An hour passed.
Maybe two.
Soren's eyes were still open.
He should be sleepless from happiness, right?
Married to the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. A wife who looked like she stepped out of a painting.
Any normal man would be lying awake with a stupid grin on his face.
So, was Soren normal? Yes.
Then, was he sleepless because he was like those normal men? Wrong!
He was sleepless because he had already figured out the truth.
It had been circling his mind since the ceremony ended. Since both families had looked so relieved to sign those papers. Since they'd handed over the house deed like they were disposing of garbage.
The Morvain family freed itself from its broken jewel, a burden they no longer had to carry.
And his own family?
They finally got rid of their embarrassment.
The son who never fit in, never measured up, never stopped being a disappointment from the moment he was born.
Two birds, one stone.
Marry them off to each other and forget they existed.
Soren remembered his father's last words to him at the courthouse.
"You're free now, Soren. Live your own life. We won't interfere."
Free?
What a joke.
They called it freedom, but the meaning was clear.
They'd been abandoned.
Both of them.
Cast out.
Given this empty house in this quiet neighborhood, where no one would see them or remember they existed.
"..."
Soren stared at the dark ceiling.
He'd been abandoned by them long before. Always ignored, shuffled aside, pushed out of frame in every family photo.
He'd made peace with it years ago.
But Ethea...
Soren turned his head slightly, looking up at the bed where she lay.
'Did she realize it too?'
Was that why she acted like that earlier? Not because of him specifically, but because she'd finally understood what had happened?
Just a few months ago, she was the revered Ice Empress. Adored and celebrated by everyone.
People lined up for a chance to meet her.
Powerful guilds offered fortunes to recruit her.
Princes and Young Masters sent marriage proposals.
Her family paraded her around like a trophy.
Now those same people had dumped her in this house with a stranger and told her to disappear.
That kind of fall...
Soren couldn't even imagine what that felt like.
First, he had never experienced that kind of life; he had always been at the bottom.
Second, it wasn't wise to judge others without putting yourself in their shoes.
Finally, what happened, happened.
They shouldn't dwell on it now.
Well, at least they had a roof over their heads.
At least their families hadn't literally thrown them out onto the streets.
Although this house might be empty and cold, it was still a shelter.
'...'
Soren turned his head slightly, glancing toward Ethea again.
'Alright then.'
The thought came quietly but with an unexpected weight.
'Since I married her, I'll support and protect her till the end of my life.'
This wasn't a romantic wow.
This was... just a personal decision.
An ordinary man's promise to fulfill his duty as a husband.
She was his wife now, for better or worse, but he'd signed the paper and made that promise.
And unlike his family, unlike hers, he didn't make promises he didn't intend to keep.
Whatever happened from here on out, he'd see it through.
"..."
The thought brought him an odd sense of relief.
It felt like he'd finally found solid ground after hours of floating in uncertainty.
Soren let his eyes close again.
His breathing slowed, and the tension in his shoulders eased. Sleep pulled at him gently this time, no longer held at bay by racing thoughts.
Eventually, darkness took him.
Then, in the depths of his consciousness, something stirred.
A pulse.
A pulse that bypassed his senses entirely and resonated in the core of his being.
Soren's unconsious mind registered it distantly, like a dreamer hearing thunder from far away.
The pulse came again, stronger and more focused this time.
And then, cutting through the void of sleep like a voice speaking directly into his soul, came words that weren't words, thoughts that weren't his own.
[...]
[Conditions have been met.]
[Awakening initiated...]
A heartbeat of silence.
Then everything ignited!
Pain exploded through Soren's body.
Something fundamental inside him was being torn apart and rebuilt simultaneously.
His back arched, his hands clenched, a strangled gasp died in his throat as his lungs seized.
Heat flooded his veins, and cold followed immediately after.
The two sensations warred inside him, neither giving ground, both burning with equal intensity.
'What... What is happening...'
His thoughts scattered, reformed, and scattered again.
Something was slowly forming inside him, growing, and expanding.
A core of energy blazed into life in the center of his chest where nothing had existed moments before.
The pain peaked!
Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped.
Soren lay gasping on the futon, his entire body drenched in cold sweat. His heart hammered against his ribs. His vision swam with afterimages of light.
Slowly, his breathing steadied.
And in the silence that followed, a final message echoed through his mind.
[Awakening complete.]
[You have awakened: Investment Authority!]
"..."
The messages faded.
Soren lay there, chest heaving, staring at the ceiling with wide eyes.
His mind raced, trying to process what just happened.
Awakening? Investment Authority?
None of it made sense.
He'd been tested at fifteen like everyone else.
He had undergone the awakening ceremony a few times.
The results had been clear: no Core, no Talent, no Ability, no potential.
He was unawakened, a dud.
Seven years had passed since then. People didn't just spontaneously awaken in their twenties; it didn't work that way.
And yet...
Snap!
Soren's eyes shot open wider.
His head whipped toward the bed on pure instinct, and his pupils constricted to pinpricks.
A masked black figure hovered over Ethea's sleeping form. And in one gloved hand, a blade catching the faint moonlight, already descending toward her throat.
"!"
Soren's body exploded from the futon.
He crossed the distance between the floor and bed in a single heartbeat, a speed he'd never possessed, a speed that shouldn't have been possible.
Crash!
His shoulder slammed into the figure's torso before the blade could fall another inch.
Boom!
Both bodies hit the wall hard.
"UGH!"
"AGH!"