Those Memories Are Mine

When the cell door closed again, Nino already knew he wouldn't be staying there for long.

The council had made its decision. Twenty-four hours in Solvar's mines, without interruption, extracting whatever he could to help rebuild the walls. After that, he would be handed over to Mezi.

At least, that was what the agreement said.

Nino sat on the floor with his back against the stone wall, going over every detail of the meeting. One's satisfaction. The King's composure. The ease with which Mezi had accepted a condition they should have considered humiliating.

Something was waiting for him in that mine.

The sound of the lock interrupted his thoughts. He raised his head, expecting to see the soldiers who would escort him to work, but only one person stepped through the door.

The King of Mezi entered alone.

He was still wearing the same black coat from the meeting, perfectly fitted across his shoulders, with the gemstone hanging from his necklace resting against his chest. Under the cell's dim light, its surface appeared even darker, almost absorbing what little glow reached it from the torches in the corridor.

Two guards remained outside. The King made a small gesture with one hand, and the door closed behind him. Nino didn't stand.

"Why?"

The King surveyed the cell before turning his attention to him.

"I came because there's a question I can't get out of my head."

"Only one?"

The remark drew no reaction.

"I'm the one asking you. Why?"

Nino remained silent.

The King took a few steps through the cell, showing no concern whatsoever about being alone with a man who, only days earlier, had moved a Colossus by himself.

"You had everything. A name that made armies retreat before you even drew your sword. Authority. Wealth. A position thousands of men would die trying to reach." He stopped in front of Nino. "And you decided to throw it all away."

Nino slowly raised his head.

"For a blind slave."

The chain around his wrist scraped against the floor. His jaw tightened.

The King smiled faintly.

"There it is. That's exactly what I don't understand. You abandoned a mission, turned against the Shadows themselves, disobeyed the Crown, and nearly died more than once. All for a child you didn't even know a few weeks ago."

Nino turned his attention to the wall ahead. He had asked himself the same question.

At first, Alicia was supposed to be nothing more than a temporary problem. A child he'd found along the way and would leave behind as soon as he had the chance. Instead, every step since then had taken him farther from the life he'd known. Perhaps because the farther he walked from it, the more of himself he recovered.

"I've been dreaming."

The smile disappeared from the King's face. Nino noticed.

"For a while now. At first, they were just fragments. Images that didn't make sense."

The King said nothing.

"Two people kneeling in front of me. A man and a woman. Blood on the floor. They're asking me for forgiveness... or maybe I'm asking them. I can never tell."

The King remained still, but something in his expression had changed. Nino continued.

"For years, I thought they were only dreams. Then they started to feel like memories."

"And now?"

Nino took a moment before answering.

"I remember them."

The King tilted his head slightly.

"Your parents?"

"Yes."

The silence lasted only a second before the King's serious expression dissolved into a mocking smile.

It wasn't an immediate burst of laughter. First came a short breath through his nose, almost as though he were trying to suppress it. Then another. Within seconds, he was laughing openly.

Nino stood. The chains pulled taut with the movement.

"What's so funny?"

It took the King a few moments to regain his composure.

"You actually believed that."

"Believed what?"

The smile remained on his face.

"Those people weren't your parents."

Nino froze. The King held his gaze.

"Those memories aren't yours."

For a moment, the only sound in the cell came from one of the torches crackling outside. Nino felt something tighten inside his chest.

"What did you say?"

"You heard me." The King touched the stone hanging from his neck. "They're mine."

Nino's eyes widened.

"The man. The woman. The blood. The fear. All of it happened. It simply didn't happen to you."

Nino's fingers slowly curled into fists. The King walked toward the opposite wall.

"I was much younger when I found this. Young enough to still believe the world hid extraordinary things just waiting to be discovered."

He held the stone between his fingers.

"A Primordial Stone of Noctrium."

Nino had known stories about Noctrium since childhood. Ancient mines, weapons capable of withstanding absurd amounts of Pulse, legends of deposits that existed before the Four Nations themselves. But he had never heard that name before.

"When I first touched it, I thought I was losing my mind. It didn't speak the way we do. There was no voice. And yet, I could hear it." The King studied the stone. "Not with my ears. With my Pulse. The energy that lives within and connects every living thing."

His expression took on something Nino had rarely seen in him.

"For the first time, I could feel beyond my own body. People. Animals. The roots beneath the earth. Something flowed through every living thing, as if the entire world breathed through the same energy. And that stone was connected to all of it."

Nino remained silent.

"It could give me what I desired most. But nothing of true value is ever given freely."

"What did it ask for?"

The King looked at him.

"Something of equal value."

Nino felt his stomach tighten before he even heard the rest.

"I loved my parents, you know."

The casual way he said it was worse than any smile.

"Especially my father. I admired him more than any man I've met since."

The blood. The two kneeling figures. Nino felt the memory rising again, but this time he tried to force it away.

"Stop."

"It worked precisely because I loved them."

"Stop."

"If they had meant nothing to me, they wouldn't have been valuable enough."

Nino stepped forward. The chains pulled tight, and the Noctrium lit with golden lines as it reacted to the pressure of his Pulse.

The King didn't move.

"I killed them both."

The image tore through Nino's mind. The kneeling man. The woman. Blood spreading across the floor. For years, he had awakened carrying a guilt he could never explain. And none of it belonged to him.

"What did you ask for?" Nino asked.

The King smiled.

"Control."

A single word. And yet, for the first time, countless pieces began falling into place.

"People are curious creatures," the King continued. "They like to imagine their decisions come from some untouchable place within themselves. Some essence no one else can reach. But change what a person remembers, and you change what they believe. Change what they believe, and you can change the way they see the world."

Nino felt a chill unrelated to the poison run through his body.

"You control people."

"No." The answer came immediately. "Puppets are useless. I can influence someone's will. Strengthen a fear, weaken a doubt, erase certain memories or replace them with others. I can make someone perceive a situation differently than they normally would. But I cannot turn just anyone into anything I want."

The King stepped closer.

"In the end, the choice is still theirs."

Nino stared at him.

"How many of my memories did you alter?"

"Many."

"How many of my choices?"

"Now that's a much more interesting question."

The King stopped in front of him.

"I gave you memories. I gave you reasons to hate. Reasons to obey. I built the world that existed inside your head before you were old enough to question it. But every time you raised that sword..."

He pointed at Nino.

"That was you."

Nino's jaw tightened. Faces passed through his mind. People in chains. Houses destroyed. Men and women on their knees. Children torn from their parents while he carried out orders in Mezi's name. There was no simple magic that could erase any of it. And somehow, that hurt even more.

"Why?"

"Because you needed to become what I had created."

"Then who are my parents?"

Nino frowned. The King seemed to enjoy his confusion.

"Do you know why you have no memories of your past? Because you don't have a past. You must remember being raised in the castle. You must have developed something almost paternal in the way you admired me. And do you know why?"

He stepped closer until only a few paces separated them.

"You're my son. An anomaly I spent years planning."

Nino didn't react. Not because he hadn't heard him. For several seconds, the words simply couldn't find a place inside his mind.

"No."

"It's true."

"No."

"Do you think someone like you simply appeared out of nowhere?" The King began pacing again, speaking as though describing a successful experiment. "I spent years searching for women with exceptional natural affinity for Pulse. Some showed promising traits. Others were disappointing. There were children before you. There were children after."

The air in the cell suddenly felt heavy.

"None of them came close."

The King looked at him with something that, on another man, might have been mistaken for pride.

"You were the result I had been searching for."

Nino remained still.

"Even as a child, your body could withstand amounts of Pulse that would have killed grown men. You learned quickly, recovered quickly, grew stronger every year. So I began shaping you."

"Shaping..."

"Training. Conditioning. Memories. Some yours, some altered, some mine. I needed to create something more than a soldier." The smile returned. "I needed Zero."

Nino looked down at his own hands. How much of what existed inside him was truly his? His name? His memories? The reasons that had made him raise a sword for the first time?

"Then why did I start remembering?"

This time, the King took a little longer to answer.

"Because you became too strong."

Nino raised his head.

"Pulse doesn't exist only to destroy things. It protects the body. Responds to interference. Adapts. The stronger yours became, the harder it was to keep certain things where I had placed them. Memories began to bleed into one another. Some came back. Others became distorted."

"The dreams."

"Your own body trying to separate what belonged to you from what I put inside you."

Nino closed his eyes for a moment. Then one question rose above all the others.

"My mother."

The King remained silent. Nino opened his eyes.

"Who is she?"

"It doesn't matter."

The chains rattled.

"It matters to me."

"I don't know where she is."

"What happened to her?"

The King shrugged.

"After you were born, she was no longer useful."

Nino felt his Pulse react before he could stop it. The golden lines running through the chains flared to life.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?"

"She was sold."

For a moment, Nino stopped breathing.

"As a slave?"

"Yes."

The answer came without hesitation.

"Where?"

"I truly don't know. It happened shortly after you were born. Many years ago. She probably ended up in Nhalor."

Nino knew the name. Everyone did.

Beyond the Four Nations lay lands that rarely appeared on official maps. Regions from which few ever returned, surrounded by contradictory stories passed between merchants, soldiers, and slaves. Nhalor was one of them. Slaves who were no longer useful were often sent beyond the borders.

"If she survived, she should be happy. Officially, she was given her freedom."

Nino slowly raised his head.

"Freedom?!"

"A beautiful word solves many political problems."

Something inside Nino wanted to cross the distance between them. Break the chains. Wrap his hands around that man's throat. But another part of him was still trying to survive the weight of everything he'd just heard. The King watched him for several seconds.

"Don't make that face. You should be proud."

Nino gave a single humorless laugh.

"Proud?"

"You were my greatest success."

The words destroyed any possibility of Nino seeing something paternal in the man before him. There was no father standing there. Perhaps there never had been.

"A project," Nino said.

The King didn't deny it.

"A weapon."

Silence.

"My finest weapon. The greatest Hero of the Four Nations."

Nino raised his eyes.

"And now?"

"Now you're a weapon that decided to point itself at its owner."

The King walked toward the door.

"Mezi cannot allow that."

"So you're going to kill me."

"Naturally. This will be the end of you. I won't be there to watch. It would pain me to see it."

"And then?"

"I'll keep focused on my mission."

The simplicity of the answer made Nino understand that, to this man, decades of his life could be discarded like a broken sword.

The King knocked twice on the door. Before the guards could open it, Nino spoke.

"You'd better kill me now..."

The King stopped. Nino rose to his full height. Even wounded, poisoned, and bound in chains, his presence filled the small cell.

"Because I'm going to destroy everything you've built."

The King looked back at him over his shoulder.

"Mezi. The Shadows. Whatever it is you're searching for with that stone." Violet Pulse began to seep faintly around Nino's arms. "I'm going to take all of it from you."

For several seconds, neither of them moved. Then the King smiled. There was no concern on his face. If anything, he almost looked satisfied.

"It's good to see that at least one part of you remains exactly as I intended."

The door opened. The King stepped into the corridor, then stopped in the doorway.

"Ah, I almost forgot."

"..."

"That girl."

Nino's fingers curled into fists. The King noticed.

"Ali... Alina... what was it again?" He placed a hand against his head as though struggling to remember. It was nothing more than a mocking gesture. "Ah! Alicia, wasn't it? The Shadows informed me. They've been investigating those children you protected."

The Pulse around Nino intensified. The King's smile widened just enough for Nino to understand that the reaction was exactly what he'd wanted. Then he finished:

"I'll find her."

The door closed between them.