SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant-Chapter 488: The God of War [III]

"Yes."

The word stayed at the table for a second.

Trafalgar held Dravok’s gaze, waiting for the rest of it, but the older man did not continue. He only took another slow drink, as if what he had already said were enough.

Trafalgar’s eyes narrowed slightly. "And?"

Dravok set the glass down. "And I won’t tell you."

Silence followed that at once.

Rhosyn’s head turned toward him. Caelvyrn did not move, but the look in his eyes shifted. Vivienne stayed very still beside Dravok, as if she had already expected the answer to go in that direction.

Trafalgar did not take his eyes off him. "You know where they are, but you won’t say it."

"That’s right."

"Why?"

Dravok leaned back slightly in the chair, one arm resting near the table. "Because if you or I were to appear in front of them now, there is a very real chance our heads would roll before the conversation properly began."

That made the room feel smaller.

Trafalgar’s voice stayed even. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

Dravok looked at him for a moment, as if measuring how much needed to be said and how much had already been understood.

"You know exactly what I mean," he said at last. "Rhosyn already told you enough. To many of them, you are the son of a traitor. The child of the woman who helped drag our people toward ruin. Bloodline alone won’t change how they see that." Dravok continued before the silence could settle.

"And I am no better in their eyes." His tone did not change. "A man who abandoned the clan when everything truly collapsed, a general who vanished, a survivor who chose his own life over standing with the rest of his people until the end. There are many ways to say traitor. I have heard most of them already."

Rhosyn’s fingers tightened once over her sleeve.

Trafalgar let the words sit for a brief moment, then asked, "Then why did you want to see me?"

"Because of that," Dravok said, looking at him directly. "Because I wanted to see what kind of man was born from that blood. The son of that woman. The son of Magnus du Morgain. I wanted to know whether you were just a name stirring old dust, or something worth paying attention to."

Trafalgar rested one arm over the table. "So meeting the others would solve nothing."

"No," Dravok said. "Right now it would solve very little. It might even condemn you before you’ve had the chance to become anything at all."

Because the truth in it was simple enough. Trafalgar had spent a long time moving toward this bloodline without really standing inside its worst realities. Dravok had just placed one of them in front of him. Being connected to the Primordials was not the same as being welcomed by what remained of them.

After a moment, Dravok’s gaze shifted once toward Vivienne, then back to Trafalgar.

"She told you something, didn’t she," he said. "About the Void Creatures."

Trafalgar gave a small nod. "She did."

Vivienne lowered her eyes briefly, then looked up again.

Dravok folded his hands loosely near the glass. "Good. Then at least we don’t need to waste time circling around that part." His voice remained low, but the weight beneath it changed now. The conversation had moved away from bloodline grudges and old betrayals and toward something broader, something that pressed against all of them whether they liked it or not. "Because that is one of the real reasons I asked her to bring you here."

Caelvyrn was the one who spoke next.

"So we are finally reaching the part that matters."

Dravok glanced at him. "It all matters."

"It does," Caelvyrn said, "but this is the part that explains why a dead war god decided to crawl back into the world."

For the first time since the subject turned serious, the faintest trace of a smile passed through Dravok’s face.

"Yes," he said. "This is that part."

Dravok’s fingers rested against the glass for a moment before he spoke again.

"The seal our bloodline raised with sacrifice is weakening."

That was enough to draw the whole table tighter.

Trafalgar’s eyes stayed on him. "What seal?"

"The one that was built to hold them back," Dravok said. "The one paid for with lives, blood, and everything our people could still give by that point. It has endured longer than most would have thought possible, but it is not whole anymore. Cracks have formed. Time has done its work. So have other things."

Vivienne lowered her gaze for a second. Caelvyrn said nothing.

Trafalgar leaned slightly forward. "How long?"

Dravok gave a small shake of the head. "That part is uncertain. If fortune still exists, perhaps several decades. If it doesn’t..." He paused, then said it plainly. "The worst possibility is ten years. One decade at most."

Rhosyn’s expression changed at once. "Ten years?" The words came out lower, but the shock in them was clear. "That is nothing. For something like this, that is almost no time at all."

"It is very little," Dravok said. "Far less than we would need in an ideal world. But ideal worlds have never interested me much."

The room stayed quiet for a brief moment after that.

Then Trafalgar spoke, his voice even, though the weight behind it had shifted. "Three of the Eight Great Families have just come out of a war. The whole world is still settling back into place, and you’re telling me that in ten years something worse may arrive."

Dravok held his gaze. "Yes."

"A decade."

"Yes."

Trafalgar’s fingers rested against the table. "For most people, that would sound like a long time."

Dravok’s mouth curved faintly, though there was no warmth in it. "For people like us, it isn’t. Even so, it is the margin we have."

Beside him, Vivienne’s hand had tightened lightly around her glass. She had already known enough to be uneasy, but hearing it laid out like this, in front of all of them, gave the truth a different shape. It was no longer a shadow at the edge of thought. It was a number. A limit.

Rhosyn noticed it too. "So that’s why you told her to find him."

"Partly," Dravok said.

Trafalgar looked from him to Vivienne once, then back again. "And what exactly do you want us to do with that information? From where I’m sitting, it doesn’t sound like there is much we can do."

"There is," Dravok said at once. "A great deal, in fact." He let that sit for a breath before continuing. "Or rather, you can do a great deal, if you are given the right support."

Trafalgar did not interrupt.

Dravok’s eyes stayed on him. "You are the heir of our bloodline, whether others accept it or not. On top of that, you are no longer some hidden child buried in the corner of a dying house. You are known. Your name carries weight now. People speak of you. They watch you. They measure themselves against you."

Caelvyrn gave the faintest hum at that, but let him continue.

Dravok’s voice remained steady. "That gives us something valuable. But it also means we cannot move carelessly. You cannot act like a wandering survivor or some forgotten remnant of a fallen people. In these ten years, Trafalgar, you have to rise."

Trafalgar’s expression did not change. "Rise where?"

"Above them."

Dravok went on. "Above every one of the Eight Great Families. Above their heirs, their monsters, their hidden blades, their carefully raised prodigies. Not only in strength. In standing. In influence. In the kind of position from which your voice changes the direction of events instead of being buried beneath them."

Rhosyn listened without moving.

Dravok did not look away from Trafalgar. "If the day comes and the seal finally breaks, brute force alone will not be enough. You will need power. Authority. Reach. The kind that lets you move nations, not just kill enemies in front of you."

Trafalgar stayed quiet for a moment, then asked, "And you think I can get there in ten years."

Dravok’s gaze did not waver. "I think you must."

Trafalgar exhaled softly through his nose. "That sounds less like advice and more like a sentence."

"It is a direction," Dravok said. "The sort only worth giving to someone who might actually reach it."

Caelvyrn’s smile returned, though only faintly. "Now that sounds more like the man I remember."

Dravok ignored that for the moment and kept looking at Trafalgar. "What comes for this world will not care that you are young. It will not care that the Great Families are still recovering, or that the academy still has lessons to teach, or that this era prefers its monsters polished and well presented. If ten years is what we have, then every one of them must be used well."

Trafalgar’s fingers tapped the wood once before going still. "And you mean to help with that."

"Yes," Dravok said.

Rhosyn turned toward him slightly. "All this time you’ve stayed hidden, and now you want to involve yourself again because the seal is failing and he exists."

Dravok finally looked at her. "Yes. That is close enough."

Vivienne swallowed once, then asked quietly, "Master, so what exactly are we supposed to do first?"