SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant-Chapter 504: Meeting with the Directors [I]

The afternoon had already softened by the time Trafalgar left his friends behind and headed through the academy corridors toward the meeting room. Classes were over, but the place had not gone quiet. Voices drifted through the halls in loose currents. A few students crossed from one wing to another with books tucked under their arms. The last warmth of day spilled through the tall windows and ran across the stone in long amber bands. It should have felt ordinary. In a way, it did. Even so, the summons from the four directors gave the walk a faint weight.

He was halfway there when he saw Aubrelle ahead.

That alone would not have stopped him.

What did stop him was her face.

No blindfold.

His step slowed on its own. She had always worn it inside the academy, so constantly that its absence struck harder than the scar itself. There was nothing dramatic in the way she carried it either.

No sign that she was bracing for the corridor around her. She simply walked forward with Pipin circling lazily above her, as if this had already become natural to her in some private corner of her mind before anyone else was allowed to see it.

Pipin noticed him first.

The pale bird darted away from Aubrelle with bright little wings and made an eager loop around Trafalgar’s head, chirping like it had just discovered the greatest secret in the academy.

Aubrelle’s mouth curved faintly.

"You look good, darling."

The word landed cleanly enough to leave him slightly adrift.

"Darling?" Trafalgar repeated as he came closer. "That’s new."

Aubrelle turned her face toward him with that same quiet certainty she carried into almost everything. "Do you dislike it?"

He let out a small breath through his nose. "No. I actually like it a lot."

"Good," she said. "You are my husband now. It would be stranger if I did not call you something fitting."

That answer came so smoothly that arguing with it would have felt ridiculous. Trafalgar fell into step beside her, one hand in his pocket, the other loose at his side.

"I kept my promise."

Aubrelle understood at once.

"About Mayla?"

He nodded. Pipin, hovering between them like a nosy witness, chirped in approval after seeing it.

"Good," Aubrelle said. "She was first."

Trafalgar glanced at her, mildly thrown by how easily she said it.

Aubrelle kept walking. "Now try not to get killed inside the academy."

He almost laughed. "You mean by Eryndor?"

She gave a small nod. "Everyone in second year has been talking about it all afternoon. And if my year already knows, the rest of the academy won’t be far behind."

"So the whole place heard already."

"More or less, yes."

He had expected it, perhaps, but hearing it stated so plainly made the thing feel larger. Aubrelle seemed unconcerned.

"It is not a bad rumor to have," she said.

Trafalgar’s attention returned to her face. The uncovered scar drew the eye at first, but it did not diminish her. If anything, it gave her beauty a harsher kind of grace, something less fragile and more honest.

"It’s the first time I’ve seen you without it here," he said. "Did something happen?"

Aubrelle’s fingers brushed lightly against Pipin’s feathers when the bird came close again. "I think it was time," she said. "I have someone beside me who already told me I am beautiful without it. I do not need any other boy to say it."

A dry warmth touched the corner of his mouth. "Fair point."

That seemed to please her. Aubrelle reached for his hand without ceremony, as if it belonged there already, and laced her fingers with his while they continued down the corridor together.

"There are others coming to the meeting," she said. "Not only students from great families. One of them is connected to the Thal’zar forces. A soldier, technically, though he is also a student."

That pulled him back toward the reason for the summons.

"Oh," Trafalgar said. "That doesn’t sound promising."

Aubrelle’s hand remained steady in his. "I imagine the directors want to clear the air before resentment starts rotting inside the academy."

He could not argue with that. War left things behind even when the battlefield was far away.

By the time they reached the large office used when all four directors gathered together, the warmth of the corridor had thinned into something more formal. Trafalgar released Aubrelle’s hand only long enough to knock.

A voice answered from inside at once, bright and unmistakable.

"Come in."

Trafalgar opened the door and entered with Aubrelle beside him.

The office was large, though not in a way that tried to impress. A long table occupied the center, shelves and records lined the walls, and the late afternoon light gave the room a sober weight that fit the four directors far better than any decoration could have.

Kaelen stood at the front. Tall, thin, white hair tied back, violet eyes steady, one hand resting on his crystal staff. He looked exactly like what he was: the kind of man who had spent years making decisions that others obeyed without argument. Trafalgar had not seen him in a long time, and the same was true of Althea.

She was seated to one side, dressed in black with silver touches, pale and elegant, her long dark hair falling in slow waves. She barely moved, yet the room felt colder around her. There was something cutting in the way she occupied space, something that did not need to announce itself to be felt.

Eryndor was there too, broad as ever, scars visible, posture heavy even at rest. Sitting down did little to make him seem less like a man built for war. Selara, by contrast, looked like ordered chaos given shape. Platinum hair in disarray, glasses on her forehead, robes full of pockets, hands already moving over notes and papers. She smiled the moment she saw Aubrelle enter, and Trafalgar caught a quieter hint of that smile turn his way too.

Four students were already waiting inside. Two lycans, one with wolf blood and the other with bat traits. The last two were elves. The mix alone made the purpose of the gathering clear enough. No one looked comfortable.

Aubrelle released Trafalgar’s hand only after they had fully entered.

Kaelen’s voice crossed the room.

"Good. You’re here. We’ll begin now."