SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Chapter 667: Too Many Threads

Morning reached Trafalgar's room without asking permission.The mana lamps had dimmed sometime during the night, leaving the first pale light from the academy windows to creep across the floor, over the discarded clothes, the desk full of ignored papers, and the bed where Trafalgar had not slept alone for once.

He slept bare as he usually did, though this time Cynthia was pressed against him, one arm thrown over his chest as if she had claimed the place in her sleep and intended to defend it from the entire academy. Her warm skin was half-hidden beneath the sheets and the loose spill of her long white hair, which had spread everywhere during the night with the invasive confidence of a victorious army.

One strand had somehow curled around Trafalgar's face.

He lifted one hand and peeled it away with the patience of a man dealing with yet another enemy that had found him in bed.

'It appears I will not live quietly,' he thought, glancing down at the woman sleeping against him. 'And at this rate, even my nights will stop being useful for rest. Though in fairness, she did not exactly allow much rest either.'

His fingers drifted to her cheek before he thought better of it.

Cynthia stirred faintly at the contact, her face shifting against his chest, but she did not wake. Trafalgar kept his hand there, thumb moving with a care that would have looked absurd to anyone who only knew him through rumors, battle reports, or the usual noble gossip that made him sound like a walking disaster with a family name attached.

He remembered how Cynthia had been when he first dealt with her.

A barbed tongue. Commanding. Overprotective to the point of irritation. Somewhat hateful, if he was being honest with himself, though the feeling had always come with enough force behind it to make her difficult to ignore. Cynthia had never been soft in the open. She protected what was hers, scolded when she thought someone deserved it, and carried herself like a girl who had learned early that hesitation invited people to step over her.

Now she had shown him something private.

That did not mean the barbed tongue had vanished. Trafalgar was not naïve enough to believe in miracles that convenient. If anything, she would probably wake up and stab him verbally before breakfast. But the way she had changed once she began trusting him - the way courage, embarrassment, desire, and stubbornness had tangled together through the night - had been something.

Trafalgar remained on his back, unwilling to move while Cynthia slept against him.

He had wanted to organize his thoughts after leaving Mayla's apartment. He had even said as much. Instead, his entire night had been swallowed by Cynthia, and while he could hardly pretend to regret it, the problems waiting for him had not kindly dissolved because he had been occupied.

If he had stayed at Mayla's apartment, he doubted he would have slept either. Mayla had made her wishes obvious enough, Aubrelle would have enjoyed watching him suffer through them, and Trafalgar would have gained no time to think there either. Pleasant, perhaps. Useful, no.

Unfortunately, thinking was no longer optional.

There was too much information pressing against his skull, too many threads pulling in different directions, and despite what several unreasonable people appeared to believe, there was only one Trafalgar. He could not divide himself into three bodies and send one to the academy, one to Caelum, and one to whatever ancient ruin to try to find useful information.

First, there was the academy.

That should have been the simple part of his life. It was almost offensive how small it sounded compared to the rest, but Valttair had told him to finish it, and Trafalgar did not dismiss his father's orders just because larger monsters had begun making noise in the dark.

Valttair himself remained in seclusion, training behind closed walls, with no clear date for his return.

'I wonder if Caelum has already told him what we found,' Trafalgar thought, his hand resting lightly against Cynthia's hair. 'I suppose I will ask later through the Shadowlink.'

Then there was Esmond.

Esmond was evidence. Not only of what he had done, but of what the Vaelions might have touched. That was the part Trafalgar disliked most. Something did not fit. One of the Eight Great Families instigating a war was not impossible - noble houses had done uglier things for smaller rewards - but impossible and provable were not the same thing.

He could not simply walk into a council chamber and announce that the Vaelions had arranged half the rot spreading through the kingdom. Not without proof. Esmond's own story made the problem worse because, according to him, he had escaped from them. If Trafalgar dragged him into the open too early, the Vaelions would only need one quiet hand, one poison, one accident, one blade placed by someone loyal enough or terrified enough.

Caelum had killed Lucien because Trafalgar ordered it.

Someone else could do the same to Esmond.

For now, Esmond was buried in a deep sleep of Caelum's making. He would not touch anyone. He would not experiment on anyone. He would not crawl back into whatever hole had produced him and pretend his sins had been misunderstood research.

Trafalgar's mind moved to the homunculus next.

Selara had her.

That had been the best decision available at the time, which was not the same as a good decision. The homunculus was intelligent, wounded, and free from Esmond's commands, but she had been shaped with Void-born material and based on something no sane person should imitate. Letting Selara handle her gave Trafalgar one less immediate problem.

If that thing became a threat, he would kill her.

There was no cruelty in the thought. No hesitation either. Trafalgar could pity what Esmond had made and still cut it down if it reached for the wrong throat. Compassion was useful only until it became a blade pointed at someone he had chosen to protect.

And beyond all of that were the Void Creatures themselves.

More Rifts were appearing across the world. More cases. More incidents. The reports no longer looked isolated, and that was the worst part. A single Rift could be explained. Several could be contained. A pattern meant the barrier was weakening in earnest, exactly as Dravok had warned.