It had been a week since Frankie had evolved.
Not a dramatic week.
Not a violent one.
Just seven days of returning, again and again, to the ruins beyond the walls. Seven days of learning how to breathe in a body that felt subtly wrong in all the right ways. Seven days of pretending nothing had changed.
The first run after they'd returned from the fortress had been cautious. Quiet. Rafe had insisted on shorter routes, smaller targets, faster retreats. No one argued. Not after seeing how close the first expedition had come to disaster.
But success bred hunger.
By the fourth outing, caution had loosened. They knew the paths. They knew where scavengers nested. They knew which streets collapsed under weight and which rooftops still held. They moved like a unit now, a machine. A dangerous one.
Always the same group.
Rafe. Luca. Yara. Tomas. Frankie.
And now Marco too.
He still walked with a cane. His injured leg dragged slightly when he grew tired. No temple healer had offered divine favour to fix what a rat-class scavenger had broken, not for an auxiliary, not for a nobody. But Marco refused to stay behind. He joined three of the last four runs, limping through the Death Zone with stubborn pride and a rusted spear he treated like a holy relic.
He knew his limits. He stayed back. Watched exits. Guarded retreat paths.
And he never once asked Frankie how she kept returning without a scratch.
That was the rule now.
You don't ask Frankie questions.
Because questions led to priests.
And priests led to gods.
And Frankie did not intend to become a story told in a temple.
Two days ago, they'd gone out again.
The route was familiar enough that Rafe didn't bother pretending it was brave. He walked ahead like he owned the streets, pack slung high, chin up, one hand on the hilt of his knife as if the air itself might challenge him.
"Same drill," he'd said at the gate. "In and out. No hero nonsense. If you see a Maw, you run. If you see anything with wings, you pray."
Marco had muttered, "I don't pray."
Rafe had smirked. "Then don't die."
They moved through the ruins of old Milan with practiced silence.
Frankie felt the Death Zone before it appeared. The shift in air. The way the sound of the city died behind them as the outer streets gave way to broken concrete and leaning buildings. It always felt like stepping into someone else's abandoned home.
The others scanned the streets like prey.
Frankie scanned them like a hunter.
Not because she wanted to.
Because she had to.
Tomas found the first haul, a collapsed delivery van wedged sideways between two cracked walls.
"Look," he whispered, voice bright despite himself.
Yara was already prying at the back door with a crowbar. Luca stood guard. Marco stayed near the rear, cane planted, spear angled toward the alley they'd come from.
Rafe watched Frankie.
Not openly. He was too smart for that now.
But Frankie felt it anyway. That weight behind her shoulder. That measuring.
Rafe didn't know what she was.
But he knew she was the reason they kept coming home.
The van door gave with a groan.
Inside: sealed plastic crates.
Rafe's grin flashed in the grey light. "Now that's a blessing," he said, and then corrected himself automatically, because the world had taught everyone to speak in gods.
"May Zeus smile on us," he added, like a habit.
Frankie didn't answer.
She reached into the first crate and pulled out cans still intact, labels faded but legible. Tomatoes. Beans. Soup. Old-world food that shouldn't have survived this long… but sealed metal was stubborn, like cockroaches, like humans.
Like her.
They loaded quickly. Efficient. Quiet.
And that's when Frankie heard it.
A soft clicking under the rubble to their right.
Rat-class.
Small. Fast. Hungry.
The sound was faint enough that none of the others caught it.
Frankie did.
She stepped back from the van and angled her body just slightly, as if checking the street. As if she was doing the job Rafe expected of her.
Luca's eyes flicked to her.
A question.
Frankie gave him the smallest nod.
Luca didn't speak. He shifted his stance. Put himself between the group and the alley without drawing attention.
Marco tightened his grip on the spear.
Rafe saw the movement and frowned. "What is it?"
"Nothing," Frankie said calmly.
It wasn't nothing.
The rats moved beneath the broken stone like water under ice.
Frankie couldn't let them reach the group. Not here, not in the open, not where everyone would see what she could do.
So she slipped away.
Not a dramatic leap. Not a blur.
Just a quiet step into the shadow of a collapsed storefront, hood low, daggers ready.
Two rat-class scavengers crawled out from beneath a shattered display case. Pale segmented plating, eyeless heads, jaws splitting too wide. They moved low and fast, like twisted dogs with too many joints.
They smelled the group.
They turned toward the sound of life.
Frankie didn't let them.
She moved in.
One clean slash.
Rend didn't announce itself with flame or lightning. It wasn't a blessing. It was refusal reality denying the rat the right to remain whole.
The first scavenger split soundlessly, ash drifting like grey snow.
The second hesitated.
That half-second was all she needed.
Frankie drove her dagger through the joint where plating met core. The blade bit, and her will followed it.
Rend.
The rat collapsed into ash.
Frankie exhaled slowly.
Inside her chest, the demonic mark over her heart pulsed once subtle, hidden, like a heartbeat that didn't belong to her.
Dominion flowed in.
Not optional. Not asked.
Taken.
Frankie's body accepted it the way lungs accepted air.
She waited a heartbeat longer for the ash to settle, then stepped back into the street as if she'd never left.
The others were still loading the van.
Tomas didn't look up. Yara didn't notice. Marco stayed alert but didn't speak.
Rafe's eyes met Frankie's.
He knew.
Not exactly what.
But enough.
He said nothing.
That was the bargain between them now.
Rafe got rich.
Frankie stayed hidden.
By the time they returned inside the walls that afternoon, their packs were heavy and their faces were carefully blank.
Temple clerks recorded their names. Guards in divine-marked armour inspected their haul. A priest muttered blessings over the crates as if words could purify hunger.
Rafe played the game, smiling, nodding, using the right phrases.
"For Thor's sake, we nearly lost a crate in the alley."
"May Zeus keep the gates strong."
Frankie watched the priest's hands hover over the goods and wondered, not for the first time, what would happen if those hands touched her mark. If a god-blessed priest ever saw what lay beneath her skin.
Would they call her a demon?
Or would they call her a disease?
Either way, she wouldn't be allowed to live.
So she kept her head down.
She did what she'd always done.
She survived.
Enough canned food filled their storage shelf now to last half a year. Enough sealed water to stop counting each swallow. Enough old-world metal, coins, and temple-trade scraps sold in the market to pay their rent for months.
They were still nobodies.
But they were nobodies who ate every day.
And in the lower districts, that mattered more than divine blessings.
Frankie stood at the apartment's single window, watching the street below. Children ran barefoot between vendor stalls. A priest of Athena lectured a small crowd about duty and virtue. A god-blessed courier flashed silver Hermes-marked boots as he vaulted a cart without slowing.
A world powered by favour.
A world that had never favoured her.
Behind her, Sofia sat cross-legged on the bed, wrapped in the oversized winter jacket Frankie had brought back from the fortress. The sleeves covered her hands. The collar reached her chin. She looked like a sparrow hiding in a nest.
"You're doing the stare again," Sofia said.
Frankie turned from the window.
"Just thinking."
"About the Academy?"
Frankie's smile was small.
"Yes."
Tomorrow, she would walk through the marble gates of Grecko Academy again. Back among the children of wealthy families and divine-chosen bloodlines. Back to lessons in scripture, combat drills for the gifted, and polite reminders that people like her were there by charity, not right.
She would walk in as Francesca Rinaldi.
Ungifted. Ordinary. Replaceable.
Sofia watched her carefully.
"You're not going back out there tonight, right?"
Frankie shook her head.
"Not tonight."
Sofia relaxed immediately. She never asked about the runs. Never demanded details. She only needed one truth.
That Frankie always came back.
Frankie sat on the edge of the bed and tugged Sofia closer, tucking the jacket around her properly.
"You're warm?" Frankie asked.
Sofia nodded, then paused, eyes narrowing. "You're… different."
Frankie's fingers stilled for half a second.
"Different how?"
Sofia shrugged. "Like… you don't look tired anymore. But you still act tired."
Frankie let out a soft breath that could have been a laugh or a warning.
"You're imagining things."
Sofia leaned closer. "No. I'm not."
Frankie pressed her forehead gently to Sofia's.
"Tomorrow," Frankie whispered, "I'll be careful."
Sofia's hands gripped Frankie's sleeves.
"You always say that."
"And I always come back," Frankie said.
Sofia nodded slowly, accepting it the way children accepted impossible truths.
Later, as evening lanterns lit the streets, Frankie met Luca in the narrow alley behind their building.
He leaned against the wall with his spear resting over his shoulder. The lamplight caught the lines of old bruises along his arms. Scars earned the honest way by standing in front of danger when others could not.
"Rafe called another run," Luca said. "Two days from now. Same route. Same timing."
Frankie nodded.
"Marco's coming again," Luca added. "He says he's not a burden."
Frankie snorted quietly.
"He is. But he's our burden."
Luca smiled faintly.
They stood in companionable silence for a moment, listening to the city breathe. Music from a tavern. Laughter. A distant prayer chant drifting up from a street shrine.
Then Luca said, "After the next run, we go back to the Academy."
He said it like a fact. Like gravity.
Frankie exhaled.
"Yes."
The Death Zone was honest. Monsters came at you with claws bared.
The city was not. Smiles hid hierarchy. Politeness hid cruelty. Blessings hid chains.
Frankie preferred the ruins.
But Sofia needed walls. Food. Safety.
So Frankie would walk back into marble halls and bow her head like a good little nobody.
For now.
"You're quiet again," Luca said.
Frankie glanced at him.
"I'm deciding how long I can keep lying."
Luca studied her. Really looked.
"You don't have to tell me everything," he said. "But don't vanish."
Frankie held his gaze.
"I'm not going anywhere."
Not yet.
That night, Sofia slept quickly, worn out from laughter with neighbour children. The apartment grew still. The city hummed beyond the thin walls.
Frankie sat on the floor with her back against the stone, knees drawn up, arms resting loosely.
She touched the place over her heart.
Not an amulet.
A mark.
Nothing you could see unless you knew. Nothing you could steal. Nothing that could fall into the wrong hands.
It pulsed faintly beneath her skin, as if acknowledging her attention.
Frankie closed her eyes.
The system unfolded without sound.
Not loud. Not intrusive.
Just present.
A vast space of dim light and shadow. Panels layered upon panels. Paths branching into darkness. A structure far larger than anything she could yet touch.
One slot glowed clearly.
Ability: Rend.
Other ability slots sat greyed out, locked behind thresholds she could not yet see.
A servant panel.
Zero of three.
She didn't know what it meant. Only that the word servant carried the weight of choice and consequence.
A shop interface stretched further still.
Weapons. Armor. Relics. Chains. Rings. Masks.
All grey. All unreachable. Waiting.
Not because she lacked dominion.
Because she lacked knowledge.
Frankie opened her eyes.
Power was no longer the question.
Understanding was.
Outside, a temple bell rang the hour. Somewhere, a god-blessed noble laughed over wine. Somewhere farther, an angel's wings cut through clouds unseen.
And between those forces, in a small stone apartment above a noisy street, a girl born without favour sat quietly planning how to survive a world that had never planned for her.
Tomorrow, she would return to Grecko Academy.
She would bow. She would endure. She would hide.
And beyond the city walls, in the ruins of the dead world, something waited that only she could command.
Not human.
Not angel.
Not god-blessed.
Godless.
And growing.