Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 934 - Taming the Bird’s Pain

It was an improvement transforming the situation from desperation to difficult but potentially surmountable challenge.

He was alive... That was a victory already. Everything else was just details to be managed.

The prince looked at Selphira intently and she saw his mouth opening slowly as the healing was finishing.

Victorʼs first word wasnʼt a question or complaint. It was…

”Sorry.”

His voice was barely a whisper. Hoarse and damaged but unmistakably sincere.

”Iʼm sorry,” he repeated, stronger this time. ”Iʼm so sorry. I…” He broke off coughing. Blood flecking his lips. The crystals in his throat making speech painful. But he pushed through it. ”I… I failed again. I was stupid, I…”

”Hush,” Selphira said, but gently… Without the harshness that usually characterized their communications. ”Save your strength.”

”No.” Victorʼs hand, the one that wasnʼt fully-crystallized, reached up to grasp her arm. Weak grip… But insistent. ”I wanted to prove myself.” The words came in a rush now. ”To Father, to the kingdom… to myself. Iʼm the oldest prince yet never adequate as my fatherʼs replacement, never excellent… Never terrible. Just eternally, frustratingly mediocre.”

His voice cracked not from his horrible pain… From something deeper.

Selphira felt something twist in her chest. Pity and guilt as sheʼd thought of him exactly that way. ”I thought if I could be useful,” Victor continued, voice dropping to whisper again. He laughed... Bitter sound that turned into cough again. ”Stupid, right? I was so desperate to prove I... Turns out I was just being a fool. Again... Like always.”

”Victor…”

Selphira grabbed his face with both hands. Forcing him to look at her, see her eyes. To understand that she was actually listening rather than just waiting for him to finish.

”You are not a fool,” she uttered with conviction. ”You are not useless. You are Victor… My student, my responsibility, my family… You were just unlucky. And also you are loved not because of what you might someday be useful for but because you are ours.”

”Iʼm also foolish for being here with you,” she admitted honestly, not trying to hide behind professional bravado. ”But I wouldnʼt have done it any differently, regardless of the consequences.”

It was a statement that communicated exactly how much she valued Victor, despite the frustrations his behavior had caused over years of their complex interactions.

Victorʼs eyes widened. Like heʼd been struck, since heʼd never believe he would hear those words from ʼthatʼ strict Selphira before today. Maybe he hadnʼt… He was dreaming.

”But I…”

Victor started crying. Silently at first, then with full-body sobs that made the crystals in his chest grind together painfully. But he couldnʼt stop.

The words hung between them. Filling space that had been empty for too long. Healing wounds that physical medicine couldnʼt touch. Giving validation that Victor had been starving for without knowing what he needed.

Above them Orion had changed from a simple black beam to the infamous spiral black and white one, Selphiraʼs ice barrier fragmented fast. Orionʼs next beam would likely have a clear shot. Below them, the six tamers were escaping the ice and melting some now. Climbing toward them with old grievances fresh in their minds.

Time was up. The small moment to talk was over and reality was crashing back in.

But something had changed in Victorʼs eyes, in the way he held himself despite the pain and in the set of his jaw beneath the tears.

He wasnʼt fully healed… Not physically. The crystals still grew from his flesh and part of his body was still broken. His mana system was still damaged, perhaps beyond complete repair.

But something inside had mended. Something that mattered more than flesh or mana or power.

He knew he mattered. Not as a soldier or prince. But as a person… As family, as Victor.

And that was worth more than any treasure or title.

Victor recognized the beam pattern immediately, a traumatic memory triggered by the energy vision that had reduced him to this state of being. ”If that hits you for too long, youʼll end up exactly like me,” he warned, his voice carrying the urgency born of direct experience with what the beam could do.

Selphira responded with the dark humor characteristic of how she handled impossible situations, a lightness that made horror more tolerable through acknowledging the absurd. ”Donʼt worry. Weʼll push him back and get out of here to at least give that damned Orion a good hit, even if we have to leave with our hands and feet completely crystallized.”

She paused before adding with a smile that was genuine despite the circumstances: ”That way theyʼll hurt more when I use them to hit him over the head.”

Victor sighted with a small smile.

”You wonʼt be able to push the beam if you fight it with your own mana. It needs to be pushed with a lot of strength, physically.”

”I may not look as big as you young man but Iʼm also strong…”

”I wonʼt let you die here,” Victor interrupted. Voice steady now despite the earlier tears, despite the pain… Despite everything. ”Weʼll use my crystal arm as our shield.”

”Youʼre in no condition to…”

”I know.” Grim smile. ”But Iʼll still have one good arm. Let me finally do something that counts.”

Selphira wanted to argue but she saw it in his eyes. The determination… The need not to prove himself to her but to prove himself to himself.

And who was she to refuse him that? Sheʼd just told him he wasnʼt useless.

”Fine,” she said. ”But you follow my lead. Donʼt take stupid risks and donʼt try to be a hero. You contribute what you can safely contribute and no more. Understood?”

”Understood.” He smiled, a real big smile this time. ”Thank you, for coming… For everything, for...”

”For what any good teacher does for her students.” Selphira stood, helping him up. ”Now letʼs show these bastards why itʼs a mistake to trap the two members of the Ashenway family in confined spaces.”

”Iʼm not Ashenway…”

”You are now, little bird. You got yourself saved by the old lady that rescues pitiful kids from the roads earning a place in a family that mostly chooses its members rather than inheriting them… Welcome, sing something to me later.”

Victorʼs eyes widened. Then filled with tears again... But different, not despair, not shame... But gratitude.