The Extra's Rise

Valdris settled into the kind of quiet that follows a storm. Crews on the Iron Line sent steady updates. Warders slept in shifts. The Redeemers finished sanctifying the breach and handed the ground back to Southern medics. By late afternoon, the palace switched from crisis to coordination.

I stood with Luna in a high meeting chamber that overlooked the city. A wall of glass showed tiers of stone roofs and slow-moving air traffic. Inside, a long table was already covered in slates, paper briefs, and cups that had been reheated too many times.

Marcus entered first, uniform clean again, posture fixed by habit. Lyralei came with him, every step efficient. Ian followed a beat later, smiling in a way that made the room less tense. Tiamat didn't walk in; she was just suddenly there, near the windows, like the air remembered it owed her a shape.

"We'll need three tracks," Lyralei said without preamble. "Security, relief, and recognition."

Marcus nodded. "Security first. If the Abyssal Kin try for a second push, it will be noise, not another Basilisk. We'll reinforce the western slope and lay traps along dry ravines. Patrols double through dawn."

Ian flicked a few items from his slate onto the table. "I want Storm-Griffon flight pairs shadowing the wardhouse shuttles for the next forty-eight hours. If a priest thinks about throwing a drum twice, they'll get a wing full of lesson."

I leaned my palms on the table. "Erebus left Redeemers where your medics wanted them. They'll pull out when your chiefs give the word. Valeria has a fatigue map of the Aetherite posts along the sector; three need replacement, five need rest cycles. We're handling the swaps tonight."

Tiamat's eyes tracked the maps and then me. "Good. Now the part that feels strange when you've spent a day holding a wall. Celebration."

Ian grinned. "I was wondering when we'd get to the fun part."

Lyralei didn't smile, but the corners of her eyes softened. "Our people will want it. Our allies deserve it. And, Arthur, whether you like it or not, the continent needs to see what an answer looks like."

"I'm not against a dance," I said. "I just don't want the choir shoved into a corner once the music starts."

Luna tapped the table with one finger. "They won't be. I'll handle that list." Her gaze cut to Lyralei. "Warders on the dais. Engineers and fence crews first in queue for commendations. The Redeemers included formally with the medics."

Lyralei inclined her head. "Agreed."

Marcus dragged a fresh plan layer onto the table with a neat hand. "Three days from now. Not tonight; people need sleep. We announce tonight, confirm tomorrow at midday after the final residue sweep, and start building."

"Three days gives us time to secure the city routes," Ian said. "Also time for the band to rehearse and for me to pretend I remember how to waltz."

Tiamat watched him, amused. "You will step on fewer feet if you sleep."

He winced. "Noted."

A woman in slate-gray stepped in quietly and bowed to Lyralei. She had the calm face of someone who builds impossible things on short notice for a living.

"Master of Ceremonies," Lyralei said by way of introduction. "Yara handles our state events."

Yara gave me a brief, professional smile. "Lord Nightingale. Lady Luna. Congratulations, and thank you. If we do this well, your guards will complain the least and the warders will be the last to leave."

"That sounds like your usual success metric," Ian said.

"Exactly," Yara replied, already placing sticks of colored wax on the plan. "Throne Hall of Scales, plus both side galleries for overflow. Dancing floor at center, dais in front of the tapestries. We'll need extra load-bearing under the chandeliers if we add projectors. The Hall of Ancestors becomes the reception corridor. Dragonbone stairs are a bottleneck—stagger arrivals."

"Security?" Marcus asked.

"Layered," Yara said. "Royal Guard at the gates and dais. Nyx Tigers in the galleries. Viper sappers at the undercroft with drones. Storm-Griffons on the roofline. Louder shields along the balcony edges so the press can stare without falling in. I'll post medics in the north and south vestibules and one team with the caterers, where injuries always happen."

Ian opened his mouth.

"Trays are heavy," Yara said before he could ask. "And knives are sharp."

Luna hid a smile behind her hand.

"What about guests?" I asked. "If you want this to lift the whole South, make space for people who stood today. Don't limit it to families with banners."

Yara's wax sticks moved again. "Warder choirs from Iron Line sectors one to four. Representatives from the engineers' union and the Fence Hands collective. Flight captains from both Storm-Griffon and Wyrmbone. Three Redeemer elders, if Lord Erebus approves. Two dozen soldiers chosen by their unit leads for merit. And the families of anyone we lost this year. If they want to come."

"Erebus will approve," I said. "He likes being useful more than being dramatic. I'll ask him to keep Redeemers presentable, not frightening."

"He can wear a bow," Ian suggested.

Luna elbowed him lightly.

"Press?" Lyralei prompted.

Yara didn't sigh, which I respected. "Two pools. One in the west gallery for the arrivals, one on the floor behind a restraint line. No microphones on the dance floor. A single press question block at the end of the formal segment, limited to six questions. If they start shouting, we play the exit music."

"Mood?" Tiamat asked, unexpectedly.

Yara considered. "Light, not careless. Grateful, not giddy."

I nodded. "Then make the first speech not mine."

Lyralei's eyes warmed. "Agreed."

We spent the next hour turning that skeleton into something with muscles. Invitations, security credentials, patrol routes around the palace district, supply chain for food and flowers, lighting layouts that wouldn't blind the matriarchs, lists of names who had to be thanked first and out loud. The words ball and banquet were said, but the conversation never drifted far from lists that would keep people safe.

Valeria sent me a quiet update as we worked: Aetherite Post 17 stabilized after a ten-minute rest; Post 22 wanted a replacement and a nice word. I signed off on both. Erebus sent a dry note that two Redeemers had been asked for selfies with soldiers; I told him to allow it, as long as no one leaned on a lantern.

When we reached the part where Yara asked about the order of honors, Luna spoke before anyone else. "Choir first. Then fence crews. Then medics. Then command."

Marcus did not argue. Lyralei wrote it down.

Ian leaned back in his chair and eyed me across the table. "You'll need new clothes," he said, mock serious. "The continent must not see you in the same jacket twice."

"I can make this one look different," I said.

Valeria purred from the back of my mind. I told her, not sequins. She sent back a faint sulk and a pattern that was definitely not sequins and probably still counted.

Tiamat watched all of it with the look of a grandmother pretending not to be proud. When the last security overlay snapped into place, she straightened.

"Good," she said. "Now sleep."

Marcus actually laughed. Lyralei allowed herself a small one. Ian saluted her like a cadet.

We wrapped. Yara promised schedules within two hours and vanished with her aides like a magician taking a trick off the stage. The room exhaled.

I moved to the window with Luna and looked over the city. Valdris looked back like a living thing—lights breathing, avenues pulsing with steady traffic, the mountain air carrying faint music from a far plaza. Three days wasn't long, but it would be enough to turn fear into something else.

"You're thinking about leaving," Luna said without looking at me.

"I'm thinking about the other borders," I said. "But I'll stay until the city's secure."

"You'll stay through the ball," she said.

"We'll see."

"You'll stay," she repeated, flat.

"I'll stay," I agreed.

She softened and leaned her shoulder against mine. For a while we stood like that and said nothing.

Footsteps approached behind us. Ian stepped up on my other side.

"They're already stringing lights across the lower terraces," he said. "My mother moves fast."

"She does," I said.

"You're going to hate the attention," he added. "But you won't hate what it does to the people who stood."

"I know," I said. "That's the only reason I'll stand on a stage."

He bumped my shoulder lightly. "I'll make sure you only have to dance once."

"Once is already too many."

He grinned and backed away when Lyralei called his name.

Tiamat joined us at the glass for a moment. Her reflection looked older and softer; her eyes never did.

"As expected," she said again. Then, quieter, "Be ready to leave the dance early."

"I figured," I said. "Trouble doesn't RSVP."

"Correct," she said, and drifted away.

We left the planning room when the lights dimmed to evening. The palace corridors had already shifted to preparation mode: staff moving in well-practiced lines, floral workers measuring archways, a pair of engineers discussing load limits under a chandelier while a steward tried to shoo them politely. Luna tugged me toward a side balcony that overlooked a courtyard where a team was testing music. It sounded hopeful.

We were halfway across the terrace when high voices carried up from below—excited, then hushed by a caretaker voice, then excited again. I didn't pay it much attention; the palace always had visitors.

We turned a corner near a column of carved obsidian.

Small feet hit the marble at a full run. I didn't even get time to brace.

She slammed into my side with a thump, arms wrapping my waist, face burrowing into my jacket. Strawberry shampoo. Soap that always smelled like morning. The exact weight I knew how to catch without thinking. My heart moved like someone had thrown a stone into it and turned ripples into light.

"Daddy!"