SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant Chapter 888: Who Are You Protecting?

Rhosyn was still asleep when Trafalgar left the room.

He considered waking her for a moment, then decided against it. She had pushed herself far enough getting into the flooded sector, and there was nothing about what he planned to do that required her presence.

Besides, Trafalgar could barely walk through Meraval without somebody recording where he was going now. If there was one person in the city being watched more closely than the others, it was probably him.

So he went through the proper channel.

Ithanne's office already had someone waiting behind the desk when he arrived. Trafalgar gave his name, although there was no need, and asked for a formal audience with Vaelis di Myrrhvale.

The clerk wrote it down without comment and disappeared through a side door.

Trafalgar expected to wait.

Vaelis was the First Heir, the man most of Meraval believed had murdered Nyssara for the succession. He had every reason to refuse a meeting with the foreign observer who had spent the last several weeks digging through the circumstances surrounding her death.

At best, Trafalgar expected an answer later that day.

The clerk returned within minutes.

"Lord Vaelis has agreed to see you. He is in his rooms now."

Trafalgar looked at him for a second.

"Already?"

"Yes, my lord."

'That's strange.'

He had expected resistance, delay, maybe a polite refusal sent through Ithanne's office. Instead Vaelis had agreed almost immediately.

Trafalgar didn't spend long thinking about it. Whatever Vaelis's reason was, it saved him time.

A guard took him through the upper residential levels of the castle and stopped outside a pair of dark wooden doors. After confirming that Vaelis was expecting him, the guard stepped aside.

Trafalgar entered alone.

Calling the place a room would have been generous to the word.

The main chamber was larger than some houses Trafalgar had lived in. Pale stone covered the floor, tall windows looked out across the inner dome, and a narrow fountain ran through the centre of the room before disappearing beneath the opposite wall.

There were couches, shelves, several tables and far too many chairs for a man who, from everything Trafalgar had heard, received almost no visitors.

Vaelis was standing near one of the windows.

He turned when Trafalgar entered.

"I wasn't expecting you to agree to this," Trafalgar said. "Not this quickly, anyway."

"You asked for me early enough that I assumed it was important."

"It is."

Vaelis gave a small nod. "Then say what you came to say."

There was no hostility in his voice, but there was no welcome either. Trafalgar had expected as much.

He stayed standing.

"You must have had some reason to accept."

Vaelis didn't answer.

Trafalgar watched him for a moment, then continued.

"Did you kill your mother for the succession?"

For the first time, Vaelis's expression changed. Not much. A slight tightening around the eyes, gone almost as soon as it appeared.

"You requested an audience to ask me that?"

"You already know my answer."

Trafalgar did. For two years Vaelis had been asked some version of the same question. By his siblings, the factions, investigators, members of the household and probably anyone else brave enough to say it to his face.

Whatever answer he gave had been repeated enough times that he no longer needed to think about it.

Vaelis looked at him calmly.

"I did not kill my mother."

Trafalgar nodded once.

"I believe you."

Vaelis didn't speak, but the silence changed. Trafalgar could see the question in his face even if the man wasn't going to ask it.

"You had access to the household archive after she died," Trafalgar said.

Vaelis waited a moment before answering.

"Yes."

Trafalgar already knew that. Nerith had confirmed it, and so had two separate archive records. He hadn't asked because he needed the information.

He wanted to see whether Vaelis would lie. He hadn't.

"Someone went into that archive after your mother's death," Trafalgar continued. "They removed parts of the attendance records from the first months of her illness. Nothing else around them was touched."

Vaelis's face remained still.

"The supply records stayed. Household accounts stayed. Deliveries, staff rotations, maintenance records. Whoever did it ignored all of those and took the pages showing who entered your mother's rooms."

Still nothing.

Trafalgar took another step into the room.

"But the medical records are still there."

That finally caught something.

Vaelis's eyes shifted away from him for less than a second.

Trafalgar saw it.

"The physician's notes describe her decline almost from the beginning. Fatigue, loss of appetite, headaches, trembling. Month after month, right up until she died."

"I don't know what you're suggesting."

"I'm not suggesting anything." Trafalgar kept his voice level. "I'm telling you that it doesn't make sense."

Vaelis said nothing.

"If you killed her and wanted to hide it, the medical records are the first thing you destroy. They're the pages showing that something was happening to her long before she died."

Trafalgar let the words sit for a moment before continuing.

"But those records were left untouched. Instead, somebody removed the pages showing who went into her room."

Vaelis's jaw tightened slightly.

Trafalgar had seen enough.

"If you were covering yourself, you would've taken the medical records and left the attendance lists."

He watched Vaelis carefully.

"You did exactly the opposite."

Silence filled the room.

The fountain kept running between them, filling the silence neither man seemed willing to break.

Vaelis had denied killing his mother without hesitation. He had answered about the archive, pushed back when Trafalgar laid out the missing records, and held himself together through all of it.

But now he had gone completely still. For two years, everyone in Meraval had asked Vaelis the same question in different ways.

Did you kill her?

Why did you do it?

Was the succession worth it?

He had answers for all of them.

This was different.

Trafalgar watched him for another moment and finally understood what had been wrong from the beginning. Vaelis had never been trying to erase the story of Nyssara's death. If he had, the medical records would have disappeared with everything else.

He had only erased the part that pointed toward someone else.

Trafalgar took one slow breath.

"Who are you protecting?"