Scene 1 — Maps News and the Man in the Room
Three months later
"Good morning, this is Maps News, reporting in on this horrible day for humanity.
"Late last night in India, fighting broke out between government Travelers and Guilds. The same situation is happening across the entire world, as if the declaration from Artemis of the U.S. Society—formally cutting all ties with the government and the world organizations in charge of handling criminal Travelers—was a starting gun for open conflict.
"What originally started out as hostile tension between Explorers and governments has now devolved into the next generation openly taking sides. Second-generation Travelers are awakening astral energy at record rates, and the majority seem to be voicing support for Artemis' declaration. Guilds and Traveler groups worldwide have followed suit."
I took a sip of coffee and watched the man in the red dress and flawless makeup give the morning report. At least he had the grace to stick to truth.
"So far," I muttered.
It had become a known fact—even to people who didn't want to admit it—that Travelers were only growing in their hatred of how we used and abused them. This administration was proof of it. They decided to work with Olympus and push out Artemis, the only stabilizer the Explorers ever had in America. Now they were shocked the younger generation didn't want to die for them.
"Following the Assistant Director's declaration," Maps continued, "she has since cut all channels for foreign Travelers to join the Society, and has placed a ban on all Guilds within America recruiting outside talent.
"Taking it a step further, she's opened new Traveler academies—what she calls Astral Studies Departments—alongside Education Director Chiron. He is the same man who has recently become infamous for ordering the harsh test that saw several children of minority and gendered identities dropped from the Traveler academy system altogether.
"Critics argue that this decision has crushed the dreams of these bright children, who hoped to become Explorers. Coming up next, the scheduled meeting between Artemis and Vice President candidate Ta—"
I clicked the remote.
The screen died. The room didn't.
Tension thickened the air like humidity before a storm. Papers lay spread across the long table—maps, reports, polling numbers, casualty projections. Every person seated there had their eyes on me, and every one of them was waiting to see which way I'd jump.
"Do you think you can handle it?"
The voice came from my right.
Jim—my running mate, the man they called my "second in command" in every broadcast now—sat with his elbows on the table, hands folded, expression steady. He was the one Artemis had agreed to meet, the bridge between a Society that was done kneeling and a government that hadn't realized the ground was gone under its feet.
He gave a small nod before answering himself.
"Sir, we don't have much of a choice," he said, clearing his throat. "By all accounts, anyone older than Oceanus—who's currently in his mid-thirties—isn't capable of awakening astral energy."
The advisors shifted, some in disbelief, some in denial. They hated hearing this part.
"By Oceanus' own accounts," Jim went on, "a majority of the First Generation is the cream of the crop that got filtered through automatically. The weak, or those whose bodies couldn't hold the energy, were crushed. So any more ideals or goals about getting young Americans to come under us is foolish.
"With the reports we received from the Giver, he's hoping to calm the children down, but he's not willing to let the current administration abuse them either. That means we need this deal with Artemis to go through."
I nodded, slow, forcing myself to keep my jaw relaxed.
The truth was simple and ugly: if the eldest person in the room—the man who'd once been called the strongest Explorer in the country—wasn't raising hell about what Artemis just did, then the rest of us had no right to shout about it either.
If the people who bled for your peace weren't flipping the table, maybe you didn't understand what was on it.
Jim had full access to those reports. He had no orders to prepare himself for the Astral. The fact he still wasn't complaining proved why I'd chosen him. He knew when to shut up and when to speak.
One of the advisors to my left raised his hand like he was back in grade school, then thought better of it and slowly lowered it when he caught my eye. I gave him the space anyway.
"Go on," I said.
He swallowed. "Sir, what do we do about the Travelers ignoring the minority status angle? The people will not be okay with this. If it had been a small number of children, we could play dumb. But this was done across all of America at Chiron's order."
He licked his lips.
"I would sa— excuse me, I would say that he's warranted the same treatment we give Thor the Blood Demon and Odin the Mad. His actions have—"
I raised my hand.
He shut up mid-sentence.
"What happens on Traveler and Guild grounds isn't our concern," I said. "That's the deal they struck with President Tillton. I honored it my first time around, and I aim to do that again."
A few of the older staff flinched at Tillton's name. They'd been there when he made that devil's bargain: give the Explorers sovereign ground, and in return they'd keep the monsters on the right side of the border.
Most of them still thought we'd gotten the better half.
"If you can't see the value in Artemis' newest maneuver," I continued, "that just swept those kids out from under the current administration's control, then you need to revisit your notes."
I watched the realization sink in: Chiron failed them out of the government's system… and Artemis built them their own.
A second chance. On her turf, under her rules, far from the idiots trying to turn them into weapons on campaign posters.
Slow grins started breaking out around the table as the angle clicked. A story practically writes itself when your opponent hands it to you.
"'Harsh test saves children from war machine,'" someone muttered. "The minority angle flips from victim to protected."
"Exactly," Jim said. "If we back Artemis publicly, we become the administration that supports second chances for these kids, instead of the one that tried to draft them."
The door opened quietly as we sank into the logistics. Secret Service swapped out, aides brought in more coffee. Jim stood up to leave; he had his own hell to walk into with Artemis' staff.
As he moved, one last concern slipped free from the far end of the table.
"Sir… what if the voters don't accept the shift?" another advisor asked. "They're already scared. The news is calling Artemis a traitor in half the segments and a tyrant in the rest. If we look like we're siding with her, we could lose the middle entirely."
I stood, picking up the remote and looking at the blank screen for a heartbeat.
"Then they can stay scared," I said. "The Astral doesn't care about their feelings either."
I turned back to them.
"We tried pretending Travelers were employees," I said. "That worked right up until they realized they were closer to gods than workers. Artemis has been the only one holding that line for a decade. If we let Olympus keep pulling strings while we punish the only stabilizer we have, those kids won't just support her."
I let the thought hang.
"They'll abandon us."
Silence answered. No one argued.
"Jim."
He paused at the door.
"Tell her this," I said. "From me, not the camera: I won't touch Traveler grounds. I won't push for conscription. I want those Astral Studies Departments under our education umbrella on paper—but you and Chiron run them in practice. I'll take the political beating."
A slow, tired smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Yes, sir."
He left, door closing behind him with a soft hydraulic hiss.
I looked at the table one last time—the reports, the projections, the mess—and then at the blank screen.
"Line up our statement with hers," I said. "If Artemis is going to war with Olympus, then for once, we're backing the right side of history."
The room moved.
And somewhere, in a training room that still smelled like burned chalk, a girl who'd been kicked out of the "future hero" category was learning how to survive the storm we were all pretending we could control.
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
Scene 2 — Shields, Cheats, and the Shape of a Spell
(Crow & Amber)
The training room still smelled like burned chalk and recycled mana.
Amber stood in the center of the circle I'd drawn for her—hair tied back, jaw tight, fingers worrying the edge of her sleeve the way they always did before a cast. Four cratered sigils around her feet marked where she'd misjudged the output earlier.
She hadn't blown herself up yet.
That alone put her ahead of half the idiots the government used to shove through "combat certification."
"Again," I said.
She closed her eyes and breathed in, once, twice. Her lips moved—no sound, just the ghost of words. The instant-chant lattice flickered behind her eyelids; I could feel the way her mind traced it, faster than a spoken verse but still clinging to the script.
Mana gathered over her palm, coalescing into a flat, translucent shield.
It snapped into place in under a second.
Not perfect. A little thin on the left edge. But three months ago she needed a full eight-count and a spoken chant for that same shield, and it wobbled if anyone glared at it too hard.
Now it hummed, steady, for a full breath before dissolving on her command.
She opened her eyes and immediately looked at me like she'd done something wrong.
"Well?" she asked.
There it was. The tiny flinch in her shoulders. The way she braced for correction like it was a slap.
I didn't sigh, but only because I've had practice.
"Mana distribution was cleaner," I said. "You overcompensated for the last misfire and thickened the right side more than you needed to."
Her mouth pulled down. "So it was bad."
"No," I said. "It was cautious."
She looked at the scuffed floor instead of my face. "Cautious gets you killed in a real fight. That's what they kept saying."
They. The academy instructors who'd washed their hands of her the second Chiron's test shoved her off the neat little "future hero" track. The media who'd decided she was a victim the moment they heard minority and failed out. The government that wanted her angry but not educated.
Chiron cut her loose. Artemis picked her up. And then she ended up here—three months of me grinding every bad habit out of muscles that still expected a grading rubric.
Cautious hadn't killed her.
It had kept her from detonating her own core while I rebuilt the parts they mangled.
"If you'd been reckless, we wouldn't be having this conversation," I said. "We would be scraping you off the ceiling."
She winced. "I know, I just… It still feels like cheating. Instant chanting, I mean. Like I'm skipping steps the manuals say you're supposed to take."
"You already took them," I said. "They just didn't teach you what to do next."
I stepped into the circle with her, letting my presence brush the edges of her spell-sense. Not enough pressure to crush, just enough to remind her I was there. The Astral Sea threaded through the world around us like a second atmosphere; she couldn't feel as deep into it as I could, but she was starting to notice the currents instead of just the ripples.
Three months from full verbal chant to consistent instant-cast, under real pressure, with her psyche held together by stubbornness and sheer terror.
Anyone calling that "cheating" had never learned anything that mattered.
"You're doing in a quarter-year what most adults can't do in three," I said. "Your brain rewired itself to run structures on recall instead of recitation. That is not nothing."
She swallowed. "Then why does it still feel… wrong? Like I'm going to miscast and cook my own nerves if I try to speed it up any more."
Because you might, I didn't say.
Because forcing your way from script to instinct at this pace is like learning to sprint while someone throws knives at your head.
Because if I hand you the full method I use, you'll try to copy it out of sheer spite and tear your channels before your core finishes stabilizing.
Fear, in the right amount, is a safety harness.
"Good," I said instead. "You're supposed to be afraid of miscasting. That's how you avoid doing something stupid like overloading your circulation to prove a point."
She flicked a glance up at me, skeptical. "I thought you didn't like fear."
"I don't like fear when it makes you freeze," I said. "But fear that tells you where the edge is? That's useful."
I held out a hand.
"Shield," I said. "Same pattern. Don't think about the words. Think about the shape."
She hesitated, then nodded and mimicked the same motion as before, but slower. I felt her reach for the construct—like watching someone grope along a familiar wall in the dark, searching for the switch.
Her focus snagged on the old habit. The imaginary syllables of the chant.
"Stop," I said.
The mana scattered. She flinched like she'd failed the exam again.
"You're still asking yourself if you remember the words," I said. "You don't need the words anymore. You need the memory of what the spell does."
Amber pressed her lips together. "That's… how you do it? Just remembering what it feels like at the end?"
"No," I said. "That's how you start unlearning dependence on the chant."
Her brow furrowed.
She thinks I'm holding back, I thought. Good. Because I am.
I could tell her the rest. I could explain how you stop begging reality and start leaning on it. How you take the law you understand and push until the world agrees, chanting or not.
I could show her how I force spells—no sound, just structure and decision—until the Astral Sea itself bends around it.
And if I did, right now, she'd try to imitate it tomorrow. Not because she's arrogant. Because she hates being behind.
She'd try to skip straight from "instant chant" to "raw forcing" with a half-healed core and channels still scarred from that first dungeon. She's smart enough to build the frame. Not hardened enough yet to survive the backlash when she misjudges.
Her fear is the only thing keeping her from jumping off the roof because she saw me land once.
"Right now, you're still translating," I said aloud. "You're running the chant in your head and then converting it into action. That's why it feels wrong. The delay isn't in your mana. It's in your thinking."
"So I have to stop thinking." She tried to joke, but it came out thin.
"You have to stop thinking in their language," I corrected. "The academy taught you spells as recipes. Follow this step, then this step, then this step. That's fine when nothing's trying to kill you."
"And when something is?" she asked.
"Then you need to know the dish so well you can cook it when the kitchen explodes," I said. "That's what instant chanting really is—no more reading from the card, just knowing the end result in your bones."
She stared at the floor sigils, then at her hand.
"…So what do I do?"
"Take one spell," I said. "Just one. Not everything they stuffed in your head. The shield is fine."
She nodded.
"Remember the first time you cast it," I said. "Every step. The weight of the mana. The way it fought you on the left side. The way your arm shook."
Her breathing shifted. Slowed.
"You remember how it felt when it finally held?" I asked.
A tiny nod.
"Good. Hold that. That final moment. The 'click.'" I tapped a knuckle lightly against her wrist. "That's the shape. Not the chant. The result."
Mana responded to her like a hesitant animal—trickling at first, then gathering as her focus tightened on that remembered end-state. No internal recitation this time, just the muscle memory of survival.
The shield snapped up again.
Faster. Uglier around the edges. A little lopsided.
But it arrived before I counted to one.
Amber's eyes widened. "I didn't— I didn't run the words."
"Exactly," I said.
The construct flickered, then failed, but she barely noticed. She was staring at her empty hand like it had told a joke without her.
"That's… instant casting without the scaffold," she breathed.
"Almost," I said. "You still leaned on the memory of the chant. But you let the structure lead instead of the syllables. That's what I want you to practice."
She looked up at me, frustration and hope wrestling in her eyes.
"And the way you do it?" she asked. "When you cast without anything? When the air just… listens?"
Too soon.
"Different process," I said. Not a lie. Just not the whole thing. "Requires more grounding than you've got right now. If you push for it before your core settles, you'll tear something vital."
Her jaw tensed. "You mean I'll blow myself up."
"At best," I said.
She tried to laugh and failed.
"Amber," I said, softer. "You are not behind. You are not late. You were thrown off a cliff with a faulty glider, and you still landed in one piece. Taking three months to rebuild your wings isn't something to be ashamed of."
Her shoulders sagged, some of the defensive angle bleeding away.
"I just…" She chewed on the words. "…I don't want to be dead weight when everything starts."
"It already started," I said. "You saw the news."
Her mouth pressed into a thin line. Of course she had. Governments turning on Guilds. Artemis slammed as a traitor and a tyrant in the same breath. Kids like her painted as brainwashed victims instead of people who got a second chance.
"The world doesn't get to decide what you are," I said. "But the Sea doesn't care about your feelings either. It only cares if you understand what you're doing."
I stepped back, out of the circle, letting the pressure ease.
"Practice the shield this way," I said. "No chant. Just the shape and the end-state. Do it until your body stops looking for the words. When that stops feeling like cheating…"
I let the sentence hang.
"Then?" she asked.
"Then we'll talk about what comes after 'instant,'" I said. "And about how to bend astral energy without snapping yourself in half."
Her fear didn't disappear. It settled into something sharper. Focus, not panic.
She nodded once, turned back to the center of the circle, and raised her hand.
This time when the mana moved, it listened a little closer.
Outside, somewhere far above the warded ceiling, the world argued about monsters, traitors, and lost children.
Down here, in a circle of chalk and burned sigils, one of those children rebuilt her wings.
And I made sure she did it without falling apart.