"My marital status will be a personal decision that does not fall within the scope of this session," Luna said.

"In the context of family leadership and diplomatic alliances, the marital status of the heir is relevant to the stability of the faction my lady," the representative insisted.

"The stability of a faction is built on verifiable results and real political alliances," Luna replied. "Not on the personal life of its leaders being treated as a negotiable resource."

Orion intervened directly on this point.

"Miss Starweaver is of course free to make her own decisions." He said it with the dissimulated calm of someone conceding something that cost him nothing to concede. "Though there are decisions that generate consequences which affect the faction as a whole. The ’associations’ an heir chooses affect the perception of the family."

A pause during which his gaze moved to Ren, standing in the back section of the podium with his rewards rolled in a scroll in his hands. "Particularly when those associations, the kind a ’capricious adolescent’ might pursue, involve figures whose nature is currently under discussion before this chamber."

It was the same mechanism they had used with Ren. The same angle of entry for injecting doubt, for manufacturing enough uncertainty to demand concessions in the votes that followed. The name didn’t need to be said directly. The reference landed without it.

Even if only a little for now, it worked.

The hall understood who he meant without Orion having to say it.

Luna felt something in her chest that wasn’t her wolf’s mana but something more ’intense’ and her own.

’No.’

’Not here. Not now. You won’t give him anything to use against you!’

Three seconds, four... Five.

The time needed for the internal temperature to drop far enough that her face stayed the face it needed to be before speaking.

"My personal associations do not affect my abilities and do not require the approval of this chamber," said Luna, and her voice came out exactly as it needed to come out: flat, without fractures, without the heat Orion was looking for. "What this chamber can evaluate are my verifiable merits and my capacity to represent the interests of the Day faction. Both are in the record, unlike your baseless assumptions."

Seiya went unmentioned by her... Even with support from the Night side, the proposal had neither Luna’s engagement nor the social pressure momentum Orion had needed to make the marriage a proposal with real weight rather than an insinuation.

Since what Orion wanted, beyond the territories and the titles, was to leave Luna with as little economic and social power as possible while surrounding her with obligations, hundreds of problems to manage, disputes to maintain, things demanding her attention every hour so that controlling her became a matter of simple pressure. The marriage proposal served that goal too, layering personal obligation onto political pressure. But stripped of momentum, stripped of Luna’s reaction, stripped of the social discomfort that was supposed to make it hard to refuse...

It died without anyone having to formally kill it.

Arturo and Liora released the air they had been holding, very slowly.

The most resistant argument was the association with Ren. That one, Orion wasn’t ready to let go of yet.

"Miss Starweaver has collaborated closely with tamer Patinder during the academic period and during the recent crisis," said the Night representative. "Given that this tamer’s nature is currently under scrutiny by this chamber, we maintain that the proximity of that association is relevant to evaluating Miss Starweaver’s judgment."

It was the weakest argument in technical terms but the hardest to answer without the answer appearing defensive. The kind of argument that didn’t need to win, it only needed to make the response look like it was trying to hide something.

Julius took that point, and though he hated framing Ren as something to be distanced from:

"Close collaboration between tamers in proximity to corruption during an active defense or period of study does not corrupt either party or constitute a judgment about the nature of either," he said. "If that criterion were applied consistently, it would need to be applied to every tamer who operated within the same perimeter during the same period, including the instructors, and including members of the Night faction itself who fought using corruption. Including Lord Orion."

The argument didn’t gain additional ground for Orion.

It didn’t lose any either.

It was registered as a disputed point, which was the protocol’s way of handling things that didn’t resolve through a perfect argument but through accumulated impressions and the passage of time. A mark in the record that sat there, quiet, available to be referenced later.

Still, without further significant disputes or immediately relevant power challenges, Luna’s recognitions were finally delivered, with the objections registered and the concessions documented.

Slightly less than what she should have received without Orion’s pressure. Yet considerably more than what Orion had calculated she would manage to retain.

The master of ceremonies read the final list.

Luna listened to her own name followed by the territories, the titles, the rights. She listened and received her sealed document with the same face she had been wearing for the entire session.

Internally:

’Good...’

’It’s done.’

’Now...’

The hall was waiting for the session to advance to the next item on the agenda.

Luna took a step forward.

"I have a proposal to make to Lord Orion before this chamber."

The master of ceremonies looked at her.

Julius looked at her.

Arturo looked at her.

Larissa and Liora, the only two people in the room who knew exactly what Luna had been constructing since the situation they had shared in Ren’s interior space, did not look at her, because they already knew, and because if they looked it was going to be visible that they knew.

Orion looked at her with the expression of someone evaluating a variable that hadn’t been fully in his calculations.

"I want to propose an exchange."