The Villain Professor's Second Chance-Chapter 660: Tales of The Long Ears (2)

"Trust me," he said, voice low and commanding. "I won't be."

A single spiral rune flared via his mana, carved so subtly into the wall that it had gone unnoticed. The stone began to soften, like wax melting beneath hearth fire. Light bloomed at the edges, pushing the rock aside as though it were nothing more than a curtain waiting to be drawn.

Sylara's breath caught. "You're going to melt through solid rock?"

Draven stood, stepping back. The wall pulsed with energy, coalescing into a translucent barrier. It rippled like heat haze, the surface dancing with silver-blue veins of light. Beyond it lay only darkness—but with that darkness came the faint echo of something alive.

"A boundary," Draven repeated, letting the phrase settle like dust in the stale air. His breath crystallized in silver mist against the pulsing veil. Up close, the surface reminded him of moonlit water—layer on layer of translucent ripples that never fully broke, each thread humming a slightly different note. Sparks of mana drifted inside the fold, fluttering like fireflies caught in amber. The delicate sweetness of spring blossoms mingled with the metallic scent of old‑world wards, a perfume that didn't belong in any cave he knew.

Sylara studied the glow, brow knitting. "All I see is light and a headache." She reached out with two fingers, hesitating. The air near the veil tingled, interfering with her chimera bond and raising a halo of gooseflesh along her arm. "And you think walking into that is wise?"

"It's not about wisdom," he said, voice calm as still water. "It's about design."

When she raised a skeptical brow, Draven clarified, "We're looking at a doorway written into the fabric of two memories—the mountain's and something farther away. If we hesitate, it will decide we're strangers and close."

"And what exactly does that mean in plain words?"

"It means," Draven answered, glancing at her sidelong, "that beyond this sheet the world hasn't decided if it's awake or still dreaming." He held her gaze for a heartbeat, then stepped forward.

The barrier swallowed him without a splash. For an instant his outline scattered into threads of starlight. Then he was simply gone.

Sylara's pulse kicked up. Vyrik snarled, the great chimera's wings half‑unfurling in agitation. She gave the beast a reassuring scratch at the ruff of feathers and fur. "Easy," she whispered—even though her own voice shook.

Steeling herself, she tightened her grip on the dagger at her belt, sucked in a breath scented with moss and ozone, and plunged through.

The universe hiccupped.

There was no impact, no lurch of teleportation. Instead she felt her heartbeat fold in on itself, echoing out like a drum struck in a vast hollow cathedral of mind. Sounds that were not sounds brushed her ears—flutes carved from living branches, children giggling beneath canopy skylight. Her vision fractured into hazy vignettes: a silver doe bounding through twilight, a city of crystalline spires glowing beneath three moons, a circle of robed figures singing a lullaby to the stars. None of it was hers, yet every flicker clung to her skin like dew.

Then the ground steadied.

Sylara blinked hard. An emerald radiance replaced the cave's dim torches, cool and alive. She inhaled and nearly choked on the richness—soil damp with centuries of humus, air laced with the spice of distant blossoms, a faint electric tang of active rune‑work. All around her towered trees so massive their lowest branches hung like living bridges. Runes glittered beneath the bark in thin constellations that flickered whenever a breeze stirred the leaves.

Draven stood a few paces ahead, one palm pressed against a trunk wider than a house. Light from the runes patterned his face in shifting mosaics—serene one moment, austere the next. He didn't turn when she staggered up beside him.

Sylara's pupils drank in the sight: arched wooden walkways strangled by vines; toppled spires of pale stone jutting from moss like cracked ribs; a crumbled archway whose keystone still buzzed with half‑functional glyphs. Ethereal motes drifted everywhere, tiny shards of illusion that pulsed when they moved, forming phantom petals before dissolving again.

"What… was that?" she managed, voice hushed as if afraid to wake the grove from its slumber. Vyrik padded out behind her, claws sinking into moss so thick it muffled even his heavy steps. The chimera's jaws parted in a wary whine.

"Memory," Draven said, finally facing her. His irises reflected the runelight—quicksilver and sharp. "But not ours."

She opened her mouth to press further, then closed it when a distant chime drifted through the leaves. It sounded like wind through crystal, yet carried deliberate cadence. The grove, she realized, was singing to itself.

They turned in a slow circle, taking in the panorama. Beyond tangled roots a dry creek bed curved through the undergrowth, its stony floor etched with channelled sigils. To their left rose a ruinous colonnade, marble pillars carved with reliefs of robed sentinels bearing seed‑filled lanterns. Moss had devoured most of the detail, but enough remained for Sylara to recognise the elongated ears and high cheekbones of High Elven craft.

"This place isn't on any contemporary chart," she whispered. Her gaze lifted to a bridge overhead where faded silken banners—now tattered ribbons—drooped between wooden balustrades. "It can't be."

"That's because the cartographers never left a mark," Draven said. His tone was matter‑of‑fact, yet underneath it thrummed something like reverence. "Or if they tried, the map forgot."

She frowned at him. "Places don't just disappear from memory."

"They do," he countered, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. He gestured at the nearest rune‑marked trunk. "When they're made to."

A hush settled again, broken only by the soft scuttle of tiny lizards across fern‑covered roots. Sylara slipped off her bow, holding it loosely while she turned, scanning shadows for movement. The forest felt alive but not hostile, like a library in which every leaf was a page filled with dormant stories.

"Where are we?" she breathed.

Draven tilted his head, listening to a resonance no one else could hear. It thrummed along his bones like a tuning fork struck in a cathedral, guiding both tongue and memory with equal ease.

"Çalethar," he said at last, letting the name roll across his palate like a vintage wine reclaimed from a lost cellar. "The Grove That Waits."

Sylara stopped in mid‑step, lips parted. Moon‑frosted strands of her hair slipped free of their braid as she gave him a look torn between awe and exasperation. "You're joking. Scholars treat Çalethar like bedtime fable material. A pilgrim's myth. A footnote buried under half a millennium of dust."

Draven's mouth curved, though it was scarcely a smile. "Most truths start that way—ignored, then denied, then desperately protected once people realise what they really mean."

A hush settled over them, thick as velvet. Wind sighed through the towering rune‑etched trunks, lifting layers of scent—amber resin, damp loam, a sweet spice that reminded Sylara of dried starfruit warmed by desert camps. Every leaf seemed to quiver at their presence, as if the forest itself woke to study the intruders who dared disturb its slumber.

They moved forward together, careful and deliberate. The forest paths were lined with fractured illusions, half‑solid echoes of lives long passed. A pair of translucent children darted across the mossy flagstones, chasing a ball formed of light; an instant later the vision dissolved into drifting motes. Further on, the rising curve of a pavilion revealed spectral dancers twirling in ghost‑silk robes before fading back into nothingness.

Sylara's breath caught more than once. Her hunter's instincts demanded she draw an arrow for every flicker in her peripheral vision, yet some deeper instinct told her these phantoms meant no harm. They were shadows cast by the grove's memory—reflections, not threats.

"What do you suppose is fuelling all this?" she whispered, voice muffled by the hush. "No living mage could keep illusions looping this long."

Draven knelt to brush moss from a cobblestone. "Residual ley currents," he mused. "And something older. Thought‑forms woven into the tree‑roots themselves. The place is alive in ways even the elves stopped recording."

Sylara crouched beside him, running fingertips across the same stone. A chill sparked up her wrist—static, curious, exhilarating. "Feels like a heartbeat."

"Or the echo of one," he agreed.

A sudden glimmer on the path yanked Sylara's gaze to the left. She rose, stepping toward a massive trunk cleft at its base. A dark smear stained the ancient bark.

"There's blood," she observed, voice tightening. She pressed her gloved fingers to the sap‑dark stain, feeling how the bark pulsed faintly beneath. "Not hours old. Days, at most."

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