The Extra's Rise

Day two at Stormgate Flats looked the same from a distance—same chalk arcs, same poles, same Guard trucks parked like patient animals. Up close, everything was tighter. The engineers had rerouted two cable runs to reduce noise. Seraphina had added four more tripods. Rachel had a second screen for vitals. Reika had pushed the tape line another five meters back.

Lucifer was already there when we rolled in, hands in his jacket pockets, eyes on the flag streamers Chief Kade had hung to make crosswinds visible. He'd flown down last night after finishing relief flights in the North. Tiamat wanted a watcher who lives for precision. He qualifies.

Two new observers stood behind the tape with Concord badges: a Tidewalker caster—blue-gray hair, serious eyes—and an Umbral Adept wearing a plain black mantle. They didn't speak. They just watched. Fine by me.

Kade walked me past the pylons like yesterday. "Same weave. We added a heartbeat monitor to the lattice," he said, tapping the schematic. "If your cut starts trying to teach the dirt rhythm it shouldn't have, I kill it."

"Kill it," I said.

Seraphina checked my time tag on her board. "Clocks true. Drift alarms set. I tuned two extra mic mics for blade hiss."

Rachel pressed my finger to the sensor again. "Water," she said. I drank. "Breathe on fours." I breathed. Reika's hand rested on her radio while she watched a small private drone meander toward the outer ring. It dropped out of the sky a second later without fuss. Captain Selene Vyr didn't announce it; she just did her job.

Tiamat and Lyra took the center with me. Lyra rolled her shoulders. The wind formed the way a good dog sits when asked. Steady, knee-high, honest.

"We repeat A and B to warm up," Tiamat said. "Then we add motion."

I drew Valeria. No armor. No crown. No Grey. Just a blade set to do what I command and nothing else.

Drill A—no-bounce—went clean twice, then dirty when Lyra added a small shear. I heard the chatter starting, backed off one step, and reset the promise. First touch bites, that's all. Third pass clean. Seraphina's pencil made a dot. Rachel watched my pulse without looking worried. Good.

Drill B—shortest line—was the same story. Two true, one wobble under heat shimmer, then fixed when I slowed down and respected the rule. Kade's voice crackled on the inner line. "No bad habits learned," he said. We moved on.

"Drill C," Tiamat said. "Keep those same small laws while your feet move."

"Slow or full?" I asked.

"Walking pace first," she said. "Then you can pretend to be a storm."

Lyra set a slow crosswind with a lazy cycle, nothing nasty. I stepped into Tempest Dance at half speed, the version you teach a child so they don't trip over their own ankles. No-bounce and shortest-line rode with me. First pass, clean. Second, clean. Third, the wind changed its mind mid-step and my edge tried to listen to my eyes instead of my rule. The tip drifted a hair. Seraphina's tablet chirped.

"Stop," Rachel said, warm and firm. I stopped, shook my hand once, and smiled. "It's fine," she added without looking up. "You felt it early. Good."

Tiamat tapped the chalk. "Smaller promise," she said. "First three steps only. Then five. Then seven."

I nodded. Three steps, perfect. Five, a hint of wobble on the last one. Seven, clean again after I remembered to set the law before I moved, not while. Seraphina's dots lined up like a neat row of stars.

"Again with light shear," Lyra said. She adjusted the air in a way my ears couldn't track but my skin could. This time I didn't try to stare the line straight. I let the law carry the edge. It held.

Lucifer's voice came from the tape, mild. "Your eyes keep wanting to choose the prettier path," he said. "Make them ride in the backseat."

"Noted," I said.

"Drill D," Tiamat said. "Lyra, give him your Domain light. Gentle."

Lyra didn't flare anything visible. The sky didn't change color. But the field got…clearer. Colors cleaned up. Edges looked a little too crisp. It's what Cantari harmonics do to a place—they tidy it.

The trick of Drill D was simple to say and annoying to do: keep the earlier promises while someone else's neatness tried to nudge my sense of straight. The mind loves tidy lines. The cut has to love true ones.

I made a new small rule and spoke it in my head. Sight does not move my edge. Edge follows chosen vector, not chosen view.

I stepped. The law held. Seraphina's pencil moved fast for once. "Good set," she murmured. Rachel's screen stayed green. Tiamat's eyebrows lifted a millimeter—her version of a pat on the back.

"Again with a clock," Seraphina said. "I want timed runs."

We did ten. Times inched down. Drift stayed under point-three. Kade said nothing, which is the best kind of report from Kade.

A chime sounded at the tape. Two more arrivals. Kali Ashbluff and Jin Ashbluff crossed the line after Reika checked their badges. Both in simple field clothes, not court. Jin had his usual unreadable look. Kali had a small, tired smile that meant she'd taken a night flight and didn't care if anyone saw the circles under her eyes.

Jin raised a hand. "We'll stand quiet," he said. "Just watching."

"Rules are taped on the cone," Reika said. "No radios, no notes, no touching anything that hums. If you get bored, you can help carry water."

Kali bumped my shoulder lightly as she passed and pitched her voice low. "You look good," she said. "Less haunted."

"Working on it," I said, and got back to work.

"Drill E," Tiamat said. "Target selection under motion. Lyra, give him three phantoms."

Three faint light-forms flickered at the far chalk: a circle, a triangle, a square. Seraphina marked the circle as true with a tiny chalk dot only she and I knew about. Lyra's Domain wanted to make the triangle look more interesting.

I set a rule that felt like a cousin to the last: choose once, then stop choosing. The edge doesn't wander.

I moved—walk speed, then jog. Cut the circle clean. Again with the wind pushing. Still clean. Then a faster set. The triangle tried to drag my eye toward it. I ignored it. The circle opened, neat and dull.

Tiamat nodded. "Faster."

We built speed until the dance started to feel like the real thing. For half a heartbeat, a bad habit tried to climb out of my bones: reach for Grey to make the page flatter. I told it no. The line held without help.

Rachel's voice came on the line, still warm. "Heart rate at target, neural load under the mark. Keep it there."

Lucifer called, "One honest mistake now so we all remember you're human."

I laughed, then caught myself before I let the laugh loosen my wrist. The run finished clean. Seraphina tapped her board. "Point-two drift," she said. "Good."

We broke for water and a quick debrief. The Tidewalker observer stepped up to the tape and bowed a fraction. "Thank you for allowing observation," she said, careful with her words.

"Thank you for following rules," Reika replied, equally careful.

Kade leaned his elbows on his van door. "The ground learned nothing stupid," he said. That's as close to praise as Kade gets.

"Next," Tiamat said, "we mix your laws and add one more. Return-to-true after a bad first touch."

I nodded. That one mattered. In fights, the first contact isn't always clean. Sometimes wind shards or a wrist slips. The edge needs to come home fast.

I wrote the rule small inside my head: if the first millimeter fails, the second belongs to me.

Lyra set a jagged shear right at the start point. It broke the first millimeter like it was born to do it. The second millimeter fell into my line. The cut ran true. Seraphina's pencil made a bigger dot. "That's the one," she said.

We repeated it until the shape was in my bones and not just my head. Then we added motion again. Then we added a clock again. The dots stayed inside the safe box. My lungs did their job. My head stayed quiet.

Toward the end of the session, Tiamat stepped into the ring and stood ten meters away, empty hands, still as stone. "Now," she said, "walk to me with your law intact, and touch my sleeve without my wind knocking you off line."

Her wind is gentle until it isn't. Even in a simple test like this, it nudged every lazy thought I had about straightness. The urge to use Grey pressed at the edge of my patience. I told it to wait outside.

I walked. The edge stayed where I told it. The sleeve brushed the flat of Valeria's blade. Tiamat looked at my wrist and then at my face. "Again," she said.

We did it five times. The fourth one drifted a hair. Rachel said stop before I decided to force it. We reset. The fifth one was clean.

"Finish," Tiamat said at last.

Seraphina called out the numbers—drift averages, time segments, clean sets. Rachel read off my vitals: stable. Kade said his lattice had nothing to complain about. Lyra said, "You kept the edges of your promises small. That is why they held."

Kali came closer, eyes bright. "You're stacking truths," she said. "Feels good to watch."

Jin nodded once. "The habits are changing," he said. That's his way of saying well done.

Lucifer tilted his head. "Don't chase speed yet," he said. "Make boredom clean. Speed will come."

"Understood," I said.

As we packed, Protocol pinged Reika. She read, then lifted her eyes. "Concord Anchor Council just approved the coastal site," she said. "First pylon window is in forty hours, weather and tides permitting. They want you and Lyra as co-anchors for the activation pulse."

Lyra looked at me. "You have room after tomorrow's session?"

"I'll make room," I said.

Tiamat folded her arms, satisfied in the way only she can manage. "Good. Tomorrow we run the same laws on moving targets, then you rest. After that, you carry a tiny piece of the world with Lyra and set it down where it belongs."

The Tidewalker observer bowed again. "Our crews will be ready," she said.

We loaded up. The Flats went quiet behind us, chalk lines already scuffed by the wind. I felt tired in the right way—hands a little shaky from focus, head clear, heart steady.

Back at Valdris, Selene logged the security report, Kade filed his lattice notes, Rachel sent my vitals to the Royal Ward Office with the other logs, Seraphina spread her charts on a long table and started drawing neat lines I'll never fully understand, and Reika drank her tea like it owed her money.

Kali and Jin cornered me in the hall before I could escape.

"You looked like yourself out there," Kali said.

"I am myself," I said.

"Good," she replied. "Because the Western Council wants you to consult on barrier logic after the pylon. We'll keep it short."

Jin added, "We'll fly with you. You shouldn't go alone."

"I never do," I said, and meant it.

Tomorrow we run again. After that, we help plant a pillar in the sea.

One small truth at a time.