SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

”Something good?” Trafalgar leaned against the corridor wall, hugely pleased with himself. ”When have I ever cooked something that wasn’t?”

Aubrelle’s mouth curved at the sheer nerve of it, the way it always did when he was being ridiculous and knew it.

She crossed the last of the distance to him. On her shoulder Pipin ruffled once and lifted off, winging away down the hall toward the warm noise of the others, taking her borrowed sight with him.

She didn’t need it for this.

Trafalgar closed the gap and pulled her into him, and for a moment he only held her there, the road and the month and the whole cold length of that castle behind them both. She fit against him the way she always had, and for the first time since the mountain the weight on him lightened a fraction, just from the plain fact of her being warm and real and here.

”It’s been too long,” he said, low against her hair. ”I missed you.”

”I missed you too.” Her hands found his shirt-front and climbed to his jaw, reading him the way she read everything, by touch and by feel. ”It was long. But I’m back now, and it looks like there’s nothing left out there that needs me. So I’m home.” She let out a slow breath. ”Come on. Let’s go to the others, and I’ll tell all of you what happened out there.”

She made to turn for the hall. Trafalgar didn’t let go of her arm.

Aubrelle paused, head tilting toward him, faintly puzzled without Pipin’s eyes to tell her why he’d stopped her. ”Is something wrong?”

”Is something wrong,” he repeated. ”You don’t think you’ve forgotten something?”

”Have I?” A slow, knowing warmth spread over her face. ”It’s possible. I’m very tired. My memory isn’t what it should be right now.”

He drew her back in and kissed her, and there was nothing polite about it. A month was a long time. He’d spent most of his in blood and cold rooms and the company of people who wanted him dead, she’d spent hers a border away at her family’s call, and all of it went quiet in the press of it.

When he finally let her breathe, he stayed close enough that she could feel the words. ”Any of it coming back to you?”

”Not really.” Her voice had gone soft and wicked at once. ”I think you’ll have to remind me again.”

He was already leaning in to do exactly that when something small and furious dropped out of the air and came down square in his hair.

Pipin dug in and got to work, quick outraged jabs at the top of his head, feathers puffed to twice their size.

”It seems someone’s jealous.” Trafalgar didn’t so much as flinch, though he made no move to stop it either. ”You want to give her back her eyes before you take one of mine, you feathered menace?”

Aubrelle laughed, the sound bright in the cold hall, and just like that the world came back to her through Pipin’s small red eyes, the corridor and the lamplight and the man in front of her wearing a bird like a furious hat. She reached up, coaxed the little troublemaker down onto her hand, and smoothed his feathers until the temper drained out of him.

”Behave,” she told him, smiling. ”Both of you.”

They walked into the warm room together.

Cynthia was on her feet before they’d fully cleared the doorway, crossing to fold Aubrelle into a firm hug, because it had been just as long for her. ”How’ve you been? You’re all right? Nothing happened to you out there?”

”Nothing happened to me. I promise.” Aubrelle returned it with real warmth. ”It’s good to be home.”

Mayla started to push up from her chair, and Cynthia’s hand came down on her shoulder before she got halfway, holding her in place. ”You stay right where you are. I’ll come to you.” Her look softened as it dropped to Mayla’s middle. ”That belly’s twice the size it was the last time I saw you. Sit.”

And she bent and wrapped the seated Mayla up properly instead.

Trafalgar hung back a step and let himself have the sight of it. The three of them, the warm room, the food still steaming on the table. For the first time in longer than he could say, his home was whole. All of them under one roof, and not one of them a piece on anyone’s board. He’d built a single thing in his life the rest of the world couldn’t reach, and he was standing in the middle of it.

”So.” Aubrelle let Pipin hop up to the back of her chair and lowered into it. ”What were the three of you talking about before I walked in and stole the evening?”

”Trafalgar was about to tell us how his first official mission went,” Mayla said. ”He only got back today himself.”

Aubrelle went still, caught flat-footed, a beat behind the room the way anyone is who’s been a month gone. ”A mission? Did something happen? I didn’t hear a word of it.” Her face turned toward him, worry pulling at it. ”Are you all right?”

”Look at me. Same as I always am, nothing new under it.” He crossed to his chair and dropped into it, dry and easy on purpose, pulling the worry off her. ”You couldn’t have known, you were away. But there’s nothing to fret over. Whole and breathing, same as ever.”

”That’s a relief.” Some of the tension left her shoulders.

They started on the food, and for a while it was only the small sounds of a family finally eating together. Then Cynthia, who had never once in her life let a question sit when she could ask it, looked up.

”So what did happen? What was the mission, in the end?”

Trafalgar set down his fork. The warmth stayed in the room, but something colder moved in behind his eyes, the thing he’d carried down off that mountain and had not yet put down anywhere.

”Something got into one of the biggest mines the Morgains hold,” he said. ”Two thousand people are dead.”