Tanya von Shrakenberg, formerly a Draka tank operator during the Eurasian War, establishes a plantation in the formerly-French Touraine shortly after the Drakan subjugation of Continental Europe.

Meanwhile, Chantal is raped by Tanya's husband, Thomas Ingolfsson, and is impregnated with twins; this occurrence nearly drives her to commit suicide in disgust, but after discovering Marya’s part in the OSS conspiracy, she decides to force herself into the fold by threatening to expose the plot to the Landholders.

Fred attends a gathering meant to celebrate the birth of Tanya’s twin children while in disguise, but the lie is revealed after he is forced to kill two of the Von Shrakenberg’s favorite Serfs, Big Tom and his daughter Yasmin, in his attempts to access the local radio to call an escape plane.

He attempts to flee, but fails, leading to a tense stand-off between the Draka and the American, which ends when Fred reveals that he is in possession of a piece of weapons grade plutonium, set to go off if he or Marya were to die.

In New York City, she gives birth to twins Fred and Marya LeFarge(named after her rescuers), who would later be the protagonists of the next book in the series, The Stone Dogs, and who - though biologically the children of a Draka father - would be staunch enemies of the Domination, and would be considered serfs in Draken Territory.