Act II Scene II
“What?” I whisper into the mirror. In the distance, I hear applause.
We’re running out of time.
“Our access point to the well has been drying up for years.”
No mortal can reach the heights of Mount Eleutherae or the Eleutheraen gold that pools at its top. But beneath the mountain, it runs deep underground throughout the North.
Or it did.
Galen is staring like I’m as good as dead. “The miners began reporting diminishing lines of Eleutheraen gold ages ago.” The acquiescence of his tone only startles me further.
I stare back in disbelief. Eleutheraen gold is our only defense against the Players. It’s always been a part of my world, used for marks, for dipping weapons.
“It’s a bluff?” I say, shocked. “Our defense is a bluff.”
The North is built on truth, yet our greatest protection hinges on the Players believing a lie. A half-truth so thin, we wouldn’t even be able to deny it if asked. I heard the Players say it just this morning: Our Eleutheraen gold is all that stands between them and taking the North for themselves.
“Not entirely,” Galen whispers. “The North has continued markings, but what’s being sold on the market is diluted at best. New markings aren’t done with pure Eleutheraen gold anymore.”
A half-truth. Technically, Eleutheraen gold is being sold. It’s just watered down.
“I don’t know how effective it is,” Galen admits. “Even parts of the Cut aren’t pure.”
Our infallible wall is flawed.
Cassia doesn’t look even mildly surprised, her eyes low, head down.
She knew, too, then.
The Players may be able to cross the Cut. And we can’t fight them off.
My escaping the Playhouse will mean nothing. There will be nothing left to go home to. There may be no one left if they have their way.
“That Player who has you has refused any talks of peace until the Great Dionysia.” Galen shakes his head. “If the wall falls, there’s little to stop them.” He locks his gaze on mine. “We may not see the light of a new treaty. We have no leverage to bargain with.”
And the North will be back at the mercy of the Players all over again. Even today, Syrene’s streets are said to be red from the original Players drenching their land in so much blood, the rain couldn’t wash it away.
“Leverage,” I whisper to myself. Leverage. “Wait—but we do.” I lock eyes with Galen, a horrible idea materializing before my eyes. “Me.”
Cassia looks up, her eyes flashing to Galen.
“No,” he says, resolute. “What matters is getting you out of—”
“But I can help!” I press, trying to sound more certain than I feel. “I can get leverage.”
“Galen,” Cassia tries again. Her face is meek, but I see the calculation behind her eyes. “The things she could learn may be invaluable to—”
“And risk the Player realizing whose family she comes from?” Galen raises his voice. “She is a child, Cassia.”
“I am not a child,” I grind out. “Dear gods, Galen, I am only four years younger than your twenty-two!” Besides, I’ve survived this long. I fought a Player and lived to see another day. Clearly I am capable.
In fact, this may be the best chance I have to prove it. How could the council not pardon my ruined mark if I deliver them everything they need to stop the Playhouse?
The possibility gleams like a shiny trophy in my mind. I wouldn’t be Riven-cursed-by-a-Player. I wouldn’t even be Riven-the-dead-Peacemaker’s-daughter anymore.
I would just be Riven. I could finish what my father started. I could do what he couldn’t.
People won’t be afraid of that Riven. There’ll be a place for that Riven.
A stinging sensation brings my attention to the place my mark used to be. I have a score to settle with Jude now.
Maybe I can do both at once.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. My ear has grown familiar with Jude’s deliberate, quick steps. He’s closing in on the hall. I’m out of time.
And my mind is made up.
“Get a message to the council for me,” I say, snapping my gaze up to Galen. “Tell them to ready a new contract for the Playhouse to sign, one that details every ban on the North and the Cut imaginable. The Playhouse is to surrender their every right to perform in the North.”
Cassia stares at me like I’ve grown a second head. “Their director will never sign—”
“Would he trade one of his Players’ lives for it?” I ask urgently. “If the North had one of the Players as collateral. Would Silenus make a trade? Peace in exchange for the life of his Player. That’s how the first treaty was forged.”
Even Cassia steps back at this. “Riven, to capture a Player would mean—”
“Do not entertain this, Cassia,” Galen says firmly, anger falling across his expression as he turns to scold me. “Whatever you’re thinking is not worth—”
“But it worked once!” My grade-school memory cards flicker through my mind. “A Player was captured and traded in exchange for peace.” It kept the Playhouse out for five hundred years. Why couldn’t it keep them out for five hundred more?
The door, which I’ve chained shut, shakes. I hear Jude on the other side. Along with furious mutterings that sound suspiciously like, “My kingdom for a moment’s peace from that woman.”
I swallow, lowering my voice to a whisper, studying their tour schedule, calculating the dates.
RIVEN: “Tell the council to prepare to make a trade with the Playhouse in Syrene. I’ll meet them there.” I breathe, glancing toward the door. “And I’m bringing their Lead Player.”
I push away from the mirror, banishing the connection before Galen can respond.
For the first time, the roar of rage in my head sounds more like applause.
I’ve just barely stuffed the tour schedule back in the drawer and slammed it shut when the chain on the lock snaps.
The door awkwardly creaks open, Jude waiting on the other side, arms crossed. His eyes take in my destruction with a single bored glance.
JUDE: “You know, I was about to do the silliest thing and look for you in your room.” His eyes land pointedly on me. “And then I asked myself: Where, oh where, would Alistaire be?”
RIVEN: “I was just leaving.” My eyes stall on the quiver of arrows secured to his back and the uniform stitched carefully across his broad shoulders.
JUDE: “My, Alistaire. Don’t look so scared.
This is just a costume from tonight’s show.
I haven’t come to personally execute you.
” There’s a cut below his eye, bleeding but healing rapidly.
“We almost lost that girl, by the way. The boy’s sister.
” I picture the twins. “No true knack for Reality Suspension, that one. They’re cleaning up the stage now. ”
Nausea rises in my throat at the casual declaration, and I wonder what horrors the auditionee might have been subjected to onstage.
Jude strolls into his room and begins loosening the golden armlets from his forearms. I unintentionally let my gaze flicker to the drawer, then to the mirror, paranoid.
JUDE: “Speaking of Reality Suspension, you’re all…here, yes?”
I narrow my eyes, ignoring the scorching pain at the base of my throat. “Most of me made it.”
“Well, that part couldn’t be helped. I meant up here.” He taps a finger at his temple and drops his weapons in a pile on the floor. “Memories and all, you know. Reality Suspension can be…messy. And your mind was so—”
“What?” I ask, suddenly at attention. “What about my mind?”
Jude’s eyes widen, like he said something he didn’t mean to. For once, he struggles to find words. “Reality Suspension, it can offer a…glimpse of sorts, into your—”
“A glimpse?” I ask, barely tamping down my rage. “Inside my head?”
“It’s not like looking at a finished portrait, Alistaire! Just small corners of one. Loose pieces of a larger puzzle. People’s minds are complicated places. You—you feel it more than anything.”
Does he know about Galen? Who my father was? Does he know my name—
“What did you see?” I demand. “Or feel,” I add, accusing. And he called me a snoop.
But for once, Jude doesn’t quip back, doesn’t hurl my own mocking tone back at me. I glare daggers at him, but his own gaze is unreadable—no pity there, not even judgment. “I’m sorry, Alistaire,” he says, tone too controlled in contrast to my outburst. “Truly.” For what, he doesn’t say.
And I don’t ask. I’m skilled at matching anger for anger, insult for insult. I don’t know what to do with apologies, though.
My shoulders drop a little, the embers of my rage burning out.
“Anyway.” He clears his throat, recovering. “I only meant to tell you Sil is sorely disappointed over you missing tonight’s performance.”
“Just wait until he hears I won’t be at any of the other ones, either,” I dodge, diverting my attention to the bookshelf at my back. Anything to avoid looking Jude in the eye will suffice. I pluck a trinket off the shelf, examining.
A frustrated exhale. “Sil wants you tested across Crafts, under his eye. I’ve kindly volunteered to do the honors. Your little stunt with Mattia earlier today caught his attention.”
My mood darkens. “I don’t want it.”
JUDE: “Well, you have it. And worse, you have Mattia’s. Honestly, Alistaire, you should know by now never to go for an actor’s most vital organ.”
I hesitate, trying to remember where I aimed my knife. “Heart?”
Jude frowns. “Ego. But we’ll worry about that later.” He wanders to a cream-colored settee, throwing his long legs over the coffee table. His boots have blood on them. “And I’d put that down if I were you.”
I ignore him and pop open the wooden case I’ve plucked off the shelf. Inside, between folds of purple silk, lies a small vial filled with a substance the color of rosewater, its silver cap twisted into the shape of a serpent. “What is this?”
“Poison of Echidna,” he explains, taking his rings off one by one and placing them on a side table. “Rarer than Persephone’s flowers in the winter. Incapacitates you so quickly, you don’t have the breath to suspend your reality. Even Titus won’t go near it.”
My hands freeze around the box. “Why do you have it?”