Morning at Grecko Academy smelled like incense and polished stone.
Even before the sun cleared the eastern towers, temple acolytes were already moving through the courtyards with brass burners and white cloths, wiping dust from marble as if cleanliness could ward off fear. The bells rang in layered tones. Zeus, Athena, Ares. Each peal rolling over Novara Prime like a reminder that survival was a gift, not a right.
Frankie walked through the gates with her satchel pressed close to her side and her head down.
She hadn't slept much.
Not because she was out in the ruins. She hadn't dared. Not after the ambush. Not after the ghost rumours started crawling through the lower districts like rats. But her body had refused to rest anyway, as if the danger had followed her back into the walls and was waiting in the corners of her room.
Inside the Academy, people moved differently today.
Too fast. Too bright. Too eager.
The gifted students were smiling.
Not the casual, lazy smiles of children who had never missed a meal. These smiles were sharper. Hungrier. The kind that came after a fight when you were still drunk on your own heartbeat and desperate for someone to clap.
Every corridor was alive with the same story told in ten different voices.
"Three Watchers fell in under a minute"
"No, it was five"
"I saw an Executor split the ground with its spear, I swear!"
"And then our unit pushed through and..."
"...and then Ares's blessed held the line..."
The details never matched. But the ending always did.
They had won.
Frankie kept walking, eyes forward.
No one stopped her. No one looked twice. No one cared that she'd been there too, just outside the doctrine, just beyond the frame of the official story.
Because auxiliaries weren't heroes.
Auxiliaries were scaffolding.
In the main courtyard, the Academy had assembled a stage.
It wasn't a real stage, not wood or cloth. It was Grecko's version of ceremony: a raised marble platform with gold inlay, draped in banners bearing divine sigils. Zeus's lightning. Athena's owl. Ares's spearhead. Hermes's winged sandals. Apollo's sunburst.
A line of priests stood at the front in white and gold robes. Behind them, instructors in polished armour. And between them, placed like offerings, were the medals.
They weren't simple metal discs.
They were temple-etched.
Blessed.
Small circles of bronze and silver that glimmered faintly in the morning light, each carved with a name and a god mark. A symbol that said, for the rest of your life:
The gods saw you.
Frankie took her place at the edge of the auxiliary section, near the back where ungifted scholarship students tended to stand. The other auxiliaries looked stiff, tired, wary. Many of them wore bandages. Some had fresh bruises. Some had that blank stare of people who were still hearing screams when the world went quiet.
She saw Luca near the left side of the crowd, closer to the front because his unit had been involved.
He looked worse than yesterday.
Not physically. His cuts were cleaned, his bruises fading.
But his eyes were different.
Older.
He'd seen too many people die for something they'd been told was manageable.
Marco wasn't here.
Frankie's chest tightened instinctively.
Then she reminded herself, Marco wouldn't be standing in the courtyard with academy students anyway. He wasn't enrolled. He was auxiliary. One of the ones who didn't wear the right crest to stand near marble.
If he'd survived… he'd be recovering somewhere quiet. Somewhere forgotten.
Frankie swallowed.
Don't pull at that thought, she told herself. Not here. Not now.
A priest stepped forward.
Priest Dorian.
Even from the back, Frankie could see the Zeus mark at his throat glint faintly as he lifted his hands to speak. His voice carried across the courtyard without effort, amplified by blessing.
"Students of Grecko Academy," Dorian intoned, "today we honour courage."
The word courage always landed wrong in a place where courage was often forced.
"Beyond our walls," Dorian continued, "the angelic host remains vigilant in its hatred. It calls us a virus. A stain. A blight on sacred order. But we are not helpless. We are not abandoned. We are defended."
He swept his gaze over the banners above them.
"Through the gods, humanity endures."
The gifted students straightened at that, pride on their faces like armour.
Frankie kept her expression calm.
Dorian spoke of the ambush without ever calling it what it was.
He called it a confrontation.
A deviation.
An unscheduled engagement.
He avoided the word trap like it was a heresy.
He described the auxiliary deployment as "a stabilisation mission." He described the strike unit's arrival as "timely intervention." He described the casualties as "honoured sacrifice."
Frankie's hands curled at her sides.
Honoured sacrifice was what you said when you wanted to make death sound like purpose.
Then the names began.
The first medals went to the gifted.
Always.
A boy with Apollo's sunmark received recognition for "precision support fire" even though Frankie had seen him shaking so badly he'd missed half his shots.
A girl with Athena's owlmark was commended for "tactical coordination" because she'd shouted retreat orders loudly enough that someone obeyed.
Then the Ares-blessed were called.
That was when the courtyard really woke up.
A cluster of students stepped onto the platform in polished armour, their faces flushed with triumph. The Ares mark on their skin glowed faintly as they accepted medals, war's blessing rewarded with war's applause.
The crowd reacted differently to them.
Not just admiration.
Reverence.
Ares's followers were the ones families talked about in taverns and temples. The ones used as examples. The ones spoken of like saints in a world that worshiped survival.
Frankie watched them take their medals and smile like they'd earned the sky.
One of them, Cassian Aurelius, stood near the side, his Hermes blessing making his movements too fluid, too confident. He wasn't receiving an Ares medal, but he was close enough to bask in their light.
He caught Frankie's gaze from across the courtyard.
His mouth curled into a grin.
As if to say, See? The world is mine.
Frankie looked away.
The ceremony went on.
More names.
More glory.
Then, finally, the auxiliaries were acknowledged.
Not individually.
Never individually.
Dorian raised both hands again, the gesture rehearsed.
"And to our auxiliary corps," he said, voice warm, "we offer gratitude. Your role is vital. Your service is the foundation on which divine victory stands."
A soft ripple of applause passed through the courtyard, polite, brief, already fading.
Frankie felt the humiliation of it like a familiar bruise.
Foundation.
Scaffolding.
Replaceable.
Dorian continued, "Let this day remind you of your purpose. To support. To endure. To retreat when commanded. To hold when ordered. To serve the gifted who stand between humanity and extinction."
Frankie heard what he didn't say:
And to die if needed.
Then the boasting began.
It didn't wait for dismissal.
It spilled out immediately, as if the medals had opened a valve.
Gifted students clustered in circles, replaying the battle as if they were discussing a match, not a slaughter.
"I took down an Executor," one Ares-blessed boy declared loudly, voice carrying. "Clean strike. Spear through the wing joint. Dropped like a stone."
Another student laughed. "Executors don't drop like stones."
"They do when you hit them right," the boy insisted, tapping his medal. "Ares guided my hand."
A nearby Athena-blessed girl nodded solemnly like she'd witnessed divine truth.
Frankie watched their faces.
She watched the way they looked at each other while talking.
It wasn't about accuracy.
It was about dominance.
Claiming kills was claiming status.
Claiming status was claiming future favour.
A second voice cut in, sharper, quieter.
"They were already damaged."
The words came from a boy with no visible blessing mark, one of the rare scholarship gifted, less rich, less adored. He stood slightly apart from the circle, arms folded, expression grim.
"They weren't flying right," he continued. "Their wingbeats were uneven. Like something had already torn the membranes."
The Ares-blessed boy scoffed. "Excuses."
"It's not an excuse," the unmarked boy replied. "It's a fact. Something hit them before we did."
The circle fell quiet for a beat.
Not because they were shocked.
Because acknowledging that meant acknowledging they weren't fully in control.
Then Cassian laughed lightly, stepping in as if smoothing the tension.
"Does it matter?" he said, flipping a coin between his fingers. "They fell. We finished them. The city sleeps tonight. That's what history records."
He smiled like the truth was a toy.
"The gods don't reward honesty," he added softly. "They reward results."
A few students chuckled.
The unmarked boy's jaw tightened, but he didn't argue again. He knew the rules here as well as Frankie did.
Truth wasn't currency.
Glory was.
Frankie turned away from the circle before the anger in her eyes gave her away.
She found Luca standing near a pillar, watching the crowd with a look that said he wished he could walk out of his own skin.
He didn't speak when she approached.
He didn't have to.
The noise around them made the silence between them feel louder.
"They're celebrating," Frankie murmured.
Luca exhaled through his nose. "They didn't see the worst of it."
Frankie glanced at him. "You did."
His eyes flicked toward the platform, toward the banners, toward the priests.
Then toward the auxiliary section.
Toward the blank faces.
Toward the people who would never receive medals because medals were for symbols, not bodies.
Luca's voice dropped lower.
"We were placed," he said.
Frankie kept her expression neutral, but her stomach tightened.
He looked at her. "You felt it too."
Frankie didn't answer.
Because answering meant confirming something dangerous.
Instead she said, "What are they saying about… the other part?"
Luca's brows knit slightly.
"The ghost?" he asked.
Frankie forced herself not to react.
Luca's mouth twitched like he didn't know whether to laugh or spit.
"They're making it into a joke," he said. "A story. A thing to brag about. Like it was some blessing that showed up to help them."
Frankie stared at the marble beneath her feet.
And that was the problem.
If the ghost became a "blessing," someone would start asking which god claimed it.
If someone asked which god claimed it, someone would start looking for a worshipper.
Someone like her.
Across the courtyard, two younger students were already mimicking the motion with their hands—slashing the air dramatically, pretending to cut wings off invisible angels. Their friends shrieked with laughter, calling them "ghost" and "shadow" and "ruin-witch."
Frankie's throat tightened.
They didn't know they were playing with something that could get people killed.
They were children.
And this city taught children that danger was either beneath them… or owed them.
The ceremony ended with another prayer.
Another proclamation of divine supremacy.
Another promise that Grecko Academy would produce the champions needed to end the angelic war.
And as the crowd dispersed, Frankie caught one more detail that made her blood cool.
Priest Dorian wasn't smiling like the others.
He wasn't pleased.
He was watching the gifted groups boasting.
Watching the auxiliaries drifting away.
Watching the way the stories fractured into versions.
His eyes narrowed slightly, like a man studying smoke and trying to decide where the fire actually was.
Frankie moved before his gaze could settle anywhere near her.
She slipped into the flow of students, head down, posture small, letting herself become part of the background again.
Invisible.
Forgettable.
Safe.
Behind her, the Academy celebrated.
In front of her, rumours grew teeth.
And somewhere outside the walls, angels would learn something from today too.
Not doctrine.
Not glory.
Not medals.
They'd learn that humans were becoming unpredictable.
And Frankie, who had no medal, no recognition, no name worth remembering, walked back into the halls knowing one thing with certainty:
The ceremony wasn't the end of the ambush.
It was the beginning of the story they'd use to justify the next one.