SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Chapter 451: Chapter 451: Sylvar’s Funeral [II]

The Cemetery of Swords looked as magnificent as ever. Snow drifted across the frozen plateau in thin veils, settling over the countless blades planted in the earth. Swords of every shape and age stood in rows that stretched farther than the eye could comfortably follow, some polished despite the centuries, others dulled by wind, ice, and time.

Every blade had belonged to someone. Every blade had a name. Some had been planted for those who died in war, some for those who fell protecting their people, and some for men and women whose end came through betrayal within the family itself. Today, another piece of iron would join them.

The main family had gathered in full. Seredra stood nearby with the stillness of someone who belonged to this place as much as the stone and snow did. Armand du Morgain, old and imposing even in silence, watched from within the circle. The rest of the family took their places around the heart of the cemetery, cloaks stirring in the bitter wind as they formed a solemn ring around Valttair.

The last time a Morgain had been buried here, Armand had spoken while laying his son Mordrek to rest. Now the history of the family repeated itself. A different generation. The same weight.

Valttair stepped forward, Sylvar’s sword already in his hand. It was a lighter weapon than Mordrek’s had been, narrower through the blade, made for speed and clean efficiency rather than overwhelming force. He studied the vast forest of steel for a moment, then chose a place among the older swords and turned toward the gathered family.

”Sylvar was a son, a brother, a skilled swordsman, and a worthy Morgain,” he said, his voice carrying clearly through the wind. ”He bore our name with honor. He died in the last war we fought, and Nym spared him from a worse fate after the corruption Icarus placed within him. He gave his life for House Morgain, for glory, and for duty. That is how he will be remembered. As an honorable Morgain.”

Valttair raised the sword once and drove it into the frozen ground.

Silence followed the moment Sylvar’s sword entered the frozen earth. The sound of steel biting into stone had already faded, yet the weight of it remained. Snow continued to fall in thin, restless strands across the cemetery, gathering over the older blades and catching along the hilt of the newest one. The wind never stopped at the Peak, and here among the swords of dead Morgains, it seemed to carry every absence with it.

Even Trafalgar kept still. He had felt nothing warm toward Sylvar while he lived, yet this was not a place for pointless movement or hollow noise. The Cemetery of Swords had a way of forcing silence onto everyone who entered it. The mountain, the steel, the cold, all of it pressed down until speaking felt like intrusion.

For several seconds, only the wind could be heard.

Then the silence broke. A choked breath came first, uneven and sharp. After that, a trembling voice. ”I killed him...”

Trafalgar’s eyes shifted. Nym stood with her shoulders tense, hands trembling at her sides. Her face had gone pale beneath the cold, and for once the usual strength in her expression was gone entirely. She looked at the sword planted in the ground as if it had pierced through her instead.

”I killed him,” she said again, louder this time, her voice cracking. ”It’s my fault. Sylvar died because of me.”

A few heads turned at once. Several siblings stiffened. Even among Morgains, seeing Nym break like this was not something anyone expected. She took half a step forward, breathing unevenly, as if the thought had finally torn through everything she had been holding down since the battle. ”I should have done something else. I should have...” Her voice shook harder. ”I killed my brother.”

Lady Naevia du Morgain moved immediately. She reached Nym before anyone else did and caught her by the shoulders, firm but not rough, trying to anchor her in place before the breakdown dragged her further. ”Nym. Look at me.”

Nym did not. Tears were already falling freely, hot against skin turned red by the mountain cold. Naevia pulled her closer, one hand rising to hold the back of her head with a kind of restrained desperation only a mother could show in a place like this. ”It was not your fault. You did what had to be done.”

Trafalgar watched without saying a word. Seeing Nym reduced to this was almost jarring, but he felt no pity for Sylvar. In his eyes, Sylvar had died because he lost focus in the middle of war, and men died for less than that.

Around them the rest of the family showed themselves in smaller ways. Helgar, despite everything he had done in the war, looked diminished today, his usual presence drawn inward. Others carried grief badly hidden behind rigid posture. Lysandra did not move. Rivena remained cold. Maeron looked as solid and unreadable as stone.

Valttair saw all of it.

He stood before the newly planted sword of his son and let his gaze move across the circle in silence. To anyone else it might have seemed as though he were simply waiting for Nym to regain control of herself, or allowing the moment to pass with the dignity expected of the head of House Morgain. But that was not what he was doing.

He was watching. Strength and weakness both. Who could carry weight, and who would bend beneath it.

Nym’s breakdown did not go unnoticed. Helgar’s silence. The way some of the younger heirs lowered their heads too quickly, as though they wished to disappear from the moment rather than endure it. The wives, each holding herself differently beneath the mountain wind. Even those who did not cry revealed something in their posture, in the way they stood among the blades of dead Morgains. Valttair missed none of it.

This place was not only for the dead. A Morgain did not come to the Cemetery of Swords merely to mourn. They came to remember what they belonged to, and to understand what it meant to survive inside a family built on steel, blood, and expectation. A funeral was never just farewell. It was measure. And today, Valttair measured them all.

For the first time in his life, he had buried one of his sons. That truth remained where he had forced it to remain, deep and hidden, denied to everyone but himself. Fathers were not meant to bury their children. Sons were meant to take the swords of their fathers and carry the name forward. That was the natural order.

But the world did not protect natural order. It shattered it whenever it pleased. And if one son had fallen already, Valttair understood something else with the same cold clarity he understood all things. It might not be the last time.

He turned away from Sylvar’s sword first. That was all the signal the others needed. One by one the Morgains began to withdraw from the circle, their black garments moving through the falling snow as they left the heart of the cemetery behind. No one spoke. The wind filled the silence for them, rushing through the endless forest of steel and carrying the mourning of the family upward into the pale morning sky.

Soon the circle was gone. Only the swords remained. Snow continued to fall over the frozen plateau, gathering softly along ancient hilts and the fresh steel of Sylvar’s blade alike, the new iron standing among the old as though it had always belonged there.