The Extra's Rise

The plan formed quickly because everyone at the table knows how to make plans turn real.

"Stormgate Flats," Tiamat said. "Sunset." Close to the Iron Line, open enough to fail safely, important enough to matter in people's hearts.

Reika spoke while writing. "Inner ring is Arthur, Lyra, and their teams," she said. "Outer ring is Viserion Guard, ward engineers, med tents. No press. No drones except tagged units we hand out. Any untagged drone is dropped. Rachel runs med. Ian runs air routes. Seraphina lays arrays. Rose brings the ink."

"Done," Rachel said, voice warm and sure.

"I want measuring arrays with true timestamps," Seraphina added. "If we're going to learn, we learn properly."

"Place them where you like," Lyra said. "We'll share our timestamps too."

Rose slid two thin documents to Lyralei and Marcus, then one to me. "Framework," she said. "Edicts summarized. Veto clauses highlighted. Tribunal triggers in red. We sign before the test so no one argues jurisdiction with adrenaline in their blood."

Lyralei read in a steady flow that missed nothing. Marcus skimmed like a man who has read thousands of orders and knows their shape. Ian leaned over and grimaced at the tribunal section. Rose didn't budge. "It's this or a century of court fights," she said. "Pick your pain."

Ian looked at Lyra. "If we pass, how fast can you plant a pylon?"

"First in forty-eight hours," she said. "Weather willing. The next two within the week."

"It never is," Ian said, but a small smile betrayed him.

Marcus tapped a clause. "Mythical beasts," he said. "No bindings. No cages. No 'loans.' We put it in bone."

"In bone," Lyra agreed.

Reika lifted her eyes. "Private scans are banned," she said. "No cataloging our people by 'potential' while calling it safety."

Lyra didn't flinch. "Agreed. If anyone on my side breaks it, you give me their name and I end their work here."

Seraphina glanced at me and then Lyra. "Resonance overlap between your harmonics and our Purelight can drift under stress," she said. "We'll need a small shared test before sunset. Empty field. Noon."

"We'll be there," Lyra said. "Bring one Mount Hua senior and one ward engineer who enjoys insulting me if needed."

Marcus initialed a final line. Lyralei signed. Rose stacked the pages, satisfied. "Filed," the queen said. "We move."

The room emptied into motion. Ward engineers called trucks. Quartermasters pulled tents and heaters. Pilots drew routes. Ian tried to slip away to fly the test path alone and got caught by Lyralei, who made him take a wing. He took a wing. Lyra walked straight to the ward engineers and spoke their language. Rachel pressed a med packet into a Redeemer's hands and made him laugh. Seraphina argued angle tolerances with two elders until they nodded in unison. Reika's voice flattened three different security problems so they would not be problems later.

I didn't forget my own question. Demon Overlord. In my old saga, it sat behind the curtain and pulled strings. The Heavenly Demon in this world had been real. That means the thing that fed it power is real too. Lyra didn't deny it. She just refused to name it in a room with open doors. Tiamat's face told me enough: not now.

That was fine. Today was about restraint. Not secrets.

Stella intercepted me in a corridor with a slate full of notes.

"Are you going to break the field, Daddy?" she asked.

"No," I said. "The point is not breaking it."

"Good," she said, and showed me her list titled restraint rules: measure twice; keep the choir safe; if you must break, break inward; don't try to be cool (Reika said this one).

I laughed. "Listen to Reika."

We kept moving. Reika peeled off to brief the Guard. Rachel and Seraphina headed for medical and arrays. Rose disappeared into a side room with the queen's legal staff. Ian jogged past with a flight crew. Marcus started three conversations at once and finished them all in two sentences each. Tiamat watched everything with the kind of quiet that makes frantic people remember to breathe.

At noon we met in a dry field for the small test Seraphina wanted. It took twenty minutes. She listened to the numbers, smiled a real smile, and said, "We can do this." Lyra shifted one low harmonic I couldn't hear and the arrays stopped drifting. The Cantari's touch felt like gentle pressure on a loose nail—firm, not overbearing.

After that there was nothing to do but let the machine work. We ate something that counted as lunch. I tried to drink tea that wasn't Rachel's and failed. Luna checked on the warders twice, then checked on me, then pretended she hadn't.

At last the sun started to tilt.

We rode to Stormgate Flats in a quiet convoy. The inner ring rose around the test ground—simple poles, clean lines, clear markings. The outer ring set beyond it—Guard, tents, engineers, Redeemers. The air felt like the moment before an orchestra starts.

Lyra stood across from me at the center point. No speeches. We nodded.

Tiamat lifted a hand. "Begin," she said.

We anchored.

Her light-and-wind settled like a steady hand on water. My Grey stretched like two flat pages and told two places to touch: the real and the safe. The first pulse rolled in—nothing demonic, but strong, a good copy of a bad hour on the Line. Wards shook. Arrays ticked. The ground hummed.

We held.

The second pulse was sharper. Pressure rose, then dropped. My Pond met it and turned shock into calm. Lyra's tuning tightened, pulling a stray ripple back into the lane. Arrays drew clean curves. No cracks. No screams. No drama.

The third pulse stacked wrong on purpose, the way real trouble does. For a breath it felt like the air wanted to buckle. I said no. Lyra said no at the same time in a different language. The field listened to both.

On the outer ring, Reika's hand didn't leave her radio. Rachel watched red lines on her tablet and told a medic to breathe out. Seraphina's pencil drew a small star and she smiled again. Ian's wing held position over the med tents, not the center, because he had learned something about where heroes should be during tests.

We finished without breaking anything.

Lyralei gave one crisp nod. Marcus said, "Good." The ward engineers clapped exactly twice, because anything more felt like tempting fate. Tiamat did not move. But the smallest easing at the corner of her mouth was there if you were watching. I was watching.

Lyra let out a breath the rest of the field wouldn't notice. "Restraint," she said softly. "Passed."

She didn't add congratulations. She didn't need to. Everyone on the Flats understood what had just been proven: we could carry high power in a place that mattered and not shatter it by accident.

"Next two measures," Ian said, landing in a rush of dust and grin. "Courage and wisdom, right?"

"Not today," Lyralei said, but she was smiling too.

Lyra looked at me across the quiet ground. "Humans do not have to fight alone," she said.

"Good," I said. "We'll still fight like it's only us."

"Do that," she said. "It's why we came."

The sun slid lower. Crews began packing the arrays with the careful hands you use when a thing worked well and you want it to work well again. The Guard checked lanes. Redeemers stowed kits. Rose's framework went from "signed for the test" to "filed for implementation." The first sea-ward was already being plotted on three separate maps, each with a different set of coffee stains.

We drove back toward Valdris under a sky that looked wider than it had in the morning. The Seven would place a pylon in forty-eight hours if weather allowed. If it didn't, they'd wait and try again. That alone told me we had chosen the right allies.

Behind that, the unanswered thing remained: the shape above Demon Lords, the one who gave the Heavenly Demon power. Lyra hadn't denied it. Tiamat's eyes had said later. I could live with that.

Today, restraint. Tomorrow, courage. After that, wisdom.

One measure at a time.