The morning sun bathed the palace gardens in golden light, but Atlas felt an inexplicable chill. He walked the winding path alone, eyes distant and clouded, as if searching for a piece of himself that had gone missing. Servants and guards bowed as he passed, yet their gestures barely registered in his mind. It was as though he were wading through a dense fog that muddled the boundaries between reality and memory.
Voices echoed in his head—fragments of conversations and laughter that should have anchored him, but now felt hauntingly foreign. One voice, more tender than the rest, resonated louder, sending a sharp pang through his chest. It was Leon's, woven with worry and warmth.
"Atlas, are you even listening?"
He stopped in his tracks, the memory crashing over him like a wave. It was a fleeting moment, an afternoon in the study where sunlight spilled across papers and ink-stained fingers. Leon's smile had been teasing, eyes bright with a mixture of exasperation and fondness. But even as the memory played out, it fragmented, dissolving into a haze of confusion.
"Why can't I hold onto it?" Atlas muttered, pressing the heels of his palms against his temples as if to force coherence back into his mind. Pain flared but clarity didn't follow.
Cecily's familiar figure emerged from a side path, her expression steely with determination. She paused, eyes searching his face with an intensity that made his stomach twist.
"Atlas," she said firmly, breaking the silence. "We need to talk. Now."
His jaw clenched, the urge to withdraw warring with an unnameable hope that she might hold the answers he couldn't find on his own.
"Then talk," he said, voice brittle.
Cecily stepped closer, locking her gaze with his. "We know what's happening to you. Leon suspects—no, he's certain—that someone from the Fleur Empire is behind this. They're trying to rewrite your memories, Atlas."
Atlas's breath caught, shock surging through him like lightning. The whispers, the sense of dissonance—all the puzzle pieces began to align in a picture that made his blood run cold.