The Extra's Rise - Chapter 974

974: Threshold 974: Threshold Back at the penthouse, the world did its best to be ordinary.

The tower still split the horizon like a stake driven through the clouds, but the streets below had chosen a deliberate, weaponized calm.

Tea carts were stationed at corners, their steam curling into the cool air.

Quiet inspectors with actual clipboards were checking municipal codes.

The city was putting on a masterclass in being boring.

Valeria stirred as soon as I stepped into my room, her presence a cool, steady line under my skin.

‘Frame check,’ she murmured in my head.

‘Plates firm.

Flex points live.

The edge is clean.’ ‘Good,’ I answered.

‘Stay light unless I call for you.’ Erebus uncoiled from the shadow by the dresser, a whisper of cold in the warm room.

‘Ledger is open,’ he clicked along our private line.

‘No singing unless you are already bleeding.’ ‘I prefer not to bleed,’ I thought back.

I dressed like I was going to a difficult meeting, not a mythic battle.

Plain clothes that moved well, with no armor plates to announce my intentions.

A clean sheath at my hip, the real edge of my blade sleeping in the bones of the world, waiting to be called.

A steel ring on my finger for a stylus, because the first and last tool is always a sentence.

I took no charms, no trinkets the tower could read as a promise or a plea.

If I listened to the quiet of the penthouse for too long, I knew I would not leave.

My father, Douglas, knocked and came in without waiting.

His hands are thick with the kind of work that keeps food on tables and families safe.

He took one look at me, and his face was a mask of pride and terror.

He didn’t pretend anything was fine.

He just pulled me in and cracked my back with a hug that smelled of sawdust and home.

“You are still my boy,” he said, his voice thick.

“Be smart.

Be boring.”  “I will,” I promised into his shoulder.

Aria rushed in next, my younger sister, her hair half-tamed and her eyes too bright.

“I am not saying don’t go,” she said, all in a rush.

“You’d go anyway.

Just… please don’t let it be smarter than you.”  “I’ll insult its grammar,” I said.  “Good,” she said, and punched my arm, a little too hard.

I let her win that one.

My mother, Alice, stood at the door for a count of three, as if measuring the air in the room.

Then she crossed to me and took my face in both hands, the way she did when I was a child and the nights were bad.

“Verbs,” she said, her voice a low command.

“Verb first,” I confirmed.

She kissed my forehead.

“If it offers you beauty, it lies.

If it offers you reason, it lies bigger.

If it offers you mercy, it is stealing something.

Do not bargain.”  “I won’t.” She nodded once, a sharp, final motion, and let me go.

The air in the room thinned.

Stella had been building her courage in the hallway.

She came in like a small, determined storm and tried to break the entire plan by hugging it.

I caught her and held on, burying my face in her hair.

“I know you have to,” she said into my neck, her voice muffled.

“I hate it.

But I still know.”  “I’ll be careful,” I said.

“I’ll be boring.”  She sniffed, pulled back, and dug into her pocket.

“I made a thing,” she said in a rush.

She held up a simple bracelet of elastic cord and matte black beads.

Tiny, almost invisible lines were carved into some of them.

“It does nothing,” she explained, very seriously.

“Like, actually nothing.

But when you look at it, your brain has to pause to check the pattern, and that buys you a half-second.

For not saying a dumb sentence.”  “It’s perfect,” I said, and meant it.

I put it on.

It felt like armor.

“Ice cream when I come back,” she said, trying for a grin.

“You promise not to make any bad deals while I’m gone,” I countered.

“I promise,” she said, her expression fierce.

She hugged me one last time and then went to stand with my mother, her small hand finding Alice’s like it had a map.

The six women who were my partners and my shield waited by the door.

The fight had been in the palace.

This was something different.

Reika came first.

She fixed my collar and didn’t pretend she wasn’t memorizing my face.

“You feel the tug, you come home,” she commanded softly.

“Yes.” Rose pressed a small, folded strip of blue paper into my palm.

It was inked with a single, impossible curve.

“A seam breaker,” she said.

“One time.

Only if you must.”  “Understood.” Rachel met my eyes, her own sharp and clear.

“First line to me before you say it.

If I raise my hand, you wait.

No hero speeches.”  “Agreed.” Cecilia held out a sealed envelope.

“Your authority, signed,” she said.

“Even gods have to read the paperwork.”  “Thank you.” Seraphina set two cool fingers over the pulse on my wrist.

“Breathe,” she said.

“Four in, six out.

Count out loud if you have to.” “Four in, six out,” I echoed.

Luna said nothing.

She simply stepped forward and pressed her forehead to mine for one slow, shared breath, then stepped back to the window to keep watch.

We rode the lift down to the garage.

The motorcade slid into a city that had chosen quiet.

At the third ring, steam curled from tea carts.

Gentle weather advisories ran on public banners.

Transit had slowed without a single alarm being raised.

People were walking their dogs and heading home early, because the air felt a bit like rain.

Boredom was winning.

Near the cordon, the crowd wasn’t a crowd.

Rachel’s Redeemer teams moved through the onlookers, their presence calming, directing people away with polite authority.

Seraphina’s chill made people zip up their jackets.

Reika was checking the tether, a silvery cord spooled on a heavy drum, a third time, and then a fourth.

The base of the tower felt wrong.

Three steps in, it was just a building.

On the fourth, the light thinned, and sound lost its edges.

The skin of the structure wasn’t stone.

It was letters hiding in curves, oil pretending to be water.

I stood at the seam.

Reika tied the rope to my belt and to the anchor ring on the drum.

Rachel clipped the pulse lead to my wrist, her touch firm.

Adeline stepped up beside Quinn.

“Second Hero,” she said, her voice a quiet law.

“We hold.” “Thank you.” I turned and looked back at my family, standing at the edge of the cordon.

My father folded his arms, making a face that meant he was proud and also that he still wanted to ground me.

Aria lifted both fists and then laughed at herself.

My mother didn’t speak; she just mouthed one word: “Verbs.” And Stella, my small star, pressed both hands over her mouth, then pulled them down to give me the fiercest glare a twelve-year-old has ever made.

It said, you better come back.

I breathed with Luna, though she was miles away.

Four in.

Six out.

Quiet moved through my chest and stayed there.

I looked at Reika.

Her jaw was stone.

“Lines,” she said.

“Lines,” I said back.

I stepped forward.

The light bent.

The rope pulled once, as if the world wanted one more vote on the matter.

Then it eased.

One more breath.

Four in, six out.

I crossed the seam and went into the tower alone.