SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Chapter 674: Before the Long Winter

"What are you planning to do now?"The question drifted over the cliffside, carried by the high wind and the distant pulse of the city below. The two of them remained near the edge, legs hanging over a drop that could have swallowed towers whole.

Far beneath their boots, mana lamps moved through streets like veins of pale fire, and the world looked small enough to be held in one hand. It was a lie, of course. The world was never small. It only enjoyed pretending from a distance.

Rhosyn watched the lights for a while, black hair shifting against her shoulders. "The same thing I told you before. I will stay near you. Not above you nor behind you as some hidden guardian you only notice when something goes wrong. Near you. Close enough that if something comes for you, I can reach it before it reaches your throat."

Trafalgar turned his head toward her. He did not answer immediately, but the faint tension in his posture eased by a degree. Rhosyn had never been the sort of person to offer comfort with soft phrasing. With her, loyalty sounded almost like a threat. Maybe that made it easier to trust.

She continued, voice steady. "You have gathered a small circle around yourself. Mayla. Aubrelle. Cynthia. Caelum. A few others who stand close enough to be harmed by the truth even if they do not know all of it. I am inside that circle now, Trafalgar. I will not pretend otherwise. If you intend to carry secrets capable of making houses turn their blades inward, you need people beside you who understand what those secrets cost."

"I know," Trafalgar said. "That is why I asked."

Rhosyn glanced at him, her black eyes catching nothing from the moonlight. "We will prepare. That is the only answer worth giving. The Void Creatures are not a distant stain in old records anymore. The surviving Primordials are scattered, suspicious, and in some cases possibly hostile. Our bloodline has become more than an inheritance. It is a signal fire. If the wrong people see it, they will come. If the right people see it, they may come as well, and that will not be simpler."

Trafalgar listened, the wind pressing his coat against his back. There was no prophecy in her words. He had grown tired of being spoken about as if he were a blade left on a table for history to pick up. Rhosyn spoke of preparation because preparation was ugly, dull, necessary, and honest.

"So we need to train," he said.

"Yeah," Rhosyn agreed. "We look for those who remain. We decide who can be approached, who must be avoided, and who should never learn your name. You also need to strengthen the places you control. The Academy gives you structure. Euclid gives you ground. Your relationships give you reason. Do not neglect any of them because war sounds louder."

Trafalgar looked down at the city far below. "You have been to Euclid?"

"I took a walk."

"That is a very innocent way to describe entering my city without telling anyone."

"It was more efficient than requesting permission." Rhosyn's tone did not change. "Euclid is being cared for properly. The Gate is functioning, the defenses are not ornamental, and the people do not move like citizens waiting for disaster to claim them. You are taking care of it well."

That caught him more than he expected. Praise from Rhosyn did not arrive wrapped in warmth. It arrived bare, difficult to misread, and somehow heavier for it.

"I have good people handling most of it," Trafalgar said. "If I personally managed every detail, the city would probably collapse from irritation."

"Good. A lord who thinks he must touch every stone usually becomes a nuisance to his own walls." Rhosyn turned her gaze back to the horizon. "You should visit soon and also visit the dragon you adopted."

Trafalgar's expression went blank for a breath. "The dragon I adopted?"

"That is what Caelvyrn calls it."

"Oh yeah..."

"He is tired of the boy," Rhosyn said, and this time there was a faint dryness in her voice. "Utterly tired. The child talks too much, asks too many questions, touches things he should not touch, and has apparently decided that an ancient dragon is a suitable person to bother whenever boredom strikes."

Trafalgar lowered his head slightly, fighting the shape of a laugh. "That sounds like a nightmare Caelvyrn deserved."

"The boy also talks about you."

That made Trafalgar look back at her.

Rhosyn's expression held no amusement now, only that quiet, direct weight she carried when something deserved to be spoken plainly. "Often. He speaks of you as if you are the reason he is allowed to imagine growing into something other than a stray problem people kept passing between hands. You should see him before time pulls you elsewhere."

Trafalgar looked away first, toward the drop below his boots. His voice came quieter. "I will."

"Make sure you do."

"I said I will."

"I have learned that with you, repeating things improves the odds."

He exhaled through his nose. "You are becoming comfortable saying annoying things."

"I have always been comfortable. You are only hearing more of them now."

That one almost dragged a smile out of him, but the mood did not lighten enough to break. The future waited beyond the cliffside, wide and unpleasant, and both of them knew it. This was not a farewell exactly, but it carried the shape of a threshold. The last breath before months of training, movement, planning, and whatever waited past the next door.

Trafalgar flexed his fingers once over the stone beside him. "If we are preparing, we should spar once in a while."

Rhosyn looked at him.

He met her gaze evenly. "Do not give me that look. I am not saying I can beat you. I am saying I need to understand the distance. I have fought strong people, monsters, and things that should have killed me if they were less stupid. But you are different. If I am going to stand beside you in this mess, I would rather know how far behind I am instead of pretending the gap is smaller because my pride enjoys lying."

For the first time that night, Rhosyn laughed.

It was brief, low, and startlingly real. Not loud enough to reach the city below, but enough to cut through the wind. Trafalgar stared at her, caught between surprise and offense.

"What?" he asked.

Rhosyn covered nothing, apologized for nothing, and looked at him with a calm that made the answer worse before she even spoke. "I could kill you with one move."

Trafalgar narrowed his eyes. "You are very sure of that."

"Yes," Rhosyn said. "I am very sure."

He studied her face, looking for exaggeration and finding none. That was the unpleasant part. Rhosyn did not posture. She did not decorate her strength with needless claims. If she said she could kill him with one move, she meant it as a measurement, not an insult.

"One move?" Trafalgar repeated.

"Yeah. Just. One."

"That is irritating."

"It should be."

"I have improved a lot."

"You have." Rhosyn's tone did not soften, but it did not cut him down either. "That is why I answered seriously. If you had asked months ago, I would have told you sparring with me was a poor use of time. Now it can help you, if we structure it correctly. You will not learn by throwing yourself at me and calling the bruises education."

Trafalgar's mouth twitched faintly. "That sounds like something Caelum would say before making the bruises educational anyway."

"Caelum is efficient."

Trafalgar let out a quiet snort.

"Yeah, he sure is."

Rhosyn looked down at the city again. "We can spar. Carefully. You need pressure that does not flatter you. Your talent grows fast, but talent can become poisonous if every victory teaches the wrong lesson. I will not let you confuse survival with mastery."

Trafalgar absorbed that, the faint humor leaving his face. He had survived many things that, on paper, should have gone worse. Sometimes because of planning. Sometimes because of help. Sometimes because the world had twisted in ways he hated calling luck. Rhosyn was right. Survival taught lessons, but it also lied when the survivor wanted to feel stronger than he was.

"Fine." Trafalgar shook his head and let out a quiet breath. "We'll spar. Just try not to kill me."

The corner of Rhosyn's mouth moved almost imperceptibly.

"I can promise not to do it on purpose."

Trafalgar stared at her for a moment.

"Somehow that's worse."

"Then you understand the situation correctly."

This time, he did smile, but only barely. The expression faded as quickly as it came, leaving something steadier behind. He looked out over the city, over the lights and the roads, over a future that refused to stay in one shape long enough to be trusted.

Far from the city beneath that cliff, far from the two Primordials speaking under the open sky, the land rose into a chain of snow-choked mountains. Wind scraped across the peaks in long white ribbons, piling frost over black stone and burying every path that did not deserve to be found. From the outside, the mountains offered nothing. Only cold rock and the kind of emptiness that made travelers turn away before curiosity became fatal.

Inside those mountains, beneath layers of ice, stone, and old concealment, a chamber waited.

It was vast enough to make even giants look temporary. The walls had been carved directly from the mountain's bones, reinforced with dark metal veins that pulsed faintly under the frost. No torch burned there. Mana crystals buried in the ceiling gave off a dim, glacial light, pale enough to turn every breath into mist and every shadow into something with teeth.

At the far end of the chamber stood a door.

Great did not quite cover it. The thing rose higher than a castle gate, wider than a noble hall, its surface forged from a material that swallowed light rather than reflecting it. Ancient markings crawled across it in broken rings, worn by time but not weakened. No keyhole waited for a clever hand. It had the look of something that had never been opened because the world itself had agreed to leave it shut.

Two figures stood before it.

The first wore elegance like armor. Gray hair combed back with perfect restraint. Golden eyes. Leather gloves fitted over his hands. A refined suit untouched by dust, frost, or the brutal cold inside the mountain. Caelum looked exactly as he always did - composed, precise, and faintly out of place in any room that did not understand it should accommodate him.

Beside him stood a towering warrior whose presence seemed carved from the same mountains surrounding them.

The figure was enormous, easily two and a half meters tall, broad enough that the armor covering him looked less worn than built around a fortress. Two horns curved from his head, dark and ridged, casting jagged shadows against the chamber wall. His armor was massive, old, and scarred by battles no ordinary soldier would have survived. Across the chestplate, etched in silver against black steel, rested the emblem of House Morgain.

The cold wind that slipped through unseen cracks in the stone drifted across the chamber, carrying silence with it. Before them, the ancient door remained motionless, sealed as it had been for ages beyond counting.

Caelum's golden eyes rested on the markings covering its surface.

"It has been a while Caelum."