Free Dominion by John Connolly Page A

leave?”
    A pause.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd will you help us, against the Others?”
    Another pause.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œCowards!” cried Steven. He was struggling against his bonds, and weeping as he did so. “You’re just cowards!”
    As before, Fara and Kal remained unfazed.
    â€œIf you leave here now, and go back to Earth, you will die,” said Fara.
    â€œWe can’t abandon it,” said Paul. He was keeping himself under control, but whether solely through his own efforts, or helped by Syl, he wasn’t sure.
    â€œThey have taken your world, just as they have taken many worlds before, just as they will again. The Illyri will keep feeding the Others new planets as the price to be paid for the continuation of the Conquest: life-forms, species, whole civilizations, in return for knowledge. And if by any chance the Illyri were to refuse, and decide that enough was enough—and what conquering race has ever made that decision?—then the Others would destroy them too, and seek new hosts elsewhere.”
    â€œBut you won’t help us to stop them—to stop it all?”
    â€œWe can’t,” said Fara. “We would doom our entire race.”
    â€œThen if you won’t, who can?”
    And Fara raised a finger, and pointed it at Syl.
    â€œShe can. She tries to hide herself, but there are always shadows, and her shadows are great, and terrifying. There is more within her . . .”
    But Paul barely heard Fara’s words. He could think only of Earth, of his mother, and of everyone else he had known and cared about so much. His friends. His uncles, aunts, cousins. The Resistance: Trask and his crazy daughters, the Illyri deserter Fremd, Maeve, Heather and her little girl, Alice. Maybe even Peris.
    Gone. All gone.

PART III
THE DYING OF THE EARTH

CHAPTER 12
    A fter the attack on the Military base of Melos and the slaughter on Erebos, Captain Peris became a trophy of war. Many in the Diplomatic Corps might have preferred that he were dead, but others had successfully argued that he would be more useful alive.
    The situation was further complicated by the fact that Archmage Syrene, the leader of the Nairene Sisterhood, and also a crucial supporter of the Diplomats and their Securitats, had just married Lord Andrus, the great Military leader, and Peris was one of Andrus’s oldest comrades. The hurried wedding ceremony took place on Erebos, even while Syrene bled from the shoulder where she’d been hit by pulser fire during the escape of Syl and the others. But the wound was minor, and the marriage crucial: it forged new ties between the Military and the Nairenes, even while the ruins of Melos Station drifted nearby, pretty as falling stars.
    Lamentable as the union might have been, this tangled alliance of Nairene and Military was the reason why Syrene had been among those who argued against killing Peris. Under her influence, her husband, Lord Andrus, was trying to bring wavering factions within the Military over to the side of the Diplomatic Corps, arguing that a long civil conflict would only tear the Illyri Empire apart, and it was in their best interests to ally themselves with the new order and force the remaining renegade Military elements to the negotiating table. He had encouraged Peris to lend his voice to this effort, but Peris had resisted. Nevertheless, the fact that Peris was still alive allowed Andrus to declare that the Corps and its allies had no desire for further bloodshed.
    And then there was Ani . . .
    Peris could not understand it, but Syrene seemed to have taken to Ani, keeping the youngster near her at all times, whispering to her, ever closer, pulling her closer into her web. Ani ceased to visit Peris as his recovery continued, and when finally she did return, she had Syrene’s handmaiden, Cocile, in tow, and a tendril of budding leaves had been tattooed onto the young Illyri’s cheek, as if this was a