That morning, Lyra found a single Black Petal at the bottom of an old widow's memory chest.
The other petals inside the chest were soft in color: red for love that had once burned bright, yellow for happiness, and blue for peace with sorrow. In Olyndra, Black Petals had never been acknowledged by memory-flower sellers.
The petal looked like a piece of night cut with unnerving precision—veinless, lightless, and scentless. Lyra gripped it with silver tweezers. The moment her skin accidentally brushed the petal's edge, her flower shop suddenly vanished.
She now stood in a palace hall engulfed in flames. The ceiling collapsed in a rain of embers.
At the far end of the room, a young man in a royal robe knelt with blood running from his temple. His face felt so familiar, but Lyra had no idea where she knew him from.
The young man looked at her as though the fate of the entire world depended on the answer Lyra would give.
“If one day you forget me,” Lyra said in that fragment of memory, though she knew she had never spoken those words, “don't trust anyone who claims to know you.”
The young man held out his hand. In his trembling palm lay a medal bearing the split-sun emblem—the proud symbol of Olyndra's royal family.
Then a strange voice whispered from behind the roaring flames.
“Burn the petal before he remembers his name.”
Lyra jolted awake. The wooden chest in her hands fell and shattered across the shop floor.
She gasped, her palms suddenly cold as ice. The Black Petal was still held between her tweezers, whole and untouched, as if the horrifying illusion had never happened. Outside the shop, the market bell rang seven times. People began filling the streets, carrying baskets of memory flowers to sell, trade, or bury with their owners.
Lyra quickly placed the mysterious petal inside a glass bottle. She had just sealed it with a stopper when someone knocked on the wooden door of her shop.
Three knocks. A pause. Two knocks.
The exact same pattern as the rhythm of her heartbeat when she had been inside that tragic memory.
Lyra felt for the stem-cutting knife beneath the counter, trying to calm herself. “The shop isn't open yet.”
“Then I came at the right time.”
A man's voice. Calm, yet far too exhausted to hide its despair.
Lyra didn't answer. She cautiously peered through a gap in the window curtain.
A young man stood beneath her shop's weathered sign. His hair was damp with the morning mist, and his clothes were extremely plain. Yet the way he stood straight, shoulders rigid, marked him as no ordinary man. His gaze remained fixed ahead, like someone accustomed to being watched by thousands of eyes.
And hanging around his neck was a gold medal bearing the split-sun emblem.
Lyra opened the door a crack, keeping the knife hidden behind her dress.
“Can I help you?”
The young man stared at her for a long moment, looking more deeply into Lyra's face than propriety allowed, before his eyes dropped to the hand poised to strike.
“My name is Elian,” he said.
The name trembled inside Lyra's head, setting off a loud ringing, as though a giant bell had been struck somewhere very far away.
“I'm looking for a memory-flower seller.”
“There are plenty of flower sellers in this city,” Lyra replied coldly.
“But only a few can find lost memories.” Elian stepped forward. When Lyra tried to close the door, Elian stopped it with his palm. His movement was incredibly weak, as if he might faint at any moment.
“I don't remember who I am,” Elian whispered. For the first time, the arrogance in his shoulders collapsed, leaving behind a vast, silent fear.
“I don't remember my home. I don't remember my family. And I don't know why everyone in the palace suddenly wants to kill me.”
Lyra looked at the gold medal around the young man's neck. “If you're a prince from the palace, why did you come alone to the outskirts of the city?”
“Because everyone who claimed to know me and protect me... has already tried to kill me.”
That answer should have made Lyra throw Elian out immediately for her own safety. But the image of the young man kneeling in the burning hall flashed through her mind again, along with the mysterious words echoing once more: Don't trust anyone who claims to know you.
Lyra drew a deep breath.
“Come in.”
Elian stepped into the shop. But as he crossed the threshold, he suddenly froze. His eyes went straight to the glass bottle on the table.
The Black Petal inside suddenly moved.
Not because of a gust of wind. It slowly spun in the water, then clung to the glass wall, facing directly toward Elian.
The young man's face went white.
“I... I've seen it before,” Elian whispered hoarsely.
“This Black Petal?” Lyra asked anxiously.
“No.” Elian clutched his tight-feeling chest, his eyes locked on Lyra's. “You. I remember you.”
Lyra had no time to demand an explanation. Outside the shop, the thunderous pounding of horse hooves shattered the market's calm. People screamed in hysteria. The next second, an arrow shot through the shop's glass window, streaked between the memory flowers, and struck the glass bottle on the table dead-center.
CRASH!
The bottle shattered into pieces. The Black Petal fell onto the wet floor.
Elian moved with astonishing speed for a man who had lost his memory. He pulled Lyra behind him just as the shop door was smashed inward. Three soldiers in gray robes stormed inside, their faces covered with cloth and their swords drawn.
One of them looked toward the floor. “The Black Petal! Take the petal and kill the rest!”
Fear spread to Lyra's fingertips. She watched Elian snatch a pair of large gardening shears from the table—the emergency weapon Lyra usually used to cut flower stems.
“Elian!” Lyra whispered in panic. “You said you didn't remember how to fight!”
“I don't,” Elian shot back, “but my body remembers.”
The first attacker lunged. Elian blocked the sword's slash with the iron shears.
The sharp clash of metal shook the entire room. Elian moved without hesitation, as though his muscles held thousands of hours of training erased from his mind. With one swift spinning motion, he slammed his elbow into the attacker's jaw, sending him tumbling into and destroying a flower rack.
But the other two attackers rushed forward at once.
Lyra refused to stand by. She grabbed a handful of red memory petals from the nearest basket and threw them into the air. The petals burst into particles of magical light, releasing the deafening echo of a child's laughter. The illusion magic left the attackers momentarily blinded and startled—giving Elian time to take one of them down.
Unfortunately, the last attacker managed to snatch the remaining shards of glass and the Black Petal from the floor.
Lyra tried to chase him, but the man turned and swung his sword at her.
Before the sharp blade could touch Lyra's skin, Elian suddenly leaped in front of her. The sword pierced his shoulder.
Fresh blood poured down, dripping directly onto a remaining Black Petal on the floor.
At once, the Black Petal bloomed and released a wave of magical energy. A massive flash of memory struck the consciousness of everyone in the room: a younger Elian kneeling before Lyra in the palace's secret garden. His hand clutched a bouquet of white flowers, his gaze filled with profound sorrow.
“I'll come back,” Elian said in the memory. “Wait for me, Lyra. Even if this curse makes me unable to recognize you again.”
The memory fragment vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving behind a painful silence.
Elian collapsed to his knees, clutching his blood-soaked shoulder. The panicked soldier in gray robes immediately fled the shop, carrying the remaining petal fragments he had managed to seize.
In the distance, the city bells began tolling wildly, signaling an emergency.
Lyra immediately dropped to her knees and caught Elian's weakening body.
Elian looked at Lyra from extremely close range, his breath ragged with pain. “We... we really have met before.”
Lyra gazed into the cursed prince's pale face, her eyes glistening with tears. “Yes. We have.”
“Who... what is your real name?”
“Lyra.” Elian repeated the name very softly, as if carving it into the safest part of his shattered soul. “Lyra...”
On the floor, the remaining Black Petal stained with Elian's blood began to tremble violently.
At that moment, a bitter reality struck Lyra in the chest.
Whether it was some magic or curse binding them together, Lyra knew one thing for certain: every time Elian succeeded in reclaiming a fragment of his past, the name “Lyra” would be the first thing permanently erased from the prince's memory.
Outside the shop, the sound of royal troops drawing closer grew louder as they surrounded the market area.
Lyra clasped Elian's fingers tightly as they began to grow cold.
“Then,” Lyra said with firm resolve, “we have to find whoever cursed you and erased your memories... before they take your entire existence from this world.”