Prologue: Up to Now
Two thousand years ago,fourteen men, gladiators and crew, were on a journey from Rome to Britannia. During roiling seas and endless storms, the ship sank, and the men were entombed in ice beneath the Norwegian Sea. They were meant to be forgotten—gladiators silenced by centuries.
But fate had other plans.
When, on a hunt for the two chests of gold rumored to be aboard the lost shipFortuna, archaeologist Laura Turner uncovered more than Roman treasure on a sunken Roman vessel. She found men—gladiators preserved in ice, still whole, still waiting. With modern science and the slightest nudge from fortune herself, those men woke again in a world they couldn’t begin to recognize.
Laura could have turned them into curiosities, relics to be sold to the highest bidder. Instead, she fell in love and gave them something they had never known: safety and, above all, freedom.
She created Second Chance Sanctuary in Missouri, a place where these men could learn language, technology, and the fragile art of trust. A place where they could discover that life was more than survival, and that love—impossible, miraculous love—was waiting for each of them.
This is where our story begins.
Chapter One
Draco
The coin rolls across my knuckles like quicksilver—flash, vanish, return. A trick I learned in Rome’s alleys to keep my belly full, now just habit while I size up marks.
And Union Square in the heart of New York City is full of marks.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" I call, voice edged with the kind of accent that makes girls lean closer. "Prepare to witness magic that baffled emperors and kings." If only they knew how little it takes to fool a man who thinks he can’t be fooled.
I palm the coin and let three more bloom out of nothing. Tourists film, students smirk, a businessman tosses a bill just to feel superior.
Phones track everything. One wrong angle, one scientist with ambition watching TikTok, and I’m back in a cage—this time with needles instead of chains. Guess that’s the price of freedom.
The city hums around me—louder, freer, more alive than Missouri ever was.
Don’t get me wrong. Laura Turner saved us. She rescued us from the ice, taught us English, gave us shelter when she could have sold us. I’ll owe her always. But the Sanctuary? It smothered me. Fields and fences, quiet nights. It felt like death wearing a friendly face.
While the others trained with swords or horses, I trained with screens—sitcoms, late-night, subtitles, the quick way people cut their sentences. I wasn’t hiding, though everyone at the Sanctuary assumed I was. I was studying. That’s why I sound like I belong here—I practiced until the lie felt true.
Survival’s the same in every century—learn fast, read people faster, and disappear until it’s time to be seen.
"Pick a card." I fan the deck, coin still dancing on my other hand. A girl in a Columbia sweatshirt grabs the seven of hearts. I knew she would. People announce their choices before they even speak—if you know how to listen.
I run the trick, and while the crowd laughs, I think of Titus. An old drunkard back in the slums of Subura. He had a cough like broken glass, and teeth like chipped tombstones in a graveyard. He taught me that sleight-of-hand buys bread, but belief buys loyalty.In exchange for knowledge, he demanded half my take. It was worth it. Kept me from starving.
"The real trick," he’d rasped, "isn’t hiding the move. It’s making them want to believe."
I didn’t care then. It was survival. But here, now? I feel it in the way the crowd leans forward, the way wonder flickers even in cynical eyes. For the first time, I realize I don’t justneedmagic. Iloveit.
I make the card reappear in her coat pocket—smooth, impossible, the kind of trick Titus said separates thievesfrom legends. She squeals, her friends shriek, and the sound hits me harder than applause ever did. For a breath, I almost believe the wonder myself.
"How did you know?" she asks, eyes shining.
"Magic, sweetheart. Ancient Roman magic."
The finale—four silver rings that knit and unknit in impossible shapes—brings down the house. Applause, bills in my hat, questions about parties and weddings. I smile, give them the stock line: trained under European masters, here’s my cell number. Close enough. My first master was a drunk in Rome, and he kept me alive.
By the time the crowd drifts, I’ve pulled in maybe fifty bucks. I fold my kit, drop the take into the leather pouch I stitched myself the way I did in Rome. Some habits survive centuries.
That’s when I feel the bump.
A brush at my ribs, light and practiced. The woman mutters, "sorry" and keeps walking. Before my brain even registers what happened, instinct takes over, and I check my pockets.
Empty.
