Empire: Book 2, The Chronicles of the Invaders (The Chronicles of the Invaders Trilogy) by John Connolly & Jennifer Ridyard

Author:John Connolly & Jennifer Ridyard [Connolly, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Published: 2015-02-24T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 39

Danis was surprised to receive the summons to the Archmage Syrene’s presence in her chambers at Edinburgh Castle—surprised, but also resigned to whatever had been decided for him. He was tired of being a virtual prisoner in the castle, allowed to retain his rank but none of his power, and entirely cut off from Lord Andrus, who had been both his governor and his friend. Oh, Lord Andrus might still be a Military governor in name, but the real force behind the throne was Syrene, and Syrene’s loyalties lay with the Diplomatic Corps. No, that wasn’t entirely true: Syrene’s loyalties, Danis knew, were to herself first, the Sisterhood second, and the Corps third. Everything else came fourth, although Danis felt it was unlikely that there was anything else, as far as Syrene was concerned, so it was a moot point.

Sickened, he had watched Andrus and Syrene walking arm in arm through the grounds like the lovers they undoubtedly were, even though they retained separate quarters. It didn’t take her long to forget her late husband, Gradus, thought Danis, yet she tricked my daughter into her damned Sisterhood out of revenge for his death, leaving my wife bitter with loss and grief, and me as a ghost haunting the castle walls. Then before they could even start sifting through the ruins of Dundearg for Gradus’s ashes, she was already warming the governor’s bed.

Andrus was no longer the Illyri that Danis had once known and loved. He still spoke like Andrus and laughed like Andrus—in fact he laughed rather too much nowadays, like a giddy child—but there was a vacancy to his eyes. It was like peering through the windows of a room in which most of the lights had been extinguished. He always greeted Danis with great warmth if they happened to pass in a hallway, but it was a politician’s greeting, and Danis was not entirely sure that Andrus really remembered who he was. In fact, Danis was not certain if Andrus any longer truly recalled who Andrus was. Danis was convinced that Andrus was either drugged or under some more sinister form of influence from Syrene, a suspicion confirmed for him by Andrus’s refusal to be examined by anyone but Dr. Hemet, the head of the Securitat’s Scientific Development Division.

So Danis wandered the hallways and courtyards of Edinburgh Castle, his freedom of movement restricted for his “safety,” his head low, his body slumped, mourning the loss of his only daughter, Ani, to the bowels of the Marque. The whispered conversations that followed after him indicated that he had become estranged from his wife, Fian, and they now occupied separate bedrooms. He was, to all intents and purposes, a broken figure, a cracked relic of an old order. It was no longer even clear why Andrus chose to keep him in Edinburgh. Even senior Diplomats on Earth, who had long disliked Danis, thought that he should be permitted to return to Illyr and live out his last days on the homeworld.

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