And Narla—
Slowly, desolately, Craig turned to look at her ... to see again the helpless anguish stamped on her lovely, horror-blanched face.
"Now you look to my daughter for solace, Earthman?" Again, it was Zenaor speaking. "You seek to drown the bitterness of death and failure in the knowledge that she, at least, will live because you came in and surrendered?"
New tendrils fluttered in Craig Nesom's belly. He swung back; stared at his lean, merciless captor.
"Shall I tell you more, alien—another thing you did not know?" The chief of barons bared his teeth in a grin that belonged on a bleaching skull. He leaned forward, voice dropping lower: "Though I raised her as such, Narla is not my daughter!"
The very walls rang with shock. Even the cold-eyed guards went rigid.
Zenaor said: "Her father was of the Baemae, alien—and I lusted after the Baemae wife who bore his daughter, Narla. So I slew him, and took wife and child alike into my harem."
"Father—Zenaor...." Narla's poise was cracking.
Ruthlessly, the other pressed on: "She is not of my blood, alien. No ties coerce me to forgive her treason. So she dies here with you—with you, and all my enemies, Baemae or baron!"