The camp had been restless since the ceremony. Not the restless of anticipation. The restless of people waiting for someone to tell them what came next. Gods stood in small clusters, speaking in low voices, their eyes drifting to the fractures. Angels patrolled the edges of the camp, wings half-spread, watching for threats that might not come. The healers worked. The runners ran. But no one moved forward.
Athena had been standing at the map table for hours.
The new map. The one she had rebuilt from memory. The silver lines flickered less now, but they still shifted. Still changed. Still refused to hold still long enough for her to understand them.
She had been running calculations in her head. The same calculations. Over and over. The numbers didn't change, but the fractures did. Every time she thought she had found a pattern, the pattern broke.
She needed a new approach.
Not a better map. A different way of thinking.
