal dragged across stone, and a breath of frigid air gusted up from the fog. Every hovering platform within three strides shivered, tilting just enough to suggest that, given one more mistake, they might scatter like startled birds.

Draven's fingers locked around her forearm before gravity could finish the argument. His grip was steady and cool, the pulse beneath his glove betraying no spike of alarm.

"Recenter," he said, voice pitched for her ears alone. "Think of Laethiel's lullaby. Let it set the metronome."

The reminder struck home. Sylvanna inhaled, hunting for the memory of that silver‑threaded tune the boy's aura had woven through her bones. One… two… three—gentle sway, soft cadence. She matched her breath to it, felt the hammering in her chest slow from a runaway gallop to a resolute trot. The disc steadied beneath her heel, its rune flickering back to pearl.

A new note blossomed from Draven's platform—low, calming, the tonal equivalent of a steadying hand on the small of her back. He released her arm only when he sensed her weight redistribute.

"Better," he murmured.

Together they took the next disc. Harmony snapped back into place with the satisfying click of a lock meeting its key. The mist below receded, exposing carvings on the chamber floor—spiraling lyrics etched in Old High Elvish, lines so fine they looked like hair laid across marble.

"Are those lyrics?" Sylvanna whispered, eyes darting between her footing and the script unfurling beneath the fog.

"Funerary verse,"