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It was slightly overboard, but Savvine sensed a reckoning was coming, her skin prickling with prescient foreboding.

On a generational ship the size of a city, traveling in a convoy with similar-sized vessels, where food, oxygen, and politics were always tight, putting out fires was de rigueur.

Most times, Savvine was the one extinguishing them.

This made her a dab hand at picking up on the warning signs.

Also, her life experience and surviving a nuclear apocalypse on Earth taught her that too much peace and happiness were harbingers of doom, the calm before the storm.

Her soul’s restlessness persisted as she nodded to passing officers and old friends, then slipped away, needing a break.

She made her way from the edge of the celebration, the laughter and champagne flutes fading behind her, and ducked beneath an arched colonnade strung with ivory blooms.

She headed in search of comfort, in the form of a freakin’ stiff drink.

Savvine was almost to the bar when a dulcet, silky voice slid into her ear.

‘Savvine, a word?’

She turned. Her spine stiffened instinctively as she faced a thin, elegant woman shimmering in a gold silk gown that draped over her shoulders.

The dress clung to her stately frame like a second skin, its elongated sleeves edged in antique lace, the neckline dipped but impeccable.

Diamonds clustered along her collarbone like frostbite, rings of rubies and emeralds stacked on her fair, painted fingers.

Her complexion was porcelain-pale, unlined by time, though Savvine suspected enhancements, and her long silver hair was coiled in a perfect chignon, veiled with a comb of sapphires.

Behind her, two silent attendants in crested blue robes and a pair of stone-faced armed guards flanked her.

‘Donna Helena,’ Savvine said, bowing her head with the expected respect required for the clan’s matriarch.

Helena’s lips curved into a practiced smile as she drifted closer, the heavy scent of myrrh and rosewater clinging to her like power. ‘You look lovely, dear, as always.

‘Sante.’

Savvine accepted the compliment with a nod, pulse steady, already calculating the safest escape.

‘Days like these,’ the matriarch said, her intonation syrupy and low, ‘and wedding celebrations like this one, remind me of the offer my family put to yours.’

Savvine’s brow lifted by the barest fraction. ‘You’re referring to Eugene?’

Helena’s simper had edges. ‘Naturally. Any chance of reconsidering?’

Savvine let out a quiet breath, careful not to sigh out loud. ‘With all due respect, I don’t believe Eugene shares that particular ambition.’

‘What if he does?’ Helena whispered, her utterance brimming with veiled suggestion.

Her gaze locked onto Savvine’s with such intensity that the sensation was that of a vice tightening around her skull.

This was no conversation. It was a maneuver, a move on the board.

Savvine weighed her words with caution.

One wrong syllable, and this dialogue might spin into a full-blown family feud.

‘I find it interesting that you think a security officer’s life would suit your son’s lifestyle, Donna. I spend my days in weapons training and briefings. Not the life of a lady.’

‘You’re smart. Tactful and very beautiful, and you meet the bloodline requirements,’ Helena intoned. ‘Let’s explore the idea. Hmm?’