It was not pride that forbade it. Nor was it control neither arrogance. It was something far more terrifying. The Song bloodline carried something unseen. A fragile balance. A binding force tied tightly to their lineage. Through years unrecorded…Through incidents buried deep within family history…A truth had become undeniable:
If a Song daughter chose her own partner…
Without the proper acknowledgment…
Without the ritual of formal claiming...
Something would go wrong.
Not gradually.
Catastrophically.
Not misfortune.
But events so precise… So irreversible… That they felt less like accidents, and more like consequences. The elders called it:
A broken binding.
And once broken...
It could not be restored.