The Greko bells didn't just ring; they took a swing at the city. Heavy bronze thumping rolled through stone and bone alike. Up on the terraces, gold-veined glass probably softened it into something holy for the people waking on silk sheets. Down in the gutters of Novara Prime, it just meant another day had started.
She pulled the mask higher, the cheap fabric itching like penance against her skin.
The Academy gates were a nightmare of bodies. It smelled like high-end floral perfume mixed with the sour tang of parental anxiety. Kids in uniforms so stiff they looked carved out of starch strutted around, family crests catching the dawn light like bait. Their parents were worse—standing with chests puffed, already mentally spending the prestige of a Divine Mark.
She didn't try to push through. She drifted. If you moved with the shadows and kept your eyes on the cracked pavement, most people treated you like part of the architecture. Unseen, because noticing her meant acknowledging the rot beneath the marble.
The Academy itself was a jagged white tooth biting into the skyline. Massive banners for the Big Three—Zeus, Ares, Poseidon—snapped in the wind. They looked less like holy symbols and more like territory markers. She bypassed the grand entrance and took the service stairs, where the air smelled of wet earth and a century of tired lungs.
From the high balcony, the Chosen looked like toy soldiers lined in a box. Below them, private seating bloomed with silk umbrellas and the clink of glass.
An instructor—a man built like a brick wall sealed in bronze—stepped onto the dais. He carried a staff with a metal cage bolted to the top. Inside, a ball of lightning hissed and thrashed, making the air taste of burnt tin.
"The covenant holds!" His voice boomed, rattling the stones she leaned against. "The worthy rise. The rest serve. As it was, so it is."
The crowd roared. She waited for the theater to play out.
The first girl had hair like spun gold and a chin lifted high enough to be dangerous. The priest flicked water onto her brow. For a heartbeat, nothing. Then the water twisted, climbed her arm, and hardened into a shimmering blue bracer.
Then came the others. A blur claimed by Hermes. A boy whose footsteps cracked stone for Hercules. Power handed out to those already born close to it.
She watched with a flat, dry stare. They saw glory. She saw obligation inked into their futures.
The scribe who eventually reached her looked like he hadn't slept since the last era. Ink under his fingernails. Breath sour with early wine. He shoved a clipboard at her without looking.
"Name?"
She gave it.
"Sponsor?"
"None."
The quill stopped. He looked up through lopsided cracked spectacles. Took in the mask, the frayed cloak, the careful way she stood. For a moment, something like pity flickered—then vanished. His pen scratched a jagged line.
"Auxiliary. North Barracks. Dawn. If you're late, don't bother showing up. We've got enough bodies as it is."
He was gone before she could nod. No light. No cheers. Just a smear of ink confirming she was useful enough to die for the city, but not important enough to live for it.
The sky turned a bruised gold as the next roar of applause rose. She didn't stay. She turned her back on the gods and their light, slipping into the shadow of the service stairs. There were purses to cut and a stomach that didn't care about divine covenants.
The gods were awake.
They just weren't looking at her.
And that was the only reason she was still breathing.