Scene 1 — The Press That Forgot Its Place (Artemis POV)
"Assistant Director Artemis, this is MSDNC speaking. If you may, can you elaborate on why the Society has been hiding their activities lately? Here in America we operate on trust. Is there anything you'd like to add to counter the growing voices of anger?"
Microphones thrust forward like bayonets.
I nodded to the woman who'd managed to shout the first question and leaned toward the podium, elbows on the edge, eyes locked on hers. The cameras loved that—made it look like we were on the same level.
"We aren't hiding anything," I said. "But if humanity—or rather normal humans who aren't Travelers—want to come see what your feeds keep calling 'secrets'…"
I let the sentence hang, let them lean in.
"You're welcome to take a look," I finished. "You just have to risk madness to do it. So tell me—would you like a tour and a mind fracture, or is my word enough, like it's been for the last decade?"
A ripple of uneasy laughter moved through the room. She opened her mouth again. I leaned back in my chair—nonverbal command for next.
A man in a loose-fitting suit stood up so fast he nearly tripped over his own bag. Indie badge. Frayed tie. No illusion of neutrality in his eyes; just the tired stubbornness of someone who'd actually gone into the field instead of rewriting press releases.
"Independent media here," he said. "Unlike my fellow journalists, my viewers are more concerned with Olympus' actions that have been broadcast all over the world—along with reports of Tasey the Menace starting attacks on Olympus. Did you play a part in this?"
Honest question. Honest enough to make me smile.
"Yes," I said. "I ordered Tasey to attack and offered him a pardon for defeating the fake Artemis Zeus was trying to raise. So yes, Tasey's actions were under my guidance and orders."
The room made a collective sound—half-gasp, half-chaos.
They'd expected denial.
They got a confession.
The indie reporter's eyes widened as he connected that with the leaked footage—the children, the cages, Olympus' pretty mountain cracking under real fire.
Before he could follow up, another voice yelped over him.
"Ma'am!! Shouldn't you consult the government before making such decisions?!" A different woman shoved her mic forward like a spear. "You are still American citizens! You also declared the ending of your partnership as a Society with the government.
"Why shouldn't the government just take authority and place your organization under their leadership?!"
There it was.
I chuckled.
It started small—just breath and amusement—but it echoed weirdly under the layered barriers of the briefing room. Some Travelers along the walls straightened instinctively.
"You mean like the government working with Zeus," I said, "while they forced our Society to accept anyone from any country into sensitive programs? You mean the same officials who ignored my reports until I personally ordered the capture of three Zeus-linked spies selling information about talented children to Olympus?"
Silence. Cameras stayed fixed. No one dared cut the feed now.
"But I'll humor you, woman." I let my gaze settle on her, let the room remember who was being questioned. "You want authority? Fine. If you can make me kneel, I'll redact my declaration. I'll even go to that scumbag Zeus and apologize for making his life hard while he rips our resources and agency from us as the 'weaker' people."
I stood up, palms on the table, leaning forward until the mic screeched.
"Let's ask the million-dollar question, since you put yourself on my level."
I let my mana breathe.
"Can you survive a war," I asked softly, "with these dogs who barely like their own doghouse?"
The astral pressure rolled out like a second gravity.
Every non-Traveler in the room hit the floor before their minds caught up—knees slamming tile, cameras jostling, pens scattering. A few tried to fight it, bodies shaking, veins bulging in their temples.
Society-aligned and independent journalists felt it too, but a softer wave met mine halfway.
"Nic."
Simon had already stepped forward, his own aura rising like a blue-white tide—gentler, on purpose. He shaped it, deflecting the worst of my pressure away from the ones we actually trusted.
Those who'd bought access with favors to Olympus went down hard.
Those who'd bled to report on us were merely forced to bow.
The difference was intentional.
I reined my mana back in, the pressure snapping off like someone had flipped a switch. The woman I'd targeted crumpled fully, gasping; her eyes wouldn't meet mine. Good. Let her feel how ridiculous that question had been outside her bubble.
Simon's presence settled over the room like a stabilizing hand.
"Restrain your questions to what you can actually handle," he said mildly, and more than a few reporters flinched at his tone.
One man pushed himself to his feet, using the podium for support—face pale, but posture steady.
"Sorry for the words of my fellow reporters, Ms. Artemis," he said, voice hoarse but clear. "Todd Pood, independent. I'll be the first to report that I was the lead reporter on the Olympus story Tasey provided."
Eyes swung to him. He didn't stop.
"I can also attest—along with other outlets—that some of the children who were freed have gone missing from our country in small numbers. I found the first trail and brought the evidence to the Society. If anyone is at fault, it's me—for searching for children our own institutions refused to look for, or to pressure Olympus to answer for. I might not not be a Traveler, but children are children. I'll always stand up any time they're harmed."
For a moment, the room was so quiet you could hear the mana hum in the walls.
He'd just yanked the entire narrative out of their hands and aimed it squarely where it belonged.
"Tod," I said, letting some warmth bleed into my voice, "you don't have to explain yourself. If they refuse to acknowledge what's going on in the world, that's their issue."
I straightened, resting one hand on the table.
"Our work with you is the reason more second-generation Travelers are choosing paths outside the front lines—researchers, medics, engineers. People who keep the world standing while the rest of us try not to break it." I let my gaze sweep the room. "And that's coming from me. You don't answer to these dried-up bags of bones about your priorities. Anyone with half a brain could see where the world is heading once the barrier breaks."
A few of the older reporters flinched at that—because they'd heard the timeline whispered behind closed doors.
"Simon," I said, not taking my eyes off the crowd, "guide that group out, please. I'll answer the rest of their questions separately."
He nodded, gestured to the security detail. The guards moved, picking Todd and the handful of independents and Society-vetted outlets out of the press crowd with practised efficiency.
As they filed out behind Simon, the room's noise dimmed with them.
The door shut.
An unbearable, ringing silence settled over what remained.
I sat back down, folded my hands on the table, and looked at the reporters who were still on their knees.
"Now," I said, voice cool again. "Shall we continue?"
Scene 2 — After the Stage, Before the Sea (Crystal POV)
Watching the last of the guild members file out of my office, I waited until the door clicked shut and the muffled echo of their footsteps faded down the hall.
Only then did I let my shoulders drop.
The wards hummed in the walls—comforting, familiar. The Society's headquarters had never felt more like a fortress than it did lately.
My husband walked in without knocking, a folder in his hand and rain still drying on his coat. Baldur didn't need introductions anymore; every line in his face was etched with enough history to be its own dossier.
He held up the report, expression wry. "Academy under our jurisdiction."
"Of course it is," I muttered.
He crossed the room, set the file on my desk. "Chiron finally sent the numbers."
I already knew what they were, but I opened it anyway.
"Seriously?" My brows shot up. "He went through with cutting out seventy percent of the students?"
Seeing it typed in clean ink made it hit harder.
I leaned back in my chair, letting out a low whistle. "I wonder why they keep calling us all 'elites'."
Public outcry was already forming in my head—talking heads screaming about wasted potential, angry parents demanding reinstatement, politicians pretending to care about standards they never understood.
The vast majority of the flunked-out column were civilians.
A grin still pulled at my mouth.
"Yeah, even I was surprised Chiron was that ruthless," Baldur said, taking the opposite chair. "I always took him for the kind-hearted mentor, but I guess the government pushed harder than they thought."
We both laughed at the image of bureaucrats trying to strong-arm the director of the Traveler school system.
"Apparently no one told them Chiron is the same person who hunted Odin across three continents because he was bullying his students," I said, smirking at the memory. "Bushy beard, bloodshot eyes, screaming something about 'educational environments' while Odin ran for his life."
"That chase alone almost caused an international incident," Baldur snorted. "Only stopped because Nicole and Tyr showed up with the rescue teams and bribed half the pantheons along the way."
I let the nostalgia roll through me for a moment.
A dangerous, ridiculous, unforgettable time that felt like hundreds of years ago.
We'd gone from half-suicidal teenagers playing gods in the Astral Sea to… this. Meetings. Reports. Political theater.
"Sometimes I miss it," I admitted, staring at the file without really seeing the words.
He didn't pretend not to understand.
"The Sea?" he asked quietly.
I shook my head. "Not just the Sea. That center we all met at. All those worlds just… there. Astral energy thick enough to drink. Followers worshipping us like we knew what we were doing."
"It was divinity without accountability," he said. No judgment in it; just fact.
"Exactly. We were too young and too stupid to realize what we were standing in."
"Do you ever want to go back?" I asked.
He went silent for a long beat, gaze drifting past me to the window, to the storm clouds building over Houston.
"Yes," he said finally. "But it's mainly the memories I miss. Even if we went back today, we'd have to accept it as a goodbye trip."
He gestured vaguely, as if tracing a diagram only he could see.
"To get back to even a tenth of the level we all submerged ourselves in back then would still pull us out of Earth's timeline. It felt like we were going forward in time while we were there, but the more I think about it…" He shook his head. "I don't trust that feeling."
My eyes followed his to the footlocker in the corner—Odin's diaries sealed away behind layers of mundane metal and esoteric wards.
"I wish I could explain it myself," I murmured. "No one knows how deep he actually went. The only one who might is Tyr—the brother he chased. Even Oceanus only barely touched a thousand years' worth of knowledge."
We sat with that.
The idea of diving back into the Astral Sea now—of vanishing for what might be centuries while the world we'd bled to stabilize stumbled into its next disaster—tasted like pure recklessness.
"Not with a kid," I said. "We don't get to make those decisions anymore."
"Once she grows up," Baldur countered gently, "we can always pawn the guild off to her."
I snorted. "What a loving parent you are."
He smiled, unbothered.
"Her, Crow, and Thomas can take over while we retire to the Sea," he said. "They'll be stronger than we were when we first went in. Better prepared. After all, she'll eventually want to follow us. Same blood. Same stupid instincts."
I let the idea sit—a future where the three of them stood where we once stood, staring at endless worlds and thinking they were invincible.
Part of me recoiled at it.
Part of me relaxed.
"Maybe by then," I said softly, "this world won't need us hovering over it like paranoid babysitters."
"Don't lie to yourself," he replied. "We'll still hover. Just from a different coastline."
I laughed, the tension in my shoulders easing for the first time that day.
Outside, rain began to tap against the window.
Inside, between the reports about culling children who couldn't handle dungeons and the memories of a Sea that ate centuries like snacks, it came down to something smaller:
Our daughter.
Our nephew.
The kids trying to stand where we once nearly died.
"We're asking them to carry things we still barely understand," I said.
"That's what our seniors did to us," Baldur said. "Difference is, we're at least honest about it."
I closed the file, setting it aside.
"Then we make sure the ones Chiron kept are worth that weight," I said. "No brainwashing. No weaponizing. Just reality."
He nodded.
For a moment, the world outside—governments whining, Olympus scheming, Zeus scraping against lines he couldn't see—felt far away.
For a moment, it was just two retired gods who never got to retire, wondering if the next generation would hate them or thank them.
"Deal," he said.
We sat together in the quiet, listening to the rain and the faint hum of the barriers Odin had left us, holding back a Sea we both still, secretly, wanted to see one more time.