The Villain Professor's Second Chance

The moment I returned, I knew something had changed.

The air was thick, heavy with the aftershocks of the rupture. My breathing felt labored, as though the very act of drawing oxygen demanded more effort than I could fully spare. I wasn't at House Valemore anymore. The land around me was barren, cracked, stretching toward distant mountains that shimmered with an unnatural light. The colors in the sky seemed slightly off, washed in faint hues of lavender and sickly yellow, as if a painter had accidentally dipped the brush in the wrong palette when rendering this corner of the world. Read exclusive adventures at My Virtual Library Empire

Alone.

A cold certainty settled into my bones. The Tapestry had not returned me to where I had left. It had placed me somewhere else—by design or accident, I couldn't say. This realm, or region, or corner of creation didn't hum with the same frantic power I'd felt in the swirling illusions. But it bore scars of its own. The ground under my feet was ashen, the soil crumbling at the slightest touch of my boots. Shallow fissures zigzagged in every direction, as though an earthquake had once crawled across this land and never quite healed. Here and there, I spotted twisted, petrified stumps that might have been trees long ago, their trunks warped into grotesque sculptures of nature's final gasp.

A test. A punishment. A warning.

I glanced at the horizon, letting my gaze drift over the jagged silhouettes of distant rock formations. The sun—or something like a sun—hung low in a sky that didn't belong to the world I knew. Its light felt wan, pallid, carrying no warmth. A rancid wind swept by, stirring a film of dust into the air. I tasted it on my tongue, faintly metallic, like old iron left to rust.

Somewhere out there, Lorik was either dead or bargaining his way to survival. The Council would be closing its grip, mustering what remained of their battered forces. The Gravekeepers would not abandon their mission—whatever that truly was. And if they'd managed to keep hold of the ruin at House Valemore, they might be dissecting the remnants of the rift, searching for ways to force Belisarius's return on their terms.

And Belisarius…

I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to steady the subtle tremor in my limbs. The memory of his half-formed shape flickered through my mind. I'd seen him just before the Tapestry consumed us all—his face coalescing in that swirling realm, not whole, not yet. But close. Dangerously close. A single spark of decision, a breath of rearranged fate, and he might have stepped fully into this world. The idea weighed on me, pressing against that cold space in my chest where I stored regrets and half-truths.

Too close.

If he made it through, if the Tapestry allowed him to re-emerge, then every ounce of effort I had poured into erasing his thread would be undone. Everything I thought was settled would prove to be anything but. The world would shift again, revolve around Belisarius's presence in ways I couldn't fully predict. My jaw tightened. I wasn't naive enough to think I could just bury my head and hope he wouldn't manifest. The Tapestry was stubborn like that. If it demanded a thread return, it would warp reality until it got what it wanted.

I exhaled, rolling my shoulders, feeling the weight of exhaustion settle over me. My entire body ached with a dull, lingering pain, as though I'd fought for days without rest. Perhaps I had. Time in that place didn't function on the same rules. For all I knew, only seconds had passed in the real world. Or maybe days. Yet in this strange, desolate land, the sun remained pinned in its place, giving me no hint of the hour.

Whatever had begun at House Valemore was far from over. The Tapestry was unraveling, and I was no longer merely an observer. I couldn't afford the luxury of detachment. If I stood by, everything might collapse—my future, the kingdom, maybe even the fundamental laws that governed cause and effect.

I was a player.

The crack in the ground near my feet widened suddenly, letting out a puff of hot, acrid air. The stench of sulfur curled into my nostrils. I stepped back, one hand flexing near the hilt of my blade out of reflex. No enemy appeared, just the land itself shifting, reacting. It was almost as if this place recognized my presence. As if it knew an intruder had arrived, and like the Tapestry, it was testing me in smaller, subtler ways.

I glanced upward again, to where the mountains shimmered. They weren't normal mountains, not in the way I'd come to expect from my countless travels. The edges flickered, occasionally warping into shapes that defied natural lines. It reminded me too much of the illusions back in the Tapestry's domain—a sign that maybe this land was also steeped in distortion. Perhaps I was still in a half-realm, caught between one anchor of reality and another. The thought sent a faint chill through me, but I refused to let it cripple me. Fear was a predator, but I'd spent a lifetime hunting it down in myself.

My mind turned to practical matters. Food, water, rest—none of those were readily available, and I didn't know how long this place would keep me locked. My arcane reserves were depleted, but not empty. I could defend myself if something threatened me. But what if the environment itself was the threat? My eyes scanned the cracks in the earth again, each jagged line possibly harboring toxic fumes or some latent magical hazard.

I steadied my breathing, recalling the disciplined approach I'd honed over years of high-stakes maneuvers. Keep an inventory of your resources, gauge the threats, find the edges of advantage. Right now, my greatest resource was my will. My mind. My readiness to act without flinching. If the Tapestry had thrown me here to see whether I would falter, it would be disappointed.

Somewhere behind my eyelids, images of Lorik flickered, along with the battered courtyard. Part of me itched to be there, to see how the confrontation ended. Was Lorik still alive? Had the Council reasoned with him, or put a blade to his throat? And the Gravekeepers—had they retreated, or were they still prowling the ruins, searching for any clue that might bring Belisarius into the world under their command?

A faint breeze wafted by, carrying the smell of dust and old decay. No voices. No echo of living creatures. Just the quiet whisper of a place that had seen better days—if it had ever seen better days at all. This land was a grave of sorts, though I saw no markers, no bones. It felt empty, beyond the raw distortion that clung to everything like an infection.

I listened, straining my arcane sense, hoping to catch a hint of resonance. Perhaps if I found a stable thread, I could unravel the path back to my own world. But there was nothing, or almost nothing—just a faint static that prickled along my skin, letting me know that the Tapestry's tears lingered, even here.

And Belisarius…

The name repeated in my head, drawing my focus back to that half-formed figure in the rift. I wondered what he felt in that moment, if he felt anything at all. Was he torn between worlds, as I was? Or was he drifting somewhere in the Tapestry's inner labyrinth, looking for a path to manifest fully? The notion that he might be forging his own route made me uneasy. He was formidable in life, nearly unstoppable until I ended him. If he returned, bolstered by the Tapestry's cosmic rewriting… even I wasn't entirely sure how I'd stop him a second time.

Yet I would. If he threatened what remained of my reality, I would do what was necessary. I wasn't the type to cower just because the scale of the threat had grown. Let him come back. Let the Tapestry try to bend the world around him. I would bend it back—or break it entirely, if that was the only way.

I clenched my fists, ignoring the ache that rolled through my muscles. A dryness coated my throat, part thirst, part fatigue. Time to move, I told myself. Standing still gained me nothing. I scanned the horizon again, picking a direction almost at random—a line that angled toward a rocky ridge in the distance. At least from that vantage, I might see if there was anything else in this cursed land worth investigating: an abandoned structure, a spire of unusual magic, anything that could clue me in to where the Tapestry had banished me.