SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Chapter 444: Chapter 444: Decision [III]

Darian remained where he was, still standing in the middle of the room.

The silence that followed Caelum’s disappearance carried weight. The kind that settled into the air and refused to move. He could still feel it at the back of his neck, like cold fingers resting against his spine.

Trafalgar did not linger near the door. He turned and walked back toward his chair beside Aubrelle as though nothing irreversible had just been set into motion. When he sat, the tension that had held his posture seemed to loosen. His shoulders dropped, and a moment later he closed his eyes.

Aubrelle remained beside him. Her hand rose almost absentmindedly, fingers brushing slowly through his hair, the way one might calm something restless that had finally gone still.

Darian watched them.

The quiet intimacy of it made everything feel more unreal than the order itself. He had expected something after a decision like that. Calculation, at least. Some acknowledgment of the magnitude of what had just been put into motion. Instead Trafalgar looked almost tired, and that unsettled him more than anything else.

His tail shifted behind him. ”What did you do?” he asked, ears angling forward, voice carrying equal parts curiosity and unease.

Trafalgar did not open his eyes. ”What did I do?” His tone was unhurried. ”I gave you an opportunity.” Aubrelle’s fingers continued their slow motion through his hair. ”I found out that Lucien was the one chosen. You and your sister were also among the candidates.”

The words settled into place, and something tightened in Darian’s chest as the pieces came together with brutal clarity. Lucien had already been selected. The decision had already been made. But if Lucien was no longer there, the balance would collapse again. Two names would remain. Maris. And his own.

Lucien was going to die.

Darian’s gaze remained fixed on Trafalgar.

The realization had already settled, but hearing it out loud felt different. He could feel the tension rising in his chest with every passing second.

”You’re going to kill Lucien,” he said, voice lower, ears angling slightly back.

Trafalgar opened his eyes. ”Yes.” No hesitation. No attempt to soften it. Aubrelle’s fingers continued moving slowly through his hair as if nothing in the room had shifted.

”Your brother will die because of the decision you just made,” Trafalgar continued, tone steady, almost conversational. ”You wanted to become the head of your house. I told you I would help you.” His gaze settled on Darian fully. ”This is me helping.”

He leaned back in the chair, shoulders settling against it as though the matter had already moved past discussion. ”Once Lucien dies, the situation won’t stabilize. It will fracture.” His eyes stayed calm. ”Decisions that were already made will be forced open. Alliances will shift. People will move quickly.” A short pause. ”Things will become chaotic again.” He held Darian’s gaze a moment longer. ”Be prepared.”

The room went quiet.

Darian said nothing.

His brother was going to die. Not in battle. Not at the hands of some enemy on a field somewhere. Because of a choice he had made in this room, standing exactly where he was standing now. And once it happened there was no path back from it. He would have to carry that. And when the chaos came, he would have to move.

Far from the quiet room where Darian stood with the weight of his choice, Caelum was already moving.

His presence slipped through the castle like a shadow that had learned how to think.

The war had never truly caught him off guard. While armies clashed and banners burned, fragments of him had been everywhere — clones dispersed across the battlefield, silent observers embedded within the chaos, watching movements, memorizing decisions, collecting everything that might matter later. Generals, soldiers, messengers, supply routes, wounded officers whispering plans they believed no one else could hear. Nothing had escaped him.

Caelum himself had never appeared openly during any of it. There had been no need. Others fought. Others died. He watched. Information moved quietly through the network he had built, converging toward him long before the outcome had been decided. By the time the final battles began collapsing into their inevitable conclusion, he already knew how the pieces would settle.

Even Sylvar du Morgain had been within reach.

There had been a moment, brief and precise, where intervention would have been possible. A small adjustment in position. A warning delivered at the right second. Enough to redirect the chain of events that led to Sylvar’s death. Caelum had recognized that moment with complete clarity, and he had allowed it to pass.

Sylvar’s survival would have preserved the existing structure within Morgain. His death fractured it, shifting weight inside the hierarchy and opening space where there had previously been none. Space that Trafalgar could move into.

So Caelum had watched the moment disappear without interference, and committed it to memory the same way he did everything else.

Now he moved again. Calm. The next task already unfolding ahead of him.

Lucien du Thal’zar was still alive.

For the moment.

Caelum already knew where Lucien was.

Information flowed toward him long before people realized they were part of it. Servants speaking in corridors, guards exchanging instructions, runners carrying sealed messages — each movement created small ripples, and Caelum had learned long ago how to read them.

Lucien du Thal’zar was still in his assigned chamber inside the castle. The decision had already been made, and he would soon be summoned. Not publicly, not with ceremony yet. First he would be brought to a private room where Valttair du Morgain and Elenara au Sylvanel were waiting. The formal announcement would come afterward. For now the process remained procedural.

A single messenger had already been dispatched to retrieve him.

That messenger would deliver the summons, and then Lucien would be escorted through the inner corridors toward the meeting chamber. Enough guards to prevent interference. Enough to ensure that the future head of Thal’zar arrived safely.

Caelum knew the route. He knew the timing. One of his clones had been following the messenger since the moment the order had been issued. The path curved through two narrow hallways, a short staircase, and a corridor that ended only a few doors from Lucien’s chamber. After that, the escort would form and the procession would begin moving toward the audience room.

Once Lucien reached Valttair and Elenara, the window would close.

Whatever happened had to happen before that moment. Caelum adjusted his direction and moved toward the corridor where the messenger was already approaching.

The window was small. But it was enough.