The noble's words lingered in Marcus's mind like smoke that refused to clear.
"You seek meaning? Then ask where questions bloom—not where answers rest."
He didn't know what the noble truly meant, but something inside him shifted.
For the first time in his life, Marcus wasn't just thinking—he was searching.
He began where he always knew to begin:
his father's library.
Dust blanketed the shelves like forgotten snow. Books, scrolls, manuscripts—the remnants of a mind that once reached for truth now sat in silence.
Marcus combed through them all.
He searched for patterns. For keys. For clues.
Not about his father's madness, not anymore. But about the system.
The more he read, the more the veil thinned.
He found mentions of structures, tests, and licenses granted to those who proved mastery—not of blood, but of will.
He read whispers of those called Sons of the Ray, wielders of an inner power, separate from birthright.
And for the first time, he felt a sense of direction. A hint. A thread worth following.
But the books only went so far. And his questions began to outgrow the pages.
So he turned to people.
Not the wise or the powerful.
No—he spoke to those like him. Sons of noble lines with no stamps of authority. He asked them:
"Where do you think all this leads? Have you ever wondered what we're supposed to become?"
Some laughed. Others shrugged. A few offered vague philosophies that meant nothing.
The answers didn't matter. What mattered was that he was finally asking.
And so, on the seventh day, his feet carried him beyond the marble streets and sculpted courtyards.
To the edge of his district—where order faded and the world cracked open.
There, through the rusted iron boundary, he saw them—
the common folk.
No crests. No guardians. No silence.
Men and women, covered in dust and laughter. Children running wild.
No structure bound them.
They were… alive.
Marcus stared.
He had always assumed they lived in fear.
But there was no fear in their eyes.
Only motion. Only breath.
"Why don't they fear the system?"
"Why do they seem more real than the ones in palaces?"
Then, as if pulled by contrast, he thought of the nobles.
Their pride. Their crests. Their strength.
He saw control—but not freedom.
Then he looked at himself.
Neither common nor noble.
He bore no mark, no title, no chain.
All his life, he compared.
All his life, he observed.
But maybe now… he could choose.