Dawn in Novara Prime didn't just arrive. It leaked.
First over the upper terraces, turning marble streets into mirrors and fountains into silver. Wealth woke slowly there, stretching under silk sheets while servants pulled back velvet curtains. Then the light spilled down stairways to the middle tiers, where shopkeepers wrestled iron shutters open and bakers already sweated over ovens.
Finally, it reached the gut of the city. Leaning tenements. Roofs held together by spit and prayer. Streets where you learned to run before you learned to speak. Frankie's home. A place she'd only see again if she played her cards right.
Unit Seven huddled in the square. No banners. No speeches. Just kids carrying packs heavy enough to fold them in half.
The gear made a miserable music—the dull clink of fuel cans, the whisper of salt sacks, rope slapping thighs. Frankie yanked her straps tight, feeling webbing bite into her shoulders, then rolled her weight to settle the load.
Luca stood beside her, retying the same knot again and again. A nervous habit.
"Sleep?" he asked.
"Like a baby," she lied.
Neither believed it. Around them, auxiliaries muttered prayers, stared at cobbles, or laughed too loudly at nothing. Fear wearing different masks.
The officer arrived. No parade armor. Just scuffed boots and a coat that had seen too many winters.
"Move."
They marched.
The climb dragged them through the city's layers. The air grew cleaner. Smells shifted from sewage and smoke to jasmine and running water. People stepped aside as they passed. Curious eyes. Guilty eyes. Relieved eyes. The auxiliary line meant danger was being sent away from them.
A merchant shut his stall. A mother pulled her child behind her skirts. A priest rang a tiny bell, muttering a ward—not for their safety, but his own.
Auxiliaries were bad luck given legs. Frankie kept her hood low. Mask tight. If she died out there, she wanted it clean. No stories. No pity. Just absence.
Up ahead, the blessed units moved like a parade. Fewer in number, larger in presence. Their armor drank sunlight. Priests whispered blessings that made the air shimmer.
They wouldn't step into the dirt today.
They were the last resort.
Heroes waiting behind walls while others bled first.
They passed the statues. Zeus. Poseidon. Hercules. Perfect stone gods who never worried about hunger.
At Hermes' feet, a little girl ran forward and placed a wilting blue flower. "Make daddy fast," she whispered. Her mother snatched her back, eyes wide with fear.
The flower died in the heat.
Then the wall.
Up close, it was a mountain of steel and sigils. Lightning danced between its towers. Not a barrier. A warning.
The Great Gate waited at its center. Ancient metal, pitted and scarred. Runes pulsed along its seams, thrumming in Frankie's bones.
The officer turned. "Northern ridge. Burn the rot. Map the shifts. Three days."
"And if we don't make it back?" someone asked.
"Then you've done your job."
No cruelty. Just arithmetic.
The gate began to open.
Metal shrieked. Stone groaned. A cold wind poured through, stinking of rot and old blood. Then came the sound—distant, hollow, wrong.
Frankie tightened her grip on her straps.
The blessed remained on the walls. Spears gleaming. Watching.
Auxiliaries were waved forward.
One by one, they crossed into grey. Air thick as water. Ground cracked and lifeless. No moss. No grass. Nothing living.
Luca stepped beside her. Silent. Present.
Behind them, the gate slammed shut. Sunlight vanished. Marble disappeared. The sound echoed for miles.
They were out.
No gods.
No walls.
Just horizon and wind and the taste of rust on her tongue.
Frankie drew a breath. The air burned.
If the world wanted her, it could come and try.