Bride

Jewel's arranged marriage, designed to bring peace and prosperity to the Hegemony of Armen and the Cartelite Worlds, is instead stoking the furnaces of inter-galactic warfare. From the moment of her marriage, the enemies of her Armenite husband—a stern and rigid man she barely knows—seek to use her to prove that the Cartel Worlds are unworthy of an alliance which monopolizes the fuel that makes faster-than-light travel possible. Complicating Jewel’s efforts to protect herself and her people are disturbing changes in her very cell structure—changes she doesn’t want or understand but that place her squarely in the targeting reticle of the Armenite opposition. Jewel finds herself having to use her wits and her lifelong training in negotiation and intrigue to preserve a marriage she never wanted to be part of in order to prevent a civilization ending war.