I have spent my life carving out space in a world that has no room for a woman with a limp and no husband to hide behind. Tristan Pearce is the only man who has ever made me question whether that space is worth keeping.

Every clipped command between us on this drive has led to this lantern-lit tent where the risk of the crew's eyes feels both like ruin and the only relief I have craved.

He means to settle it there, with the crew close enough to hear, and the first strike waits like the answer to a question I have never dared ask aloud. I wonder if the marks he leaves will still let me lead when the sun rises, or if I will have traded my hard-won place for the claim I cannot admit I want.