SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Chapter 661: An Important Conversation [IV]

"Well," Trafalgar said, voice lower now, "there is something important too. Mayla knows about part of this, but now that there are two more of you, I suppose I have to say it as well."Mayla's face tightened a little, from knowing where his words were about to go. Aubrelle's unfocused red gaze rested in his direction, the scar around her eyes faintly visible beneath the apartment's warm light, while Pipin shifted closer to her hand as if the bird had sensed the weight gathering in the room. Cynthia did not move at all. She had already heard enough tonight to understand that when Trafalgar lowered his voice like that, the next thing was unlikely to be easy.

Trafalgar looked at Cynthia first, then Aubrelle.

"My bloodline is not only Morgain," he said. "Part of it comes from the Primordials."

Cynthia's breath hitched.

Aubrelle did not speak, but Pipin's red eyes fixed on Trafalgar with such intensity that it almost felt like the bird had forgotten how to be a bird.

Cynthia looked at her, then back at Trafalgar, trying to arrange the sentence into something that made sense. "When you say Primordials, you mean the same Primordials from the old records? The ones tied to the war against the Void Creatures?"

"Yes," Trafalgar replied. "Those Primordials."

Aubrelle's fingers curled lightly against Pipin's feathers. Her voice came calm, though it had lost every trace of warmth from earlier. "That is not a small thing to say, Trafalgar. Most people speak of the Primordials as if they were a vanished race from an age that barely touches ours anymore. If you carry that blood, then your existence is not just unusual. It changes the way everything around you should be understood."

"I know," Trafalgar said. "That is why I did not say it casually."

Cynthia's face had gone pale again, but this time she forced herself to keep looking at him. "Is that why Void-born material worries you so much? Because it is connected to your bloodline, not only because it is dangerous?"

"Partly," Trafalgar said. "Void Creatures are dangerous to everyone. But for me, it is personal in a way I did not understand at first. My status names the bloodline clearly enough. Half-Human. Half-Primordial. I did not know what that truly meant until Rhosyn appeared and started filling in pieces nobody else had given me."

Aubrelle's unfocused gaze angled slightly. "Rhosyn. The woman Mayla mentioned before."

Mayla nodded, answering for him this time. "She is Primordial too. Trafalgar brought her here once. That was when he told me part of this, though not everything he is saying now."

Cynthia's eyes moved between them, stunned but trying not to drown in it. "So Mayla knew. Rhosyn knew. And you have been carrying this while acting as if the strangest thing about you was being an SSS talent from House Morgain?"

Trafalgar exhaled faintly. "In fairness, that already caused enough problems."

"That is not as comforting as you probably think it is," Cynthia said, her voice thin.

"It was not meant to be comforting."

Aubrelle's mouth pressed into a faint line. "Your SSS talent. Is it connected to this as well?"

"Yes and no," Trafalgar said. He leaned forward, forearms near the edge of the table. "The Primordial blood comes from my mother. But the SSS talent itself most likely came from my blood father."

Cynthia blinked. "Your blood father?"

Aubrelle understood faster. Her posture altered almost invisibly, as if a hidden string had been pulled through her back. "Then... Valttair du Morgain is not your biological father."

"No," Trafalgar said. "Valttair 'raised' me. That remains true. I call him father because he is the one who stood in that role, even if I despise him, whether the family liked it or not." His voice stayed even, but there was iron under it now. "My blood father was Magnus du Morgain."

The name struck differently.

Cynthia knew the history, at least enough to recognize why Mayla's lips parted and why Aubrelle's expression lost the last hint of softness.

"Magnus du Morgain," Aubrelle repeated, slower this time. "The SSS talent. Valttair's brother."

"Yes."

Cynthia's hand tightened around the cup again. "I heard about him. Not much thought. House Morgain had an SSS talent before you, and he disappeared from the center of the family before leaving any real legacy. At least, that is how the public version goes."

Auberlle said with quiet concern. "So your talent came from Magnus."

"Most likely," Trafalgar replied. "Magnus was SSS. I am SSS. That part is not hard to connect. The part nobody outside a very small circle knows is that my mother was Primordial. That is what made me what I am."

Aubrelle went very quiet. Pipin lowered its head slightly, crimson stare unblinking.

"Your mother," Aubrelle said at last. "Who was she?"

"I do not know enough," Trafalgar admitted. That answer cost him more than he let show. "Rhosyn knew her. She was her apprentice. More than that, really. The way Rhosyn speaks about her, she was not simply a teacher. She was someone important enough that when everything collapsed, Rhosyn chose to protect me because I was what remained of her."

Mayla's expression softened with remembered sadness. She had heard the shape of this before, but not like this, not in front of the others.

Trafalgar continued before the room could pull him backward. "Rhosyn told me the Primordials were not gone from the world ages ago. They were alive together less than seventeen years ago. Hidden. Isolated. They had their own community, kept away from the rest of the world because the Void Creatures were drawn to them."

Cynthia whispered, "Less than seventeen years?"

"Yes," Trafalgar said. "Which means every book that treats them like relics is wrong, or incomplete, or written by people who never came close to the truth."

Aubrelle's voice came low. "What happened to them?"

"My mother left the hidden place," Trafalgar said. "For Magnus. For love, defiance, hope, maybe all of it at once. I do not know her heart, so I will not pretend I can name it perfectly. But her leaving exposed them."

Mayla's hand moved across the table and rested over his.

Trafalgar did not pull away.

"Void Creatures came through Rifts," he said. "Not one. Not a small breach. Enough to destroy what they had built. Many Primordials died. The survivors scattered. And when it was over, they needed someone to blame."

Cynthia's eyes glistened, but she held herself together. "They blamed your mother."

"Yes," Trafalgar said. "They called her a traitor. Rhosyn does not believe that. She thinks fear needed a target, and my mother became the easiest one. But the law was still used against her."

Aubrelle's fingers dug gently into Pipin's feathers. "What did they do?"

Trafalgar's answer came without decoration.

"They sacrificed her."

The apartment felt colder despite the food, the lamplight, the wards in the walls and Mayla's hand over his. Cynthia stared at him as if the room had tilted. Aubrelle's unfocused red gaze lowered, and Pipin made a small sound, quiet enough to be painful.

Mayla's thumb moved once over Trafalgar's hand.

Trafalgar continued, because stopping would only make the next part harder. "Magnus surrendered himself so nothing would be done to me. That is what Rhosyn told me. He chose to give himself up so I could live. I do not know the full terms. I do not know every hand involved. But I know enough."

Cynthia's voice came fragile, yet longer than before, as if she was forcing the words to stand properly. "So all this time, while people called you a bastard of House Morgain, while they treated you as an embarrassment, the truth was that you were the son of Magnus du Morgain and a Primordial woman. You inherited an SSS talent from a man everyone already knew was monstrous, and you inherited a bloodline the world thinks is almost extinct."

Trafalgar looked at her.

"That is the simple version," he said.

"It is not simple," Cynthia replied. "It is the least simple thing I have heard in my life."

A faint breath left him. Almost amusement.

Aubrelle spoke next, her voice careful but firm. "Who else knows this?"

"Rhosyn. Mayla. Vivienne knows part of it. Caelvyrn knows. A Void Creature recognized what I was in battle. Caelum probably suspects more than I would like, but I have not told him directly." Trafalgar paused, looking at Aubrelle and Cynthia. "And now you."

For a few seconds, neither woman spoke.

Then Cynthia stared at him as if she had only just realized the full shape of what he had been saying all night.

"You've been carrying all of this by yourself for that long?"

Trafalgar blinked.

Cynthia shook her head slowly. "Your mother. Magnus. The Primordials. The Void Creatures. Not knowing what happened to your father. Not knowing who might come after you because of something that happened before you were even born." Her voice softened. "Trafalgar..."

Mayla's eyes lowered briefly.

Aubrelle remained silent for a moment before speaking.

"That does explain a few things."

Trafalgar looked at her.

"A few?"

A faint smile touched her lips.

"You have a tendency to treat catastrophes as if they are merely inconvenient scheduling problems."

Mayla snorted.

Cynthia covered her mouth, trying not to laugh.

Aubrelle tilted her head slightly. "In my defense, I married you knowing you were unusual. I simply did not realize the extent of it."

"The extent?" Trafalgar repeated.

"You are the son of an SSS talent and a Primordial woman," Aubrelle said calmly. "You attract Void-related incidents with alarming regularity. Ancient secrets seem to appear wherever you go." Her smile widened just enough to become teasing. "I suppose I have a somewhat crazy husband."

Mayla laughed outright.

Even Cynthia managed a weak smile.

Trafalgar rubbed his forehead.

"I am not crazy."

"That is exactly what a crazy person would say," Mayla replied immediately.

"I regret telling any of you anything."

"No, you don't," Mayla said.

Unfortunately, she was right.

The brief warmth faded naturally after that, leaving the room quieter than before.

Trafalgar's expression hardened a fraction, because there was one last piece he had not said yet. The piece that made Rhosyn's search both necessary and dangerous.

"Rhosyn is looking for the surviving Primordials," he said. "She believes they have to be gathered before the Void Creatures return properly. I understand why. Scattered, they are weaker. Divided, they are easier to erase."

Mayla's hand tightened around his.

Trafalgar looked at Aubrelle and Cynthia, voice flat enough to keep the ugliness from turning dramatic.

"But some of those survivors may hate my mother for what happened. And if they do, there is only one person left for that hatred to reach."

Cynthia understood before he finished.

Aubrelle did too.

Trafalgar said it anyway.

"Me."