SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Trafalgar faced his older brother without any hurry. ”What exactly are you getting at, Helgar? Are you saying I have not earned this seat?”

Helgar’s mouth twitched. ”Look at that. You got that little head of yours turning after all. Yes, that is precisely what I am saying. I have no idea why Father gave the order to move you closer to the middle, and to be honest, I would rather not have you this near me.” His gaze slid down the table. ”Nym. Why do you not trade places with him?”

Nym lifted her head for the space of a breath. ”I would rather not, brother,” she said quietly. ”I prefer to stay where I am.”

”Oh, come on. What is wrong with you?” Helgar spread his hands. ”You have been moping like this for ages. Enough time has gone by, surely. If Sylvar had not been useless, he would still be alive and kicking like the rest of us. Even Elira and Darion are doing fine. His own incompetence is what killed him, plain and simple.”

Naevia was on her feet before he finished. ”Helgar. Do not ever let me hear you say something like that about your brother again.” Her voice shook. ”You spoiled little shit. One more word out of your mouth and I will go straight to Valttair and tell him exactly how much respect you hold for the dead of this family.”

Verena answered the third wife without heat. ”Naevia, you would do well to lower your airs a little. My son is not wrong.”

Trafalgar kept his mouth shut. He was, if he was honest, enjoying himself. For once he had the rare pleasure of watching this family fling filth at one another with no effort required on his part, and he meant to savor every second of it.

This was the family at its truest, he thought: all the breeding and the pride, and beneath it a pack of dogs snapping at the nearest throat. He had spent his childhood on the receiving end of those teeth. Watching them sink into one another for once was almost restful. Before the whole thing could boil over on its own, Helgar caught the look on his face, the quiet satisfaction he had not bothered to hide.

”What is it, dear little brother?” Helgar sneered. ”Has the cat got your tongue?”

”Oh,” Trafalgar said, unhurried. ”You want an honest answer?” He tilted his head a fraction. ”Though I suspect you already know it, seeing as you spent the entire war against the Thal’Zar and the Void Creatures watching me do nearly all of it. If memory serves, I did more that day than every one of you put together. Or am I mistaken?” His voice stayed pleasant. ”I heard you earned some merit of your own out there, Helgar. Truly, I did. None of it anywhere close to what I have built these last few years, but merit all the same. Be realistic, dear brother of mine.”

A vein rose on Helgar’s forehead. ”You... you got lucky. You had strong allies fighting at your side.”

”If that is what you believe, allow me to tell you plainly that you are blind. And that you are embarrassing yourself in front of everyone at this table.”

The room had gone quiet, attention swinging between the two of them. For all the disgust they carried for Trafalgar, not one of them could pretend he was wrong, and that shut Helgar’s mouth better than any threat. His mother, though, had no intention of letting the attack die with her son.

”It is true, Trafalgar,” Verena said. ”None of us disputes your accomplishments. Aurevane, where you helped hold off the attack. Euclid, which has flourished since your uncle passed and the land fell to you. Your record at the Academy. Word of everything you have done has reached us here.” She folded her scarred hands on the table. ”And yet Euclid answers to you first, and to Morgain second, if at all. Your wives live far from this castle, out of anyone’s reach but your own. You keep your personal affairs behind a curtain none of us are permitted to lift. You take no hand in the direct running of this house. Put all of that together, and it begins to look less like a son of Morgain and more like a man quietly raising a branch of his own.” Her grey eyes held his. ”No one denies what you have achieved. The question is whether those achievements strengthen House Morgain, or only Trafalgar.”

Trafalgar answered without missing a beat. ”Euclid is Morgain territory. It does what it should and grows larger every year under my hand. If you count that as a failure to this family, Lady Verena, I would love to hear you explain the reasoning, because your standards are peculiar.” He let the warmth thin out of his voice. ”And since we are on the subject of what this family gives its own, name me a single heir at this table whose wife or husband is allowed to live inside these walls. Because the way I recall it, the last time someone close to me came near this house, none of you behaved much like a great family. Not much like the Morgains we are supposed to be. Or do I remember it wrong?”

He aimed the words straight at Maeron, and everyone in the room caught it. They understood, every last one of them, because they all knew what had been done to Mayla, the woman who was Trafalgar’s wife now and had once been nothing more than his maid, before Maeron put her into a coma.

Trafalgar kept his voice light and his hands loose on the table, and buried the rest where none of them would find it. That debt had a page all its own. He would collect on it when the time came, in his own way, not here and not now.

Maeron did not flinch. ”I have no idea what you are referring to, Trafalgar.” He let the denial stand, and went on in the even tone of a man who had never once needed to raise his voice. ”Mother is asking a fair question. You have finished at the Academy, carved out a territory of your own, and gathered no small amount of influence. It is only reasonable for us to wonder what place you intend to claim inside this family.”

Trafalgar smiled, the first true expression he had let them see since he walked through the door.

”I intend to occupy whatever place I earn,” he said. ”If that makes anyone at this table uncomfortable, they are free to earn more.”