SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

”That was a surprise, no question.” Trafalgar kept walking as he said it. ”I didn’t expect Maeron to try something like this. It caught me completely off guard.” He turned his hand over. ”And Darian didn’t fail me by reporting it, which is worth remembering. He could easily have kept the whole thing to himself. Sat on it, told me nothing, played both sides for as long as it suited him, and turned on me at the end of it.”

”But he didn’t,” Rhosyn said. ”That counts for a great deal. It isn’t a simple gesture, whatever he chose to call it in there.” Her eyes moved along the passage ahead. ”And Maeron being first heir of House Morgain makes this a strange move from your brother. Not one I’d have predicted.”

”No, it isn’t.” Trafalgar’s mouth pulled to one side. ”But he isn’t stupid. He knows what’s coming inside the family, and he knows the odds of us killing each other are good. So he’s laying out options he can play later. Improving his chances whichever way it breaks.” He let a breath out. ”He’s an intelligent man. That’s exactly what makes him dangerous, and he’s very dangerous. On top of that, I’ve got grudges with him going back years. I haven’t forgotten a single thing he’s done.”

Cynthia walked at his shoulder, thinking it through. ”But we have this now. You can hold him in the palm of your hand for a while, at least until he works out that you know. If he ever does.”

”For a while.” He nodded. ”It means I’ll see it if he tries anything else. Still, the fact he went to one of the Eight Great Families at all is the part I didn’t expect, even though it makes sense once you look at it. He sat down and worked out that House Thal’zar could be used, after everything our families did to each other in the war.”

He walked a few paces before adding the rest. ”I’d like to know whether that was his idea or his mother’s.”

Cynthia’s head turned. ”You think the First Wife is involved in this?”

”Possibly. It would fit her.” His voice cooled by a degree. ”She’s the one who gave the order about Mayla, all those years ago. I haven’t forgotten that for a single day since.” He stared ahead at the lamps running away down the tunnel. ”The two of them are dangerous separately. Together, they’re worse, and this has the look of something they’d build between them.”

Neither of the women said anything to that, which was answer enough. ”I’d like to take this to Valttair,” Trafalgar went on, quieter now. ”It’s the sort of thing he’d want to know, and he’d probably do something useful with it. But the moment I hand it over, he knows I have a direct line to Darian. That’s a piece of me he doesn’t have yet, and I’d rather he didn’t get it.” He shook his head once. ”So I’m keeping this to myself for now. What I will do is tell Caelum. He needs to know what’s moving around him, and he should be careful with it.”

”He usually is,” Rhosyn said.

”He usually is. That’s why he’s still alive.” Trafalgar turned it over one more time as they walked. Maeron had spent years being the brother who never made a wrong move in public, and now he’d made one out here where nobody was meant to see it. That was worth more to Trafalgar than any of the details Darian had handed him.

They walked the last stretch without much talk after that. The tunnel climbed steadily, the air losing some of its cold weight the higher they went, and eventually the passage opened out into the enclosed hall where the carriage had brought them in.

The room was exactly as they’d left it, stone walls and mana lamps and the heavy sealed doors at the far end, and the carriage stood in the same place under the same lamps. The only difference was that somebody had turned it around while they were below, so that it now faced the way out. Stable hands moved around the horses, checking straps, saying almost nothing to each other.

The wolf Beastkin from earlier appeared through the side door, already pulling his gloves on. ”Ready when you are,” the guide said, in the good humour he apparently kept in permanent supply. ”The road back is easier than the road in. It usually is.”

Trafalgar was about to answer him when Varek spoke up behind them. ”Lord Trafalgar du Morgain.”

He’d raised his voice enough that it carried across the whole room, which had clearly been the point. Everyone at the carriage stopped what they were doing, and Varek came forward and put one fist over his chest, and this time he bowed with it.

”I’d like to apologise properly. What I did in that room was inexcusable, and I’ve no defence for it. I ask that you don’t hold it against my lord.”

Trafalgar looked at him for a moment, and huffed out a breath through his nose. ”Just don’t do it again.” He said it without any heat, which somehow made it worse. ”The next time it happens, what hits the floor might be your hand. And remember where you’re standing while you think about it. You aren’t Darian. You aren’t his lord either. You’re beneath Darian, and you’re a long way beneath me.”

Varek’s head stayed down. ”Understood, my lord. It won’t happen again.”

”Good.” Trafalgar moved past him toward the carriage door. ”You were doing your job in there. Do it better next time.”

”I will.”

That was the end of it. Trafalgar climbed up after Cynthia and Rhosyn, and the guide swung himself into the front seat with the ease of a man who had done it a thousand times. Behind them, Varek stayed where he was until the far doors began to grind open on their heavy locks.

The carriage rolled forward into the passage, out of the fortress, and back toward the road. They were finally going home.