Act I Scene XX
I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth, but I’m committed now.
JUDE: “No she doesn’t—she does not volunteer!”
He’s still yelling after me as I storm to the prop armory I saw them pull weapons from. My audience breaks into conspiratorial chatter, and Mattia tracks my movements as if only now noticing I’m here.
Jude’s voice pitches higher as he chases me backstage. “She’s just being silly! Natural Comedian, this one.”
Actually, I am not a natural anything. I don’t know shit about fighting a Player.
In fact, a couple of years back, before the worst of the slow poison took hold, I got my ass royally handed to me by a couple of Revelers after wandering too close to the southern border in the District.
They entertained themselves by trying to force a lie from my mouth.
Galen came to my rescue with the scolding of a lifetime on his lips.
After that, Galen refused to let me enter the District at all, even by his side—unless I could beat him in a fair fight. Unwilling to give up my freedom, I spent the next three months trying, more bruise than skin and increasingly pissed about it.
But I did. I broke four fingers that never healed correctly, but I beat him in a fight. Once.
This is, apparently, enough to fuel the unhinged confidence that has my hands running over the selection of blades and axes hanging in the wings.
Now that I think about it, though, I’m pretty sure Galen let me win.
Oh gods. He definitely let me win.
Jude speeds up, hot on my heels, whispering, “Alistaire, you’ve made your wish for death abundantly clear.
But let me speak plainly: Parrish’s body is dead, but she will be fine.
You can’t do that—to suspend your reality, you have to be able to leave yourself.
” He reaches for my wrist before I can grab the dory spear, and I jerk it away, offering him a scathing look instead.
He goes on. “That mark is like a lock. On you. You can’t escape. Your body will die, and so will you.”
My stomach turns, and I force a shrug.
RIVEN: “You heard them. This is practice for stage combat as much as it is your atrocious Player magic—Reality Suspension—whatever it is.” I select a dagger from the armory, my voice shaking. “What makes you think Mattia’ll win?”
“What makes me think she’ll—” he repeats, as if unsure he’s heard correctly, staring at me with a sort of beseeching horror. My knees snap as I charge back onto the stage. “A dagger?” he scream-whispers after me. “Grab a damn sword, at least, Alistaire!”
I don’t announce that my arms aren’t strong enough to swing a Player’s sword. This will have to do.
Mattia’s brow falls as she takes in my dagger.
She levels a look at Jude that seems to read, Really?
while I head for the center of the circular platform and turn, silent.
Waiting. The whispers of auditionees hush as Mattia approaches me the way one might approach a gravely injured animal that needs to be put down. Cautious but pitying.
The realization of my mistake arrows through me.
Up close, it’s easy to tell how much bigger Mattia is.
Her shoulders are corded with lean muscle from years of training—and that cut on her arm already seems to be healing rapidly.
A tooth the size of my palm dangles at her neck.
Legend claims Mattia ripped that tooth from a beast sent by Artemis herself.
I look to her blade, wet with blood. This Player wrangled a beast sent by the gods with her bare hands. A mortal with a dagger and a big mouth must be an insult of a challenge by comparison.
Mattia closes the remaining space with a rudimentary swing, as if testing to see if I’ll move or if I really am suicidal.
She looks mildly surprised when I dodge her blade and mimic the counterstrike I’ve watched Galen do about a thousand times. But I miss her entirely, clumsily swinging at her torso.
Turning, Mattia slashes the blade down toward my armed hand. I throw the dagger up, just barely shifting to catch it before it can clatter to the ground. That singular movement leaves me exhausted, cold gripping at my bones.
“You’ve taught her well in a short time, Jude,” Mattia remarks.
I glance in Jude’s direction, out of breath and annoyed that he should get any credit.
But he isn’t watching the fight at all. His eyes are focused above.
I track his gaze past the golden box seats and over the highest balconies, where a spindly series of bridges crisscrosses along the theatre in a maze.
Then I see what he sees. A wisp of white, racing over us on the catwalk at otherworldly speed, like a—
Like a ghost.
When I look back down, Jude is on the move, sprinting backstage.
Something strikes the back of my knee, sends me toppling forward with a shout of pain.
“Ali, get up!” shouts an auditionee who seems to think we’re on a nickname basis.
I vaguely register that the sole of Mattia’s boot has granted me this surprise trip to the floor. My vision spins. She’s advancing on me, clearly bored with pretense.
Pain pinches the bones in my fingers as I grip the dagger for dear life. I can’t do this.
“Get up, Alistaire!” someone shouts. I don’t know who. “Do you want to die?”
Anger beats in my pulse. Do I? I won’t survive this stage trick, this Reality Suspension, if I lose this fight. Not with this mark. Not without whatever “Craft binding” is. The others will.
No, I decide. I don’t. I don’t want to die.
My eyes flash up at Mattia advancing on me. I certainly don’t want to die at the hands of a Player.
Galen’s voice shouts in my head. No big movements. When someone comes at you, it doesn’t matter how strong they are.
I shoot an ankle out and snag her shin, swearing at the pressure on my knees. My defenses aren’t impressive by any stretch. Just quick and clumsily unpredictable. Maybe because I don’t know what my next move will be, either.
All that matters is how smart you are. And gods, Riven, you are smart.
I don’t want to die. In fact, I really want to live.
Jude shouts something from above, and it draws Mattia’s eyes. She peers up to the catwalk just long enough for me to lunge onto my feet and slice my blade across the muscles of her stomach.
The Player doubles over and swears, gold bleeding through the leather where I’ve cut her. But her eyes are ablaze, burning through me. With no warning, she pivots, pushing and swinging and cornering me to the edge of the platform, finally unleashing her true skill.
Skill I am in no way, shape, or form prepared to combat.
Jude shouts something again. Galen’s voice is yelling at me to strike. But I don’t know how to strike, how to fight. I skitter backward like a cornered dog.
In a frantic, last-ditch effort, I aim my dagger for Mattia’s neck and throw it as hard as I can. She moves, and it clatters pathetically to the floor, leaving me open and defenseless.
This isn’t how I die. The words slam into me like a tidal wave as Mattia raises her weapon.
Jude screams again, and I hear it this time: “éxodos!”
The world flashes black, then white.
Then there is no color, no sound, no nothing, like reality has drained itself from my world. Like time has stopped.
I raise my eyes to the catwalk and have only enough time to see a wisp of white disappearing on the other side of it, the ghostly figure vanishing.
Jude stares down at us from the bridge, his expression frantic.
Right before the chandelier overhead falls toward the stage, Mattia and me in its path.