SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Chapter 490: Chapter 490: The God of War [V]

Vivienne was still sitting there with that unsettled look on her face when Trafalgar spoke again.

”There is one more thing.”

Dravok’s eyes shifted toward him. ”Go on.”

Trafalgar rested one arm over the table and met his gaze directly. ”Your presence in the war was noticed. The Eight Great Families may not know exactly who or what you are, but they felt it. They know something was there.” His voice stayed even. ”If something like that happens again, it won’t pass as easily.”

Dravok listened without interrupting.

Then he gave a small nod. ”Yes. That was a mistake.”

The answer came cleanly enough that even Rhosyn looked at him for a second.

Dravok took a slow drink before continuing. ”I let the moment carry me further than it should have. I wanted to see it with my own eyes. I wanted to see you there, in the middle of battle, with that blood moving inside you.” His pale green eyes stayed on Trafalgar. ”It reminded me of older days. When I was young, I was not much different. The battle pulled at me, and I followed.”

That admission did not soften him, but it changed something in the air around the table. For the first time, he sounded less like an old name carved into history and more like a man who had once bled his way through youth the same way others did.

Trafalgar let that sit for a moment, then said, ”Good. Then make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Vivienne’s eyes moved at once toward him.

Even Caelvyrn looked faintly amused by how plain the words were.

Dravok, however, did not react badly. If anything, his attention deepened.

Trafalgar continued without hesitation. ”And since we’re saying things clearly, I’ll say one more. Since the start of this meeting, you’ve sounded like you’re giving orders.”

No one at the table moved.

Rhosyn turned her head toward Trafalgar. Vivienne looked almost alarmed now.

Trafalgar did not care.

”I’ll listen to what you have to say,” he went on. ”I’ll accept your help. When the time comes, I’ll accept your training too. But don’t let that get to your head.” His gaze never left Dravok’s. ”We’ll work together. That’s all. Right now, no one here stands above me.”

Vivienne looked genuinely stunned. She had spent years with Dravok and had probably never seen many people speak to him like that, much less someone his age.

Caelvyrn’s mouth curved slightly, though he said nothing.

Dravok watched Trafalgar for several long seconds. Then, instead of anger, a faint smile appeared on his face.

”Good,” he said at last.

That single word drew everyone’s attention back to him.

”A bloodline like ours has no use for someone who bows too easily.” His fingers tapped once against the side of the glass. ”If you had sat there nodding at everything I said, I would have been more disappointed than pleased.”

Vivienne blinked.

Dravok did not take his eyes off Trafalgar. ”So fine. We work together.” His smile faded, but not in a harsh way. ”Just make sure that pride of yours keeps producing results.”

Trafalgar gave a small nod. ”It will.”

”Good,” Dravok said. ”Then let’s stop circling and leave things in order.”

No one interrupted him.

He looked at Trafalgar first. ”You already know your part. You return to the academy. You finish it properly. You keep growing, you keep moving, and you keep making your name larger than it already is. Build ties that are worth something. Not empty greetings, not smiling fools, not people who only want to stand near you because you are convenient. Useful ones. Real ones.”

Trafalgar gave a small nod. ”That was always the plan.”

”I know,” Dravok said. ”The difference now is that you know what that path is feeding into.”

Then his eyes shifted to Rhosyn.

”You stay near him. That doesn’t change either. But from now on, when I call for you, you come. What I need from your class will not be simple, and I will not waste time chasing you across the world while pretending patience is one of my virtues.”

Rhosyn crossed one leg over the other and looked at him steadily. ”You make it sound as if I have the habit of running from work.”

”You have the habit of doing things only when they please you.”

After that, Dravok turned to Caelvyrn.

”And you. This time, I need you as an ally, not as some smiling bastard who watches from the side and comments on everyone else’s decisions.”

Caelvyrn let out a low breath through his nose. ”How cruel. You say that as if I haven’t been extremely helpful already.”

”You’ve been present,” Dravok corrected. ”We’ll see how helpful you are once there is actual work in front of you.”

Caelvyrn’s mouth curved. ”So after centuries of doing as we pleased, we’ve finally reached the age where we work in the same direction.”

”For now,” Dravok said.

”For now is enough.”

Then Dravok looked at Vivienne.

”You already know what you’re doing. You enter the academy next year. You stop hiding behind poor decisions and start behaving like someone who has to live among other people.”

Vivienne looked like she disliked every part of that sentence. ”You make it sound simple.”

”It isn’t,” Dravok said. ”That is why you need it.”

She lowered her eyes for a second, then nodded once.

Dravok’s gaze passed over the whole table after that, slower this time, as if settling each of them into place in his own mind.

”So that is how it stands,” he said. ”I prepare what has to be prepared. Rhosyn and Caelvyrn will help me do it. Trafalgar continues forward without slowing. Vivienne enters the academy and fixes the problem she created before it grows teeth.” He picked up his glass again. ”When the time comes, I will contact you.”

Trafalgar looked at him. ”And until then?”

”Until then,” Dravok said, ”do exactly what you said you would do. Keep moving.”

A while later, the bar had gone quiet again.

The dwarf moved behind the counter with the slow rhythm of someone returning to a familiar routine after having his morning disturbed by people far larger than his little place had any right to receive. Glasses were collected, chairs nudged back into place, a rag dragged over wood that had seen far better days. Near the stairs, Vivienne had already gone to prepare herself to leave, though not without casting one last uneasy look in Dravok’s direction before disappearing from sight.

Dravok remained where he was.

One hand rested near the half-empty glass. The other lay against the table, scarred and still, as his eyes stayed on the place Trafalgar had occupied only moments before.

A faint breath left him through the nose.

”A good one,” he murmured.

Not simply because of the blood.

Blood alone had never been enough. Dravok had seen too many people prove that over the centuries. Great blood, famous names, ancient lineage, and nothing beneath it worth respecting. But Trafalgar was not one of those. He did not carry himself like someone who had been protected by the weight of his house from the moment he was born. There was something harder in him than that, something earned. Dravok did not know every step of the boy’s life, but he did not need them spelled out to understand the shape of it. Trafalgar had climbed. Not because anyone had raised him carefully toward greatness, but because he had dragged himself there with his own hands and refused to stop once he began.

That was easy enough to see in the way he spoke, in the way he held his ground, in the way he looked at men older and stronger than him without searching for permission first. He had pride, yes, but not the hollow kind. Not the sort inherited by fools who thought blood alone entitled them to everything. His had been built the harder way. That, more than anything, was why Dravok had taken to him so quickly.

His thoughts shifted after that, and with them came the old echo of another presence.

Not the son this time.

The mother.

Not only in the face, though the resemblance was there plainly enough. It was in the feeling he left behind. That same refusal to bend. That same sense of someone who had not been born to lower her head for anyone. She had carried it naturally, and so did he. The kind of presence that unsettled others without effort and made weaker people defensive even when no threat had been spoken aloud.

Dravok took another slow drink.

The future was still uncertain. He was not naïve enough to mistake one meeting for salvation. The seal continued to weaken. The bloodline remained scattered. Time had not become kinder simply because one worthy heir had stepped out of the dark. Nothing guaranteed success. Nothing promised that the years ahead would end in anything but another disaster, another loss, another name swallowed by history.

But this time, there was something to place hope in.

With Trafalgar, there was a chance.

A hard one. A narrow one. But a chance.

Perhaps enough to stop their bloodline from falling into the same near-extinction again. Perhaps enough to keep what remained from being erased for good.

His eyes drifted toward the low ceiling, the old walls, the world outside where they still had to live half-hidden despite what they were. There was something almost ridiculous in that. The strongest bloodline in existence forced into corners, false names, and silence. But strength by itself did not let a broken people stand against the whole world.

Dravok did not want war with all of them.

Not while their footing was still this poor.

First they needed time. Ground. Position. A future strong enough to stand on.

Perhaps one day they would no longer have to hide in places like this. Perhaps one day the Primordials could exist beneath the open sky again without lowering their voice or burying their name.

But for that day to come, Trafalgar would have to reach far higher still.

Dravok looked down at the table for a moment, then let the faintest smile touch his mouth.

”Let’s see how far you can go, our heir cursed by fate.”