"Everyone, disperse into your groups for today!"
Carrying my spear, I ignore the teacher's order, already knowing I wasn't included. My usual partners—Alexis and Thomas—are missing. This is an individual class, and I've been quietly demoted to "assistant teacher who doesn't get graded."
Officially, I've never fought a Star Peak A–rank Death Knight alone.
Unofficially, Alexis and Thomas and I are already on someone's internal list. We're the problem children who passed a test we weren't supposed to, saw a Tear we weren't meant to, and somehow survived all of it anyway.
Compared to the general test given out by the Academy, these dungeon classes are loose. Each teacher decides how to explore with their own students.
I'm not a student here anymore.
I'm the experiment.
While the Academy is slowly switching to dragging more kids in younger—shifting away from only bringing in civilians in their high school and college years—my mother Artemis is already ten moves ahead, stripping out the "gentle introduction" idea entirely.
Where the state wants the same old "global and local history" lectures, she wants weapons.
We'll focus on weaponizing Odin.
My uncle's diaries. His personal notes. His mistakes.
With Lily leading the Society's research teams, her ability to track down copies of Odin's work—notes spread through trading, misplacement, and straight-up theft—means we've reclaimed almost everything that was already technically ours.
Almost.
I pause as a cluster of high C–rank dungeon wolves appear ahead, growling low as they fan out between the trees. They're today's test for the civilian students who survived Chiron's entrance exam.
They see monsters.
I see bait.
"Let's make this quick," I murmur, my spear resting lazy on my shoulder.
Fireballs arc from my free hand, streaking through the air. They hit the ground and trunks first on purpose, bursting into sheets of flame that force the wolves to dodge instead of die.
What I want is in the shadows.
The first evolved shadow wolf lunges for my blind spot, its body half-formed out of darkness. My training spear punches through it mid-air, pinning it to the ground. I use the impaled body as a club, swinging it to slam into the next two as they leap.
A shadow spike erupts from a tree's shade, angling for my spine. I seize control of it, flooding the shadow with higher output, twist its direction, and whip it sideways. It slams into the wolf trying to flank me behind the trunk.
One-handed, I spin the spear, the wooden shaft smacking another mid-air wolf out of its pounce.
I land lightly, boots skidding a little in the dirt, and glance around as a full pack of shadow wolves flows out from every edge of the clearing, ink-dark shapes circling.
Good.
If this is what they're sending against kids who barely understand Astral basics…
Then we're already late.
Because one man went into the Sea to fix that.
And we're standing on top of the price he paid.
⟐
Odin POV
"This is your last chance to get the pardon. Just rewrite your diaries for your country to use."
He says it like it's dessert. Like I'm a stubborn child refusing cake.
The lights above my hospital bed buzz too loud. No one's bothered to hide the monitoring equipment for this little performance: heart rate on one screen, oxygen levels on another, Astral contamination ticker glowing quietly at my feet.
I look at the man in the suit.
No uniform. No traces of the Sea in his eyes. No scars from astral burns.
Baldur's latest liaison type. Close enough to power to think it belongs to him.
"Pardon for what this time?" I ask. "Existing?"
His jaw tightens a millimeter.
"You know the charges, Mr. Odin."
"Humor a dying man," I say. "Dying men forget things."
He opens a folder. Voice goes flat and official.
"Multiple counts of voluntary manslaughter and negligent homicide of registered Travelers, including members of the First Generation Explorer Corps who accompanied you beyond the Barrier. Sabotage of sanctioned negotiations with potential divine investors. Unauthorized destruction of high-value astral zones during wartime operations. The prosecution will argue you crippled humanity's future access to both resources and allies."
I let him finish, then huff a laugh that scratches my throat.
"You rehearsed that," I say. "Nice cadence."
"The scale of your decisions requires precision," he replies. "You didn't just seal a Tear. You killed legends. You ruined relationships with gods prepared to invest power in humanity. You destroyed rare astral worlds that could have been stabilized as resource hubs. And you did all of this unilaterally."
"'Investors,'" I repeat. "Is that what they're calling themselves now?"
He ignores the tone. "Your own notes describe them that way."
My gaze flicks to the stack of black notebooks on the metal tray at the foot of the bed.
My diaries.
Years of routes. Dead comrades. Gods with smiles like contracts. Worlds we fought over or burned. All compacted into paper and ink because someone asked.
"You ended lives," he says. "You offended beings that could have served as long-term patrons. You deliberately collapsed astral worlds that might never be accessible again. And then you wrote it all down in obsessive detail. Do you understand what kind of weapon that is?"
"I thought it was called a record," I say. "So the next idiot walking into the Sea doesn't make the same mistakes."
"Call it what you like," he says. "As it stands, those diaries are fuel. If we publish them as-is, we ignite a civil war in the Traveler ranks. If we bury them, we confirm every conspiracy on the networks. The compromise is simple: curation."
"Censorship," I translate.
"Perspective," he corrects. "We want to make your work usable. If you cooperate—if you help us create a clean, teachable narrative—then the charges are adjusted. First Gen deaths become heroic sacrifices instead of murders. Broken god-relations become prudent refusals instead of sabotage. The destroyed astral zones become necessary tactical denials instead of reckless vandalism. You avoid a verdict that brands you a mass murderer."
"And if I don't help," I say, "then I'm the butcher of the First Generation who scared away humanity's sponsors and torched paradise for fun."
He doesn't answer.
Outside this room, I can already hear them.
Younger Travelers who never left F–rank patrols, screaming into cameras about the "Dying Sun" who stole their future. Older explorers who hugged the safe corridors, clutching my name because they think if I'm vindicated, they get a slice of that myth.
None of them were in the rooms where gods offered me worlds in exchange for long-term ownership of our children.
"I've heard the noise," I say. "Kids calling me villain. Fossils calling me martyr. You're all arguing about a game you don't understand."
"You don't get to decide alone," he says. "That's the point. No single explorer owns the Sea, or humanity's relationship with it."
"Funny," I murmur. "The Sea seems to disagree. She only keeps the ones who can stand in front of her without lying to themselves."
He hesitates, just for a heartbeat, then presses on.
"Whatever philosophy you wrap it in, the reality is simple," he says. "We lost irreplaceable Travelers. We lost divine backers. We lost potential colonies. And you documented every choice—every refusal, every destroyed world, every insulted god—in those books. If we let that version circulate, the younger generation fractures. Half will want to worship the investor gods you rejected. The other half will refuse any alliance, ever. If we bury it, the older generation accuses us of whitewashing the truth. Your cooperation is how we keep both sides from tearing this society apart."
"You want to guide them," I say, "back into the same cages I burned."
"We want them alive," he snaps. "And united. You can still help with that. Work with our team, and your diaries become a foundation for doctrine. A warning and an inspiration. Your name goes down as the one who made impossible calls for humanity's sake. You get a contained sentence instead of life. No 'mass murderer' label. No formal stripping of posthumous honors."
I study him for a moment.
"Do you know how many nights I stayed awake writing those pages?" I ask. "How many times I forced myself to relive a decision so I could pin it down in words?"
He doesn't answer. It's not really a question for him.
"I recorded the offers those gods made," I say. "The exact phrasing. The pressure points. The fine print hidden inside the miracles. I recorded routes to worlds we had to burn because they were bait wearing paradise skins. I recorded every Traveler who died on those paths, and why."
"That's exactly why the diaries are so dangerous," he says. "Raw, unfiltered trauma is not doctrine. It's a recipe for rebellion."
I stare at the ceiling.
"When I started writing," I say quietly, "I told myself it mattered. That history mattered. That if we somehow made it out of this first era alive, someone would need more than statues and slogans to understand what it cost."
My fingers brush the nearest notebook.
"I detailed everything," I go on. "Every god's offer. Every betrayal. Every ugly decision. And now the sum total of that work, the reward for carving truth out of madness, is this."
I turn my head back to him.
"An offer," I say, "to turn it all into marketing copy in exchange for a lighter sentence."
Something in his expression flickers. Annoyance or guilt. Hard to tell.
"I will never," I say, "understand the purpose of detailing history if this is what you think it's for."
He opens his mouth, closes it, then settles on:
"History is what people can live with. Not what actually happened."
"There's your problem," I reply. "The Sea doesn't care what people can live with. It only cares what they can survive."