For as long as he could remember, he had only known this dark and sordid place where the helplessly abandoned were tortured, exploited, or killed. Why he had been brought there, and who was so cruel and mean-spirited for doing so, was as foreign to him as the light Kei longed to see. From the moment Miron had opened his eyes until this very moment, he had received nothing but suffering from those adults and black mages, who swarmed Athok and did nothing with their time but harm. The only consolation he had known, was the presence of other children like him, especially the friendship that he had managed to create with them, although it was of a rare and distressing fragility. Because to be honest, to survive, and also simply because of the darkness, some "prisoners" were ready to do anything, betraying their own kind, even friends and siblings renouncing all conscience and stooping to the vilest acts, in order to get out of the stinking mud in which they had been plunged at the very moment they had landed here.

And then there was a time when there was him - Karan. He was a young boy with long, blond almost white hair, blonder even than Kei, it seemed, Miron remembered with sadness and longing, which was almost unimaginable. Miron was just ten years old when he met him, and Karan was thirteen, like him now. Miron didn't know who he had inherited such a fierce, unyielding, brilliant personality from, but the others resented him for it, and made him realize it every day. But his powers at that time were so weak, that they could not protect him from those vile assaults and almost succeeded in killing him, if this sensitive but brave boy did not finally decide to intervene and save the weak but unsubmissive prisoner that he was.

He saved him and healed him as best he could. His wonderful magic was able to heal any wound, no matter how serious, and he used it on Miron whenever he needed it. From then on, they never left each other again. They told each other fabulous stories that they promised to discover or realize one day, they played together during the little time that the mages gave them between chores, and Karan even played music with the broken instruments that the janitor gave him as a reward for his unspeakable work.

For the first time in his short life, Miron felt what love was. He could only love him anyway. It was inevitable. And he wished they could stay together forever. He thought that if it were possible, he would be able to handle the rest.

But at that moment, he was too weak to protect his dream.

"It's strange Karan, but I have a vague feeling that you remind me of someone special." Miron confessed to him, one evening when they were both in an empty hallway, sitting opposite each other on the hard, dirty floor, and his friend was lit by a candelabra set above a little to his left.

"Really? Who was that?"

"I don't know precisely. But I have a feeling it was real."

And Miron closed his eyes for a moment, trying to recapture that brief, blurred but almost real vision of a young boy with long, even whiter hair, undoubtedly handsome and whom he had loved, even more than Karan.

Then he shook his head, dispelling the mirage.

"It's probably another trick of my imagination, becoming a wreck from staying here, and enduring all these atrocities."

"Are you sure?" His precious friend insisted anyway.

"Yes. But tell me," Miron continued, ignoring everything, "you were able to stay with me longer than usual today."

"Didn't I? I have a job to do later, so I'm allowed a little more time. So I decided to play you a song."

"You will? Well, that's great."

They smiled at each other and then accompanied by that other instrument, which for once, to Miron's surprise, was in good shape, Karan sang that song he so wanted him to hear.

It was beautiful and poignant.

"This song sounds so much like you, Karan," the young mage whispered as he leaned against the spell-covered wall. "But tell me, what is this vile work they will require of you later."

"Vile! Not necessarily," the blond boy protested with a falsely indignant expression.

But his young friend answered him with concern, which upset him. Karan closed his eyes for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders, trying to lighten the mood of his protégé as well as to push back as far as possible what was waiting for him.

"Never mind," was his friend's only reply, with a smile that nevertheless made Miron's heart ache.

"I see. Well, I hope you'll do well to come back to me. And then you'll teach me to play an instrument, the only one that isn't damaged," he asked, pointing to the one he was holding, "so one day it will be me playing for you. And when we get out of here, we'll earn our living and our place in the song. "

"I don't think so," Karan protested with a laugh.

Miron frowned, sorry.

"Why is that?"

"Because it's not your style."

"My style? What do you think my style is, then?"

Karan was silent for a moment, looking at Miron with a strange, tender expression.

"I don't know. Maybe... princely or even more so."

Miron began to laugh in his turn.

"So if I really am a prince. One day I will take you to my palace. And we will live there happily and freely until the end of time."

"Without a doubt. Do you promise me that?"

"Yes, I promise."

And when a bell rang in the distance, and Karan stood up to let Miron go do the work he already hated so much, without even knowing it, his friend hesitated for a moment, then handed him the instrument and stroked his hair.

"Sweet dreams Miron."

"Yes Karan...you too."

Miron made him promise to come back and wake him up so that he would be the first person he saw in the morning when his eyes reopened, knowing deep down that those moments were their last.

Karan was never to return. No promise could.

And when those others, his obnoxious comrades took Miron to see his most precious friend's mutilated body that Sirkol had specially spared for him, to laugh about it, Miron felt something had changed. A pain he had never felt and yet resonated in the distant past, reverberating in every corner of his being and overwhelmed him.

Sirkol and his other so repugnant could have all exploited Karan endowed with this so great and indispensable power for their own interest, but they preferred, even more, to take him away from Miron to punish him for what he was. So much unnecessary meanness.

Miron would only later learn of the existence of this bloody game that the director had carefully instituted for his own entertainment, and which he seemed particularly, almost unnaturally fond of.

The others soon realized that they would never be able to take the instrument from Miron, the last gift his friend was able to give him before facing his tragic end, and the madness and savagery he displayed to protect and keep it soon discouraged them.

And it was only months later, while still trying to play with it, to bring back that last song that remained only in his memory, that he discovered the words engraved inside and that his friend had undoubtedly marked that last night.

"Miron, I love you."

Miron shook his head, finally agreeing to remember that so distant yet painful period of his young life, caged and miserable, that he had decided to forget in order to continue living and fighting.

"Karan, forgive me for forgetting. I will never do it again. I wish we had run away together, but that will never be possible again. So I will do it for you. Please rest in peace."

Then he turned for a moment to Kei, his faithful, annoying, wonderful Kei, who had helped him through this unalterable absence, and where he was so overwhelmed, immolated by pain and loneliness, and consumed by the certainty of never recovering.

"Tell me, it's you Miron! I'm Kei. Can I be with you?"

Then, carried by the inexorability of his memories and his deepest feelings, he went even further into his past, where there was no Athok and where there was this person blonder than anyone else and who seemed to matter to him the most.

Miron was at the top of a desert building, lying on a cold ground contemplating a sky riddled with stars before turning to him, also lying right next to him.

The latter also contemplated him and smiled.

"Actually you never told me your name."

"That's right," Miron acknowledged, "it's ....."

But Miron couldn't hear the name he had given his friend.

"Wow, that's a beautiful name, but...a little too long maybe, I'll have a hard time calling you that, though I'll try."

"If my name upsets you, then give me one that you can use as you wish."

"Do you wish it?"

"Yes."

"Then it shall be...Miron...I don't know what it means, and even if it has a meaning, it's just that I took the most beautiful letters of your real name and put them together to create the second one. A simple name that will remain our secret."

"Yes."

"And powers, do you have any?"

"I don't know. I suppose I do, for some people who have kept me for a long time, coldly but kindly, have promised me power when I turn thirteen. A great power capable of leading me to fulfill my great destiny."

"Then I hope you have them now that you have reached that age."

Miron fell silent and looked at his friend for a long time.

"If I have them, will you love me?"

His blond friend was also silent for a moment and then laughed briefly.

"I guess so."

"You promise?"

"Yes, I promise."

Miron laughed in delight and raised himself on one elbow.

"Then, even if I don't have them as these people promised, I'll make sure I get them, so you'll love me..."

And without taking his eyes off his friend's face, he invoked his magic and a bright light burst from his body and covered everything.

Miron then threw down his scepter and stood up.

His face was neutral and icy, and no fear or doubt distorted it anymore.