The Extra's Rise

The dragon heart sat heavy in my palm.

Not crude weight—gravity had nothing to do with it. This was the heaviness of a life that had pressed against the ceiling of the world and almost broken through. I let my breath out slow and, for a blink, the room fell away.

The Gates were there again: platinum-silver, austere, patient. They didn't glow. They didn't speak. They just existed the way a mountain exists—indifferent to want. The Gates of Transcendence. The seam between mid and high Radiant. The seam my master had crossed with less muscle than I have now, and more being than I can yet carry.

"Not yet," I told them, and they did what they always do. They waited.

I opened my eyes to Avalon's light—clean, modern, a touch of warm gold that the Slatemark architects favored. The heart still pulsed faintly in my hand. Vaelrith's, Tiamat had said. Her husband. Second-strongest of their kind, close enough to Divine that the sky must have felt thinner when he flew.

Bahamut's heart had changed me once—taught my mind how to stack circles in a way that fit my hands, carved pathways for eight- and nine-circle casting that no book could have given me. If the older heart had shaped my methods, maybe Vaelrith's would sharpen the part of me that refuses to be anything but a sword.

"Staring won't open it," Valeria murmured from the sheath, voice a soft scrape of steel on silk.

"I know." I turned the heart once, twice. It felt like an oath. "But it might tell me where to knock."

She went quiet again. She approves of a small number of sentences per day.

Time is the problem. Not if—I'll reach high Radiant. But when matters now. The demons have started picking at the Moon. Alyssara is no longer chasing power; she's wearing it. Every delay buys our enemies more minutes to thread their needles.

Fine. If the sky wants a price, I'll pay it while I do the job.

I set the heart in a warded bowl, sealed it with a simple twist of intent, and pinged the world.

Not tech. Not a comm grid. A concord attunement we'd built the hard way—legal, magical, social. Five continents, five houses, one message braided into the same ribbon: Join now. Planning session. Luna Base expansion. Full coverage.

Faces came in by presence and permission, not by screen. The Viserion pair from the South—Lyralei in a work coat, Marcus in an old field shirt with the sleeves rolled, both of them radiating the quiet you want in people with crowns. From the North, Lucifer and Alastor in a shared frame, unbothered by the old friction between them because larger things exist now. From the West, Kali and Jin, badges on, dust-free, ready to turn a map into trucks and trucks into reality. From the East, Master Hyejin of Mount Hua beside Ren Kagu—ice and iron in one box. From Central, Empress Regent Octavia's proxy (a crisp woman from her office) and Elias, my guild's right hand, already holding a slate and three contingencies.

Lyra stood with Tiamat, a half-step behind the Viserions out of courtesy, not rank. She gave me the smallest nod. Ready.

"Thank you," I said. "Purpose: Luna Base isn't a research outpost anymore. It's the shield Earth deserves. We expand from Tycho Yard to full coverage. No grandstanding. No monuments. A working moon."

No one asked why. We all saw Reverian's body used like a letter opener. We all felt the echo of Lysantra's hand.

I laid the plan in clean layers so no one would pretend not to understand.

"Layer one: Bastions," I said, marking four points in light—two polar, two equatorial, each sitting on solid bedrock. "Fixed anchors with ward choirs, Redeemer sanctums, and quick-deploy shelters. Southern Guard and Mount Hua provide anchor crews to rotate with ours. Goal: if a hole is punched anywhere, the nearest bastion catches the blow and keeps civilians alive."

"Accepted," Lyralei said, no ceremony. Marcus followed with the same word.

"Mount Hua will assign seniors who don't panic," Hyejin added. Ren's mouth ticked; that's as close as he gets to a smile.

"Layer two: The Aegis Mesh." I drew a thin web across the whole moon. "Not the world pylons—we're not trying to control the void. This is a net of refusals—light, wind, and song—that makes hostile teleportation and charm-bearing projections slip. Lyra, your people's harmonics are the spine; Rachel writes the med protocol for choir fatigue and failure."

Lyra's eyes warmed a fraction. "We will share true timestamps for drift."

"Medical accepts," Rachel said from just outside my visual field; I didn't need to see her to hear the timbre that makes nervous things behave. "Redeemer sanctums will be staffed by my choosing."

"Layer three: Bone Lanes," I said, and let Erebus' shadow lengthen just enough to be polite. "Redeemer transport corridors and ossuary guns. Our undead don't scare civilians. They set honest perimeters and move the wounded fast. West handles the living logistics on top: sand, food, fuel, bolts, blankets."

Kali's grin could cut rope. "You'll get your trucks, boss."

Jin only said, "We'll need three extra cold rooms. Demons rot differently." It was practical, not cruel.

"Layer four: Paradox Scrim." I looked to Rose. "This is yours. No theatre. Just a thin fog that makes enemy targeting sloppy. They aim at what was there, not what is."

Rose nodded once. "A narrow writ with a hard stop. It will not tangle our med lines."

"Layer five: Air Corridors and Orbital Lanes." Ian lifted a hand before I said his name. "You and Lucifer own the sky between Earth and the Moon. North's Deia and Seol-ah run backup lanes when you sleep."

Lucifer's answer was a single "Done." It meant hours of work he wouldn't complain about.

"Layer six: Security doctrine," I said, and turned my head slightly. Reika didn't smile either; she doesn't need to. "No heroes alone. Tagged drones only. Any untagged eye over the ridge is dropped. If a god sticks a finger through a window, we do not engage alone."

"Copy," Reika said. "Rules written in plain words. Everyone signs."

"The Aetherite Yard becomes a fortress without looking like a fortress," I finished. "We keep extraction going. We don't make a shrine that invites a siege."

Empress Octavia's proxy cleared her throat delicately. "Authority?"

"Shared," I said. "A panel of seven over Luna Base for this phase—one seat each continent, one for the Seven, one for Ouroboros. We vote on policy, not panic. Day-to-day command sits with the lunar commander. Elias, you'll appoint. You still answer to me."

Elias' pen didn't slow. "Understood."

We went around the circle once for friction points. North wanted lane priority in polar storms; the East wanted the ward choirs trained to Mount Hua breath, not a borrowed hymn; the West wanted a warehouse layout that didn't smell like nobles; the South wanted the mesh to trip a quiet bell without waking the whole moon; Central wanted budget and audit claws no one could wriggle out of. All of it was fixable.

"Timeline?" Lyralei asked.

"First bastion in seven days," Elias said before I could. He knows when to speak for me. "Second at twelve. Mesh starts in the gaps and works inward. Bone lanes as fast as Redeemers can raise gates without making children cry."

No one laughed at the phrasing. It mattered now, how we felt doing this.

"Your seat?" Marcus asked me.

"On the ground," I said. "Avalon when I need to sign. Tycho when I need to lift. Between them when I need to carry."

Tiamat's voice came soft from Lyra's side. "And your training?"

I exhaled. "Between breaths. I won't chase the Gate by breaking the floor."

"Good," she said, and that single word fixed three doubts in the room that weren't mine.

We closed with the kind of signatures that actually hold weight. Not pretty press lines; binding words and accepts from people who can make trucks move and lanes appear. The frames dimmed one by one. The room came back. The heart pulsed in its bowl like a second clock.

"Elias," I said, still looking at it. "Name the project."

He glanced up from his slate. "Aegis Luna," he said. Efficient. Honest. A shield, not a crown.

"Appoint the lunar commander by nightfall. Someone without a taste for speeches. Loop Rachel on med, Rose on writs, Reika on doctrine. Pull three Redeemer cadres that smile instead of leer. And… call Kade. I want his ear on the pylons when they hum."

"Already on it," Elias said, then paused. "And… the heart?"

"Mine to carry," I said. "Not for the blade. Not for show. For the part of me that has to knock on a silver door without pretending to be bigger than I am."

He didn't pretend to understand. That's why I trust him.

When I was alone again, I lifted Vaelrith's heart and pressed it against my sternum. No ceremony. No chant. Just two breaths and the decision to listen.

Heat pressed out in a slow ripple, more memory than fire. Wingbeats. Not like Bahamut's—the old king's rhythm was straight lines and clean ascents. Vaelrith's felt like a spiral climbing a column of wind: tighter, closer to the bone, less interested in impressing anyone watching from the ground. He had flown to go somewhere, not to be seen flying.

"I hear you," I said quietly. "Small truths first."

Valeria's hum tightened a fraction, as if she approved.

I set the heart back, sealed it, and stepped into the outer hall. Avalon's air smelled like tea and hot metal—the scent of a place doing work. Stella's laugh pinged down the corridor from the ops bullpen where she'd set up a "math desk" that terrified grown engineers. I almost went that way.

Duty chose for me. Rachel's med team needed three signatures for the Redeemer triage protocols. Seraphina had array tolerances to argue with Kade. Cecilia and Rose were already rewriting three clauses in a way that would save us a month of pain later. Reika had a list titled Make It Boring and a pen she uses like a sword.

I did the circuit. I signed where it mattered. I said "thank you" more than once and meant it each time.

By evening, the first wave of crews were already loading for the Moon: choir seats, warm coats, bolt bins, the kind of things wars actually run on. Lucifer sent a Northern pilot team south without ceremony. Ian laughed into the wind and traced the first corridor with his finger like drawing a promise in the air. Erebus opened two bone gates in a quiet courtyard where children play during the day; the gates looked like doors to cellars. No one screamed. Good.

I ended up back in my office when the lights shifted to night. The heart's pulse had steadied, or maybe mine had matched it. The Gates waited somewhere I couldn't see, indifferent and patient.

"Soon," I told them.

They did not answer.

They didn't need to.

Work would.