**Chapter 40 – The Hidden Cities** Sunday, June 6, 2028 – 2:07 a.m. (Shambhala local time)**
We're in the Starlight Library (a cavern so big the ceiling is literally the night sky of another dimension).
Rowan spreads an ancient map across a table carved from a single piece of meteorite.
Seven glowing sigils pulse on the parchment.
Shambhala is already dim (they just surrendered, after all).
The other six are still bright.
**Rowan (quiet, serious for once):**
"Shambhala was the oldest and strongest.
They wanted the crown sealed.
The others… have different plans."
He taps each sigil in turn.
1. **Agartha** – beneath the Gobi.
"They want the crown worn. By their chosen king. They'll try to crown you by force if they have to."
2. **Telos** – under Mount Shasta.
"Lemurian holdouts. They think the crown belongs to the 'rightful bloodline'—theirs. They're polite until they're not."
3. **Paititi** – deep Amazon.
"Gold-obsessed Incan remnant. They'll offer you literal mountains of treasure to hand it over. Then take it if you refuse."
4. **The Hollow Earth Choir** – Antarctic gate.
"The ones who taught the Severed Circle. They want the crown shattered again—this time into dust."
5. **Thule** – Arctic ice.
"Old Nazi occultists who never died. They want the crown for a 'new reich.' Hard pass."
6. **Xibalba** – Yucatán cenotes.
"Death lords. They believe the crown is a key to open the underworld permanently. They'll try to kill you and wear your skin."
I stare at the map, crown spinning slow and angry above my heart.
**Celeste:**
"So… every hidden city on Earth either wants to cage me, crown me, buy me, dust me, Nazi me, or skin me.
Cool. Cool cool cool."
Seras leans over my shoulder, reading upside-down.
**Seras:**
"Field trip itinerary?"
Kayo's tails lash.
**Kayo:**
"I vote we start with the Nazis and work our way down."
Remy cracks his neck.
**Remy:**
"Seconded."
Rowan folds the map.
**Rowan:**
"They felt the crown complete.
They're already moving.
Shambhala just bought you breathing room—about six months before the first delegation arrives in Hot Springs pretending to be 'friendly.'"
I trace the glowing sigils with one finger.
**Celeste (quiet, dangerous):**
"Then we don't wait six months.
We finish summer break, I turn seventeen, and then…"
I look up at my crew (fire, coyote, fox, oni, monk, queen).
**Celeste:**
"We go on the offensive.
One city at a time.
They want the crown?
They'll have to go through all of us."
The crown flares crimson-gold, delighted.
Rowan actually smiles (sharp, proud, four centuries of mischief).
**Rowan:**
"Road trip: the world tour edition."
Seras cracks her knuckles; tiny suns ignite between her fingers.
**Seras:**
"I call dibs on burning the Nazis first."
Kayo's tails curl like a cat who just spotted seven very expensive vases.
**Kayo:**
"I'll bring souvenirs."
Remy kisses my temple.
**Remy:**
"Happy early seventeenth, storm queen.
Looks like the party's global."
I grin into the starlight ceiling.
Six hidden cities.
One completed crown.
One very pissed-off sixteen-year-old with the best crew on the planet.
Let them come.
We're not defending anymore.
We're touring.
And every mountain, jungle, desert, and ice cap that stands in our way?
They're about to learn the same lesson Shambhala just did.
You don't cage the storm.
You kneel—or you burn.
Summer just got interesting.
Try to keep up.
**Chapter 5 – The Eighth Sigil**
–Sunday, June 6, 2028 – 3:11 a.m. (Shambhala local time)**
Rowan finishes rolling up the meteorite map, then pauses.
**Rowan (quiet):**
"There's an eighth city.
They don't put it on the official maps anymore.
Even Shambhala pretends it sank and stayed sunk."
He taps the empty space in the center of the table.
A new sigil ignites—deep indigo, shaped like a trident wrapped in a spiral.
**Rowan:**
"Atlantis.
Still alive.
Still pissed.
And the only ones who ever managed to break a crown-bearer in half and live to brag about it."
The temperature in the Starlight Library drops ten degrees.
Seras whistles low.
**Seras:**
"The OG lost city wants to play?"
**Rowan:**
"They didn't just want the crown sealed or worn.
They wanted it weaponized.
When the first bearer refused, Atlantis tried to drown the world to prove a point.
The crown shattered itself to stop them.
That's why there are forty-seven pieces instead of one solid ring."
I stare at the trident sigil pulsing like a heartbeat.
**Celeste:**
"So they're the reason this whole mess started."
**Rowan:**
"Exactly.
And the second they felt forty-seven pieces become one again…
they woke up."
He meets my eyes.
**Rowan:**
"They're not coming to Hot Springs with polite envoys and tea.
They're coming with tidal waves."
Kayo's tails bristle.
**Kayo:**
"Let them.
Foxes hate getting wet, but we love drowning empires."
Remy's claws extend on reflex.
**Remy:**
"Guess the world tour just got a beach episode."
I trace the Atlantis sigil with one finger.
The crown above my heart flares—angry, protective, ready.
**Celeste (soft, deadly):**
"Good.
Let them come.
I've got forty-seven reasons to finish what the first bearer started."
The trident sigil flares brighter, like it heard me.
Somewhere beneath an ocean that still remembers how to hold a grudge, something ancient stirs.
Eight hidden cities.
One very annoyed storm queen who just added "sinking Atlantis—again" to her summer bucket list.
Bring the flood.
I've got lightning.
And this time, the world isn't drowning.
Atlantis is.* The Weight of 40%**
– Sunday, June 6, 2028 – 4:02 a.m. (Shambhala local time)**
The Starlight Library is empty now except for me and the echo of eight sigils burning themselves into my retinas.
I'm sitting cross-legged on the meteorite table when Dacia's voice slides into my skull like warm blood and old thunder.
**Dacia (quiet, ancient, terrified):**
*Atlantis is older than me, child.*
*Older than the crown itself.*
*I mastered one hundred percent of the Vinča tongue and I was still no match.*
*You are holding the full crown at forty percent.*
*Forty percent is a candle against a tsunami.*
*They are coming, and we do not have the centuries I needed.*
The crown above my heart flickers—uncertain for the first time since it completed.
I swallow.
**Celeste (whisper):**
"Then what do we do?"
**Dacia:**
*We cheat.*
*There is one path left that even Atlantis fears.*
*The Deep Script.*
*The forty-eight percent that was sealed away when I shattered the crown to spite them.*
*It was never meant to be spoken again.*
*But you are not the first bearer.*
*You are the last.*
*And you have something I never did.*
I feel her smile inside my bones.
**Dacia:**
*You have love that refused to break.*
*That is the key the old oceans never understood.*
She presses a single memory into my mind:
A hidden chamber beneath the cedar orchard in the mist-space.
A black stone tablet dripping with symbols that hurt to look at.
Forty-eight percent locked behind a door that only opens for someone who has already forgiven their own reflection.
**Dacia (soft, urgent):**
*Go there. Now.*
*Take your court.*
*If you can speak even one line of the Deep Script before Atlantis surfaces, you will not need to surpass me.*
*You will surpass the sea itself.*
The connection fades.
I'm alone again, heart hammering, crown spinning so fast it hums.
Forty percent.
Sixty to go.
And the oldest city on Earth is already swimming toward me.
I stand up.
**Celeste (out loud, to the empty library, to the mountains, to the coming flood):**
"Then we don't wait for the water."
I open a portal straight to the mist-space orchard with my own blood and will.
**Celeste:**
"Family meeting.
We're learning how to drown an ocean."
The cedar tree is waiting.
The black tablet beneath it is already bleeding starlight.
Sixty percent in one night?
Impossible.
But I've made a career out of impossible.
And I've got the best crew in any world to help me cheat.
Atlantis wants a war with the sea?
Fine.
I'll teach the sea what happens when the storm learns to speak its true name.
Let's go to class. – The Deep Script** – Mist-Space Orchard, timeless**
The black stone tablet rises from the roots of the cedar like it's been waiting eight thousand years for me to show up.
The symbols carved into it aren't Vinča.
They're older.
Liquid.
Every glyph moves like water trapped in stone.
Dacia stands beside me, arms folded, looking younger and more afraid than I've ever seen her.
**Dacia (soft, almost embarrassed):**
*The Deep Script isn't mine.*
*It's Atlantean.*
*Poseidon himself gave it to Me first bearer when Atlantis tried to drown the world.*
*He… tried to help me the way Rowan helps you now.*
*He failed.*
*I still drowned half of Europe before the crown shattered itself to stop me.*
I stare at her.
Then at the tablet.
Then back at her.
**Celeste (deadpan):**
"Hold up."
I pinch the bridge of my nose.
"There are gods that are real?
Like… actual Greek gods?
Trident, seashells, dramatic hair, the whole package?"
Dacia actually winces.
**Dacia:**
"Not Greek. Older. The ones the Greeks watered down and gave better PR.
Poseidon, Hades, Nyx, the whole pantheon.
They're real.
They're awake.
And Atlantis is their favorite mistake."
Remy (stepping out of the portal behind me) blinks.
**Remy:**
"So when you say 'drown an ocean' you mean… literally piss off Poseidon?"
**Dacia:**
"Pretty much."
Seras whistles, impressed.
**Seras:**
"Been a while since we added 'fight a god' to the bucket list."
Kayo's tails fan wide, eyes glittering.
**Kayo:**
"I always wanted to see if fox-fire works underwater."
Rowan appears last, coffee mug in hand, looking like this is just Tuesday.
**Rowan (dry):**
"Technically, Poseidon's retired.
He owes me a favor from the 14th century.
Might come in handy."
I throw my hands up.
**Celeste:**
"Of course you know Poseidon.
Why am I even surprised anymore?"
Dacia lays a hand on the tablet.
The moving glyphs freeze, waiting for my touch.
**Dacia:**
"The Deep Script is forty-eight percent of the original tongue—before land and sea split the words.
If you can speak even one line of it, Atlantis will hesitate.
Two lines? They'll kneel.
All of it?
You'll be the first person in history who can tell the ocean 'no' and make it listen." Besides Poseidon himself.
She meets my eyes.
**Dacia:**
"Your court is your anchor.
Love is the cheat code the first bearer never had.
Use them.
Break the rules.
And whatever you do—
don't drown."
I step forward.
Place my bleeding palm on the black stone.
The glyphs drink.
The orchard floods with salt water that isn't wet.
And the lesson begins.
**Celeste (grinning into the tide):**
"Class is in session, Professor Poseidon.
Let's see if your old homework still works on a sixteen-year-old who's really good at cheating."
The Deep Script starts whispering my name in a voice older than continents.
I whisper back.
Game on, sea god.
Your move.