Curiosity flickered in Narla's grey eyes. "Father—"
He turned on her, stony-faced. "You, too."
"I—?"
"You go to your chambers—and stay there. I wish to be alone with the prisoner."
The girl opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. Flushing slightly under her father's cold, impassive gaze, she stepped through the light-wall into her own quarters.
Now, at last, Zenaor faced the shackled Baemae.
"You know, of course, that you are doomed to die?"
Mutely, the youth nodded.
"Yet there are ways and ways of dying. Slowly, painfully. Quick, clean, easy."
The serf said nothing.