The Extra's Rise

"Where is the small one?" Tiamat asked, eyes skimming past the maps. "The one who solves triangles and orders men to breathe."

"Stealing tea lessons," I said, already reaching for my slate. "I'll ping her."

I didn't have to. The door hissed and Stella slid in on socks, braid escaping, cheeks bright. "Aunt Rachel says boiling isn't cooking," she announced—and then noticed the Dragon Empress and froze.

Tiamat's shoulders set down a fraction. She crouched—slow, so the world could catch up—and held out both hands like she was greeting a shy bird.

"Come, little architect," she said.

Stella went, because children who know wolves also know when they're safe. Tiamat read her at a glance—scuffed knee, ink on fingers, attention like a blade—and something in her face softened in a way courts never see.

"I brought you something," she said, and traced a small circle in the air.

Wind and light knit themselves into a tiny dragon no longer than my hand. Paper-thin planes of silver-blue, folded like a thousand gentle decisions. It blinked, bowed to Stella, and hovered.

Stella's mouth dropped open. "Can I…?"

"It knows three tricks," Tiamat said. "It chases the light you make with a finger. It sleeps in a pocket. And if you are afraid in the dark, it will hum the sound of a calm sea until you remember your breath."

Stella lifted a finger. The little wyrmling flowed after it, looping tight spirals, a bell's whisper following. Then it settled on her knuckle, light as a thought.

"What's its name?" she whispered.

"It waits for you to give it one."

"Pebble," Stella decided, with the certainty of queens. Pebble trilled, folded into a coin of light, and slipped into her pocket.

"Thank you," Stella said solemnly, then threw her arms around Tiamat's neck without asking.

Tiamat stilled—battlefield statue surprised by spring—and then, carefully, returned the hug. A long breath left her. When she released, she set a palm on Stella's hair. "Tell me if any door sticks too much."

"I will," Stella promised. She shot me a conspirator's glance. "Daddy, I'm going to show Aunt Sera. She'll build a clock for Pebble."

"Go," I said. "Don't teach it to bite."

Stella zipped out, braid flying, already explaining trajectories to someone who wasn't there.

The room settled. The warmth Tiamat had let in cooled a degree. She rose, and the air remembered why the word empress exists. When she turned back to me, the softness was gone; what remained was iron kindness and something older underneath.

"I did not come for plans," she said. "I came to pay a debt."

She reached into—not a pocket. Somewhere quieter. When her hand returned, she held a core the size of a man's heart, condensed into crystal that drank the light and gave it back in slow, deep pulses.

It was not red. It was forged-gold at dusk, veined with storm-dark blue. Heat rolled from it—sun-on-stone warm—and the scent was thunder before rain. It beat against my ribs in a rhythm that made my own heart remember it was small.

I didn't need to ask, but I did anyway. "What is it?"

"The heart-core of my husband," she said. "Vaelrith Dawnscale. Second-strongest of our kind. He stood one step from the last gate when the Overlord came. This is what the world could not take."

She flipped it once—casual, like an apple—and I stepped in on instinct. It didn't thud; gravity compromised for a breath, and it settled into my palms with authority, heavy without cruelty.

I set it on the table because holding it felt like presumption. It pulsed once, and the room seemed to breathe with it.

"You gave me Bahamut's heart once," I said, because memory rose with the heat. "It taught me the eighth and ninth circles when I barely had the hands for them. It made my spine carry weight it had no right to carry."

Her mouth moved, almost a smile and not. "Bahamut was a teacher. Vaelrith was a storm. You need both."

I waited for instructions—for cautions about binding, for talk of channels and timings. She didn't offer them. She didn't explain the how at all.

"You need it to get stronger," she said simply. "That is enough. Do not ask me for the recipe. You will listen to the women who keep you honest, and you will not be clever where you should be patient."

"Understood." Valeria lay quiet against my hip—no hum, no quip. Not jealousy. Respect, and the hush we give church bells.

Tiamat looked at the core, not at me. No tears. Tears would have been smaller than this.

"I thought to keep it for some last weapon," she admitted, voice even. "He would spit in my shadow if I did. He was not kind." A beat. "He will like you anyway."

We stood with it between us—the heart that wasn't a heart anymore, the base plans turned face-down, the toy in a pocket two rooms away humming the sound of a calm sea.

"You saved us yesterday," I said. "Even if it was 'barely' by your standards."

"I 'barely' held a hand through a window," she said, an ugly flicker crossing her mouth and gone. "Do not praise me for that. Praise me when the window shatters on her face."

"You will," I said. "We will."

She set her palm on the core once more. The golden-blue veins answered her with a slow, private glow, then quieted. She lifted her hand like it cost her to touch him.

"Arthur," she said, and my name was a stone set where it would carry. "If you find a way to do this that doesn't feed on his memory, choose that way. If not, take what he offers with clean hands."

"As clean as I can make them," I said. "And when I start, I'll ask the Viserions and the Concord to stand in the circle. Your people should hear the song he left."

Something behind her eyes shifted at people—not grief exactly. A remembering that refused to be only pain.

She glanced toward the door where Stella had gone, as if she could still hear Pebble's quiet hum, and a small, human smile returned. "Tell the little architect that when she loses a tooth, Pebble will learn another trick," she said. "Bribery makes good engineers."

"She'll design an extraction device by dinner," I said.

"Good." For a heartbeat she was simply an aunt who remembered a toy.

The fold rose behind her like a page deciding to turn. She didn't offer a hand or a nod. She didn't need to. The room had already decided to stand up straighter when she walked through it.

"Thank you," I said—not only for the heart. For the trust, for the grief shared without spectacle, for bending down so the world could be gentle to a girl with triangles on a slate.

Tiamat's eyes met mine—old storms, warmer seas. "Make him proud," she said, and stepped into the calm between places.