Page 112 of The Silent War

“They track my cycles,” I continued. “Hormones. Ovulation windows. Stress levels. All of it is mapped.”

Bastion stared at me. Luca looked like at me as if I spoke a different language.

“When a wedding contract is drafted, they use that information to plan the date around my fertility. That way, if the clause includes a firstborn within twelve months, they canguaranteeit.” I said flatly, “They align the wedding date with the projected conception week.”

Suddenly, I wished for the conversation to go back to more criminal topics. Finally, I broke the silence. “But how do you not know this?”

Both of them looked at me.

“You’re Crows,” I said quietly. “You’re born into this. I assumed your family would’ve been involved. The vetting. The reviews. All of it. Especially before scheduling a match.”

Bastion leaned back, cigarette burning low between his fingers. “We don’t vet brides the way other dynasties do.”

Luca’s eyes locked on mine, cold. “We don’t merge. We absorb.”

The word landed wrong, I didn’t understand.

“Absorb?” I repeated. “You make it sound like extinction.”

“It is,” Luca said simply. “Her bloodline is marked as absorbed in the central registry. Her holdings rerouted. Her family compensated, yes, but they no longer hold any rights over her.”

“No more dual surnames. No open bloodline access. No clause that allows another dynasty to challenge the claim,” Bastion leaned closer, his fingers holding over my pulse for a moment. “She doesn’t belong to both. She belongs to us.”

“That’s why they hate us,” Luca added, thumb moving small circles on my thigh. “Because marriage to us doesn’t create unity. It creates extinction.”

“Crow marriages don’t follow dynasty customs. They violate them.”

Luca leaned in slightly. “There are rules, a ritualized path that every dynasty daughter walks. From the testing centers to the vetting interviews to the staged engagements. Everything is choreographed to preserve appearances. Purity. Bloodline and politics.”

“But the Crows don’t care about appearances,” Bastion said. “We care aboutpossession.”

I frowned. “So you ignore the process?”

“We dismantle it,” Luca said.

“Then rewrite it,” Bastion added.

He tapped ash into the tray again, watching me like he was studying how much I could take.

“Our family’s rituals don’t appear in the dynasty codex. They were banned generations ago.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re final,” Luca said simply. “Once the vow is made, the bride is sealed to the bloodline.”

“And the claiming rite,” Bastion added, “is done publicly. In front of every living Crow. Because it’s not just a wedding.”

“They watch?” I asked.

Bastion’s eyes met mine. “They witness.”

“The entire dynasty?”

“Our dynasty,” Luca corrected. “You think the others don’t know? They talk about us like we’re savages. Likewe’re unstable. Dangerous.” He leaned in. “And they’re right.”

“Because we don’t perform power,” Bastion said. “Weownit.”

I stared at him.