Kallian sold his broken armor to buy a horse.
Judging by how easily the merchant accepted it without hesitation, the armor must have been of very high quality.
If he truly belonged to the House of Valdormer, that would make perfect sense.
The memories that had returned were fragmented — incomplete.
But one thing was clear: the hatred he held toward Heister ran far deeper than he had imagined.
Most of his recollections were of two kinds of places — the grand mansion bearing the Valdormer crest, or blood-soaked battlefields.
It felt as though some vital part of those memories had been cut out, leaving a gap. Still, he believed that once he returned to the Valdormer estate, everything would come back to him completely.
So he rode without rest until he reached the sprawling mansion of House Valdormer.
Covered in gray dust from the road, he was stopped at the gate by the guards.
"Who goes there? Identify yourself first!"
The guard didn't recognize him at first — his clothes were filthy and his appearance rough — but as soon as Kallian dismounted and stepped closer, the man gasped.
"L-Lord Kallian…?"
Kallian. That name — he had heard it before, echoing faintly in his scattered memories.
So that was his name.
Still, he preferred the simpler name Kal — the one she had given him.
"P-please, come inside at once! Everyone has been waiting for you!"
With hurried gestures and stammered excitement, the guard led Kallian through the gates and into the stone walls surrounding the manor.
As he stepped inside, the disjointed fragments of memory began to align — pieces clicking into place.
'Yes… this is home.'
But it was a home filled not with joy, but with sorrow.
As he walked slowly through the courtyard, his eyes scanned the familiar architecture, heavy with memories.
Then, the main doors burst open and an older man hurried toward him — the head butler, Cliff.
"Lord Kallian!"
Kallian's lips moved on their own, almost instinctively.
"Cliff…"
The man looked almost exactly as he did in Kallian's memories.
"I'll inform Lord Darkin immediately," Cliff said quickly. "You should rest and change your clothes first."
Just then, a woman came rushing down the stairs from the second floor, almost stumbling in her haste.
Kallian frowned slightly as he looked at the unfamiliar woman running toward him — until she cried out emotionally and threw herself into his arms.
"Lord Kallian!"
He stiffened, lowering his gaze in surprise at the stranger clinging to him.
But as he looked closer, her face overlapped with one from his memories — a young girl who had grown up with him.
She had been like a younger sister to him.
"Layla…?"
Kallian looked down at her in disbelief.
In his memories, Layla had been just fourteen years old.
"I thought you were gone…" she said tearfully, clutching his armor.
He looked awkward, unsure how to respond.
Though they had grown up together, Layla — the daughter of a vassal house — had always treated him with formality.
Now, not only was she a grown woman, but her behavior was completely different.
"How old are you now?" he asked suddenly.
Layla blinked, confused by the unexpected question. Then, realizing how emotional she'd been, she quickly stepped back, regaining her composure.
"I'm twenty-four this year," she said.
Only then did Kallian understand.
The memories he retained were only up to when he was twenty — right before the war.
Ten years of his life were missing.
Darkin looked at his son with a troubled expression.
"They say it's partial memory loss…"
"…"
Kallian had expected as much.
His memories had returned, but not completely.
Chunks of time had been erased — leaving him with a frustrating emptiness, as if he had forgotten something vital.
"According to the physician," Darkin continued, "it's possible your mind erased the most painful period of your life — unconsciously protecting itself."
A shadow fell over his father's face.
"I never imagined that time had scarred you more deeply than even your mother's death…"
Kallian couldn't relate — he had no memory of that "painful time."
And yet, the very idea that something could have hurt more than his mother's death seemed impossible.
Even thinking of her made his chest burn and twist with grief.
'What kind of pain could surpass that?'
No — some quiet voice inside told him that whatever he'd forgotten wasn't only pain.
"Perhaps it's for the best," Darkin sighed. "You don't need to force those memories back. What matters is what lies ahead."
Kallian, deep in thought, slowly lifted his head.
"No. I need to know."
His steady voice made Darkin rub his face in exasperation.
"There's no need to strain yourself trying to remember."
"I want to know," Kallian insisted. "I have to find out what happened during the years I can't recall."
Darkin hesitated for a long moment, stroking his chin before letting out a bitter sigh.
"In hindsight, it was my foolish choice. I should never have placed hope in Heister…"
At the mention of that name, Kallian's brow furrowed.
Heister?
'What happened between me and Heister in those ten lost years?'
"What do you mean?" he asked quietly.
"For half a year," Darkin said slowly, "you were married to a daughter of the Heister family — as part of a peace agreement."
"…Married? To Heister's daughter?"
Heister — Valdormer's ancient enemy, the house that had killed his mother.
And he had married their daughter?
It was almost impossible to believe.
"There's no need to remember it," Darkin said with a sigh. "From what I heard, it wasn't a happy marriage anyway."
Kallian said nothing.
But then, the faint echo of a woman's voice came to him — a voice he had heard in his fragmented dreams.
'I love you, Kallian…'
That voice — belonging to no one he remembered — filled his mind again.
'Could that woman have been the Heister daughter I married?'
But theirs had been a forced union, born from politics, not affection.
Still, when he recalled that voice — the warmth and ache it carried — his heart pounded painfully in his chest.
That couldn't have been just the echo of a loveless arrangement.
It felt like something far deeper — something he could never have shared with a woman he despised.
According to his father, their marriage had been short and unhappy, but that didn't align with the emotions the memory stirred within him.
They spoke for a while longer about the ten lost years, but Kallian could recall nothing else.
"For now, get some rest," Darkin said. "Later, we'll discuss how to end the war with Heister."
Kallian nodded silently and stood.
His mind said the idea was absurd — that he could never have cared for an enemy's daughter — but the questions kept circling endlessly.
Darkin had mentioned that during that short marriage, he himself had stayed away at another residence.
That meant he might not know everything that had happened between them.
Still deep in thought, Kallian entered his office.
Inside, Layla was already waiting for him.
"You're not resting?" she asked, her tone polite but eager, as if she had been waiting for him to appear.
In his memory, she was just a fourteen-year-old girl — yet now, he'd been told she had served as his secretary for the past decade.
"Layla."
"Yes, my lord?" she answered quickly.
After a short pause, Kallian asked quietly, "During the half year I was married to the Heister woman… what was our relationship like?"
Layla stiffened slightly before answering with careful composure.
"You didn't care for her much. It was a forced marriage. There were… many issues during that time."
Kallian nodded slowly.
'Yes, that makes sense. There's no way I could have developed real feelings in just half a year — especially for a daughter of the enemy.'
And yet, the emotion tied to that woman's voice — it wasn't fleeting.
It was something deep, something that lingered like the ache of a long-lost love.
After a pause, he asked another question.
"Just in case… did I ever have a lover? Someone I was close to before that?"
With ten years of memories missing, it wasn't an unreasonable question.
Layla hesitated, feigning uncertainty.
"I… I'm not sure, my lord."
Kallian sighed, his expression complicated.
"I suppose not. Forget I asked."
Layla watched his back quietly, her gaze lingering on him for a long time.