"No. ...Speak. ...Say that again. I command you."

Servend whispered. Not in centuries had a look of awe so effortlessly taken over his features. He withdrew the gilded mask concealing his lower face, golden eyes utterly fixated.

The dirt and muck caked along your form did little to mask the vivid expression on your face. That wasn't supposed to be the case. The dead were dead. Even summoned, they had no mind, no will, nor memories...no voice.

They were objects. Better yet, tools. Servend had come to disassociate them to the lives they used to cling to.

Yet the blank grave at his feet stood otherwise. Truth be told, he'd only summoned you in passing to steal your lifeforce and throw you away.

But the brittle hands and blank eyes rising from that grave held onto an emotion Servend hadn't understood for ages.