Dust floated through the cathedral like ancient breath, light slanting in from high windows where stained glass once told holy lies.The circle was drawn not on stone, but in bone dust. A desperate mage knelt before it, fingers trembling, the incantation half-remembered, half-improvised.
He wasn't a proper magus. Just a scavenger. A survivor.
"This has to work. I have no other option left," Lucian said, half-sobbing. "I'll show them. Let them laugh. I'll show all of them."
He pulled a wrapped cloth from his bag and slowly began to unravel it, as if afraid the very act might damage what lay inside.
"This is the only thing I could take with me," he whispered.
A hilt emerged—no blade, just a weathered grip that looked like it had endured the passage of centuries.
"The only thing she could give me... before they took her," he breathed, tears slipping down his cheeks."I'll save you. Don't worry. Just wait for me a little longer."
He placed the hilt at the center of the summoning circle and stood.
"This is going to work," he told himself. "It has to."
Then, aloud—steady, but shaking—he began the chant:
"Let the circle be drawn in dust and blood—where saints wept and traitors cheered."
The circle sparked to life—faint lines of crimson light crawling across the bone dust, pulsing with heat. Lucian flinched, his breath catching.
"By bone unburied, and steel unbroken... answer my cry."
A low hum filled the cathedral. Wind stirred the dust around him, swirling inside the shattered building though no doors were open. The broken glass in the windows trembled in their frames.
"You who fought not for glory, but for survival."
The circle glowed brighter—too bright. Lucian shielded his eyes. The air grew thick, charged, as if the past itself were clawing through the veil.
"You who died nameless—yet became myth."
The temperature dropped. Frost spidered out along the cathedral floor. From the bone dust, black mist began to rise—silent, like smoke from an ancient battlefield.
"I call upon the oath-shattered, the fury-forged...The beast beneath Rome."
The circle erupted in flame-ringed light. The hilt levitated, slowly turning in place. A deep, guttural growl echoed through the air—too low to be human.
Lucian staggered back, face pale.
"It's working…"
"In the name of command, in defiance of silence—
Come forth, my Servant… Saber!"
The light exploded outward, throwing Lucian off his feet. The wind howled through the broken cathedral like a beast released from chains.
When the dust finally began to settle, a shadow stood within the circle—tall, broad, and still. Chains rattled faintly as it moved.
Then he heard the voice.
"Who calls me from death… to fight again?"