SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

”It is more than possible,” Valttair said. ”But before any of you start counting families, you need to understand what the Dead Meridian is, because none of you do.”

He let that hang before he went on.

”It is not a border, and it is not simply a dangerous stretch of land. It is a territory so vast that no one alive knows where it ends. Men have walked into it for a season and never reached the far side of a single one of its regions.” His voice held level. ”And it does not keep one form. The whole of it remakes itself every month of the year. A river in January may stand as a mountain by February. A forest turns to swamp. A valley vanishes under solid rock.”

Helgar frowned. ”So a map of the place would be worthless.”

”Every map is worth the paper, for exactly one month.” Valttair almost looked pleased at the question. ”The changes run on a cycle. Whatever lies at a given point this January will lie there again next January. February wears a different face, and so does every month after it, but the year always circles back to the same twelve. Twelve maps, one for each month. Carry the wrong one, and the land itself will walk you into your grave.”

Trafalgar followed it without trouble, and the pieces slid into place fast. Maps expired with the month. Routes vanished. Whole ecosystems shifted around beneath a calendar no one understood. Marching common soldiers into a place like that would be no different from burying them alive with their eyes open. It also answered a question he had not bothered to ask aloud, which was why Moses had lost years to the region. A man would have to live through several full cycles simply to learn all twelve of its faces.

”And that is only the ground,” Valttair continued. ”What walks on it is worse. High-ranked monsters, species that exist nowhere else in the world, the carcasses of Void Creatures older than any record, whole zones poisoned through with Rift energy, and Void that is very much alive. Ruins no one has catalogued. Trails that end where no one has followed them.” He let it sink in. ”The whole of it answers to the Void. That alone is reason enough to watch it.”

He had not sent Moses out there on a whim. The captain had spent his years studying the shifts in the land, the movements of its monsters, the spread of the Void, and any sign at all of something stirring on the far side of the barrier. What he carried home was the part that changed everything.

”House Morgain was not the first through the Meridian.” Valttair’s tone hardened a fraction. ”Moses found traces of an expedition that came before ours. They knew the monthly paths. They carried equipment no ordinary explorer could ever lay hands on. And they took pains to erase whatever they left behind.”

Maeron spoke, smooth as ever. ”And who has the reach to mount something like that, Father? Crossing that region for months, and hiding it after.”

”No minor house, that much is certain.” Valttair’s grey eyes moved across them. ”It takes a Great Family to feed an expedition for months, to hold old maps of the region, to carry artifacts that survive it, to field men who can kill what lives there, and to have a reason worth burying the whole venture. More than one of them may have had a hand in it.” He paused. ”But if you press me for a single name...”

He said it without heat.

”House Vaelion is the most likely.”

Trafalgar was not surprised, and going by the faces around the table, few others were either.

”I cannot prove Vaelion crossed the Meridian,” Valttair went on. ”The rumors about their experiments, their appetite for abnormal creatures, the movements they believe no one sees, everything my people have gathered these past years. None of it is proof. But of every Great Family in this world, they have handed me the most reasons to believe it was them.”

Valttair did not open the floor to argument. He had laid out the threat; now he handed out the work.

”Two years is long enough for problems to gather when no one is looking closely enough,” Valttair said. ”There are regions of Morgain territory that have been neglected, borders that require stronger hands, and responsibilities that will no longer be left waiting.”

He moved from one order to the next without pause.

”Maeron, several of the central regions have fallen behind. Take the men and resources you need, put them back in order, and continue overseeing the central house while you do it. Any unusual movement of coin, soldiers, or materials comes to me first.”

”Helgar, our outer territories need a firmer presence. Take your squadrons, reinforce the weakest borders, clear out whatever has begun troubling the settlements, and remind the local commanders what is expected of them.”

”Lysandra, inspect the roads, supply lines, and regional authorities. I want to know which parts of our territory have been poorly managed, who is responsible, and what has been allowed to pass unnoticed while I was away.”

The smaller assignments he dealt just as briskly. Nym was sent to the old archives to review territorial maps, past reports, and neglected claims, work that suited her and kept her away from the field. Elira and Darion were given responsibility for a smaller disturbance near the edge of their branch’s lands, along with the trade ledgers and requisition records tied to the region. Neither task cost him more than a sentence.

Rivena he left for near the end, and gave her almost nothing.

”Rivena, you will remain in the castle until I decide otherwise.”

”As you wish.”

The answer came out perfectly even. Her face made it plain how little the order pleased her.

Valttair turned to Trafalgar last, and the whole table turned with him.

”Trafalgar. I will give you your first mission.”

That caught every ear in the room. Whatever the patriarch meant to place in the hands of the son he had just moved near the center, no one wanted to miss it.

”What is it?” Trafalgar asked.

”The details will reach you before you leave. Do not trouble yourself with them yet.” Valttair gave away nothing more, and the not-saying did its own work, leaving the rest of them to chew on what he might have in mind.

”Understood.”

”That is all.” Valttair’s voice shut the gathering like a door. ”I have returned. House Morgain begins moving again. Leave.”

Chairs scraped back. The family rose and made for the doors, and as they filed out, the old groupings knit themselves together again in front of Trafalgar. Maeron left at Seraphine’s side. Helgar drifted toward Verena. Lysandra lingered a breath near her brother before she went. At the far end of the hall, Rivena got to her feet and started the long walk out with whatever she carried locked behind her teeth.

She had almost reached the doors when Valttair spoke again.

”Not you, Rivena.”