SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Chapter 688: Orders in the Cold

Moses kept his hand near the place where the Black Basin had been marked a breath ago.The map had already folded itself back into its smaller form, metal plates sliding inward with a faint rasp before the artifact returned to the size of a thick disk. Even without the projection, the image lingered in the room. The broken basin. The claw marks. The trails. The place where monsters had learned to avoid their own territory.

Moses looked at Valttair and asked, "Do you have a new mission for me, Lord Valttair?"

Valttair did not answer at once.

He remained before the stone table, one hand resting against its edge, his pale eyes fixed on nothing visible. The chamber held its breath around him, though neither Caelum nor Moses was foolish enough to disturb his thinking. Valttair had heard the report. He had taken every piece, weighed it, and placed it somewhere only he could see.

At last, he spoke.

"No."

Moses blinked once. That was the whole reaction, but for him it was almost loud. "No?"

"You will not return to the Dead Meridian," Valttair said.

Moses straightened. "With respect, Lord Valttair, we found traces of Void Creatures in a region that changes every month, unknown people crossed through one of the sealed ridges, and something in the Black Basin is forcing other monsters away from their own hunting grounds. If I go back now, I can follow what remains before the cycle changes again."

"And if you go back now," Valttair replied, "you announce that House Morgain has found something worth hiding."

Moses closed his mouth.

Caelum said nothing, but his gaze shifted briefly toward Moses. Merely acknowledging that Valttair had cut through the first instinct before Moses could dress it up as strategy.

Valttair continued, "The Dead Meridian does not reward a second visit made in haste. You already took more from that place than most would have survived carrying. That is enough for now."

Moses lowered his head slightly. "Understood."

"Return to the castle," Valttair said. "Make sure everything is in order."

That order did not sound smaller than a mission. Not from Valttair. The castle was not a home in the gentle sense. It was a fortress filled with blood, ambition, old grudges, and people raised to smile with knives under the table. Keeping it in order meant watching the wolves while pretending the cage had no cracks.

Valttair's eyes moved to Caelum.

"Caelum."

"Yes, Lord Valttair."

"Keep watching Rivena as well. And continue informing me about what the eight are doing."

Moses's head lifted.

"The eight?"

The question left him before he could polish it. He looked from Valttair to Caelum, and this time the confusion had no anger wrapped around it.

Caelum answered in Valttair's place, voice quiet and exact.

"Sylvar died in the last war."

Moses went very still.

The name crossed the chamber with more weight than the report about the Black Basin had managed to carry. Sylvar had not been close to him, not in the way brothers in stories were supposed to be close. House Morgain did not build families out of affection. Even so, Sylvar had been one of Valttair's children. One of the nine heirs Moses remembered leaving behind.

Now there were eight.

Moses lowered his fist to his chest. The gesture was simple, old, and without display.

"I was not told."

"You were beyond regular contact," Caelum said. "And your mission could not be interrupted."

"I know." Moses kept his head bowed. "My respects to Sylvar du Morgain. Whatever else he was, he carried our blood."

Valttair watched him without warmth and without cruelty.

"Respect him," he said. "Do not follow him."

Moses raised his head.

Valttair's voice did not change. "The dead have already taken what they are owed. We cannot keep paying them with time. There is too much ahead."

That was Valttair. No grief denied. A corpse could be honored, but not allowed to sit at the table when war was already eating through the doors.

Moses accepted it with a slight bow. "Yes, Lord Valttair."

"You may both withdraw," Valttair said. "I will return when my Core advances."

Even Moses did not speak carelessly after that.

Caelum inclined his head. "Understood."

Moses followed a breath later. "As you command."

The sealed door opened behind them without anyone touching it. Cold air rolled in from the corridor, carrying the scent of old stone and mountain frost. Caelum walked out first. Moses followed, and the door shut again with the same heavy finality as before.

For several steps, neither of them spoke.

The pressure of Valttair's chamber lingered on the skin. Moses had fought monsters that screamed until the air curdled and had crossed places where the land itself tried to kill anything foolish enough to stand upright, but leaving Valttair's presence always felt like stepping out from under a blade that had decided, for now, not to fall.

They returned to the ruined outer hall.

Caelum stopped near the broken wall.

Moses stopped beside him, looked at the damage, and gave the stone a faintly offended glance, as if the wall had participated in its own downfall.

Caelum said, "You should fix the hole."

Moses turned his head. "You say it like it was on purpose."

"Wasn't it? You challenged me in a sealed Morgain chamber and broke a wall."

"It was collateral."

"Collateral tends to leave marks," Caelum replied, his tone even. "Some of them harder to erase than broken stone."

Moses shrugged lightly. "It held. That's what matters. Just a bit of collateral damage… though it seems Lord Valttair didn't notice. And that's for the best."

Caelum's gaze lingered on the repaired wall for a moment before returning to Moses. "Or he noticed and chose not to comment. That would be worse."

Moses clicked his tongue. "You always know how to ruin a perfectly good reassurance."

Caelum looked at him.

Moses exhaled through his nose and lifted both hands. "Fine. I'll fix it."

The old edge in his voice had dulled a little now. The bite remained, because Moses without bite would have been a medical concern, but the heat from earlier had burned down. He moved toward the damaged section, pressed one gauntleted palm against the stone, and let purple-tinged mana crawl through the cracks.

The broken pieces trembled.

Dust slid down in thin lines as fragments rose from the floor and dragged themselves back into the wound. It was not elegant magic. There was nothing graceful about it. Moses forced the wall back together the way a battlefield surgeon forced bone into place. The stones ground, locked, and fused under pressure until the hole became an ugly scar instead of an open gap.

Caelum studied it.

Moses dropped his hand. "There. Happy?"

Caelum looked at the repaired wall for a moment, then gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.

Moses exhaled through his nose. "I'll take that as approval."

Caelum did not answer. He simply turned and began walking toward the corridor that led out of the chamber.

Moses followed, slower at first, then matching his pace. The silence between them stretched for several steps, filled only by the faint echo of their boots against stone and the distant hum of mana running through the mountain.

They passed through the threshold of Valttair's domain, the heavy presence of the chamber fading behind them as the corridor opened into a broader passage. The air shifted slightly—still cold, still sharp, but less suffocating than before.

Moses rolled his shoulders once, as if shaking off something that had settled there.

"You always leave like that?" he asked.

Caelum did not look at him. "Like what?"

"As if nothing happened."

"Nothing did."

Moses let out a quiet breath that might have been a laugh. "Right."

They continued walking.

The corridor curved gently, guiding them away from the inner sanctum and toward the outer sections of the mountain. The walls here were less pristine, marked by age and use rather than deliberate design. Torches burned low along the sides, their light steady but subdued.

Moses glanced at Caelum again, then forward.

"Can we speak on the way back?"

Caelum's pace did not change. "About what?"

"About the house." Moses paused briefly, choosing his words with more care than usual. "About what changed while I was away."

Caelum turned his head slightly, golden eyes settling on Moses with a steady, unreadable calm. "What is it you want to know?" he asked. "What has changed? What do you think you missed?"

Moses let out a quiet breath, as if weighing how much to say. "Enough," he replied. "Enough that I don't like walking through my own house feeling like a guest."

They reached a wider junction where the corridor split. Caelum took the path that led downward without hesitation. Moses followed, boots echoing faintly against the stone.

"I left with nine heirs in the mansion," Moses continued. "Now there are eight. I hear Rivena needs watching. Valttair is moving pieces I wasn't here to see. That's not something I can ignore."