The Extra's Rise

Hollow Eclipse drops in the middle of it—pure power bundled tight into a single downstroke. Except he doesn't try to crush me with it; he ties it to the Violet Mist pattern and turns the blow into a storm of heavy petals that land with weight instead of cuts. They try to pin me. Clever. I walk out of it and admire the idea even as I refuse it.

He breathes once—long, even—and the Grey rises again.

More. Mid Radiant has given him more wood for the fire and a better chimney. He can push it without choking on smoke. The lair feels it. The crystal ribs of my home brighten and then hold. They are strong. He will not crack them today.

He lifts Valeria high. The Crown brightens. The ring forms.

World's Edge.

This time it is not loud. It is clean. The thin Grey circle opens around us and says a small thing: Inside this line, it counts. He brings it down like a quiet verdict.

I catch it with my palm and my law. It stops a hair from making the world say yes. He doesn't snarl. He doesn't sag. He simply accepts the answer, files it, and moves.

The Grey plum blossoms come at me again, but now they are Arthur's first, Mount Hua's second. They no longer look like petals. They look like decisions. Each one is a small 'no' sent to the places my body likes. One says no to my wrist turning now. One says no to my weight sliding there. One says no to my tail choosing that line. I step around the no's and sometimes step with them to see if he will let me borrow his own notes. He does not. Good boy.

He is shining. Not in light. In clarity.

I am excited.

Old predators are hard to excite. We have seen tricks, lines, prayers, boasts, miracles. We have seen despair and hope play chess and both cheat. This is not a trick. This is a boy doing the thing right.

"Arthur," I say without meaning to. It slips out like a grandmother saying a name under her breath when a child finally rides the bike by himself. "Good."

He hears me. He does not look at me. He puts the compliment on a shelf and uses the space it made to step closer.

I decide it is time to end this.

'Forgive me, Luna,' I tell the place in me that keeps that child safe. 'He will not thank me now. He will later or he will not. Both are allowed.'

I raise the room back to the clean state, but higher than what I used before—twenty parts in a hundred of myself, no more. Constants hold still. Probabilities stop wobbling. The Grey around him does not dim; it simply finds it has fewer places to borrow leverage.

Arthur feels it. He does not panic. He shortens. No wasted steps. No extra breath. He keeps the Violet Mist going, but the blossoms change—fewer, denser, slower, heavier. He's not trying to fill the sky. He's putting weight on hinges.

He flashes once, pure and quiet, and appears at my throat with Valeria's flat instead of her edge—he's aiming to shove my windpipe, not slice it, because he knows my scales like shatter glass on a bad angle. Smart. I let the flat kiss me and do not let it do anything else. He accepts. He rolls the flat into a hook for my ear and then lets it go to take a short punch with his empty hand. I push his knuckles a finger and his shot lands on bone that does not mind.

The blossoms turn and hit me.

Not many. Enough. Three along the line of my jaw. One on the cheekbone. One on the bridge of my nose. Each one lands like a polite knock that carries a thread. The thread tries to tie my motion to the mist. A lesser thing would slow here. I do not. I feel the tug and admire the courage it takes to try to leash a dragon's face.

He is breathing hard now. Not panicked. Just alive. Sweat beads on his temple. Blood paints his mouth. The Crown sings. Valeria hums against his palm. The Grey asks for one more clean thing.

He gives it.

He steps in. No tricks. No frames missing. Just a step that accepts I am faster and stronger and older and that none of that matters this step because he is going to take it anyway. He brings the blade across my belly, short and honest, and he brings his shoulder into me like a man who means to move a mountain with a push because someone he loves is trapped under it.

I let him move me.

Half a finger.

It is a gift. A payment. A promise.

Then I end it.

I draw a straight line with my fist that stops midway and becomes a soft tap under his jaw. Not power. Switch. I reach into the thin space between his Grey and his nerves and I nudge. For a breath his timing slips. His body says sleep. His spirit reaches to argue. I put a hand on his sternum to quiet the argument.

He sways. He tries to stay. He almost does.

"Enough," I say, and this time the word is not a lesson. It is a blanket.

His eyes meet mine. They are bright and annoyed and grateful and stubborn. He tries to speak. He doesn't need to. I catch him under the arm before he falls. Valeria melts, quick and worried, to cushion his ribs. Erebus lowers a palm and sets a single bone-script pillar behind his back so I don't have to bend too far to lay him down. We are all, for a breath, the same kind of creature—those who keep this one boy from cracking when the hard thing is done.

Luna is there in the next step, light already gathering in her hands, golden eyes wide and wet and fierce. She glares at me, then at herself for glaring, then at me again because she is not done being honest.

"He crossed it," I tell her, low. "Mid Radiant. Clean. He did it well."

She nods, chin tight. "I know." Then, after a breath, softer: "Thank you."

I huff a laugh that is not quite a laugh. 'I am trying to be a good grandmother and a good dragon,' I tell myself and fail at both in equal measure. 'That will have to do.'

Arthur sleeps.

The Grey calms. The blossoms fade. The lair lets breath out. I look at the place where one petal dared tie a thread to my nose and I touch it with one finger, amused.

Mount Hua would not recognize what he just did with their art. That is fine. Arts should grow when they find new hands. Grey likes books that do not end.

"Zenith Blade," I say, tasting his epithet because he has earned the sound of it today, and then I lean down and brush my knuckles lightly against his hair the way no one but a grandmother would dare.

"Rest," I add. "Tomorrow, we see how long you can hold the sky."