Intermission Scene V
When I awaken, I see stone walls and rotting wooden beams lined with torches. Across the worn floorboards, a heavy oak door. A map on the wall. Two windows, crusted with ice, frame a furious snowstorm. It’s dark outside. Still night, then.
I can’t move—my hands are bound tighter than a sailor’s knot on both armrests of a chair. Who’s to say how they dragged me off the Diolkos and to wherever this is without raising suspicion, but it’s almost impressive.
Actually, no. I coaxed a Player through a railway station and onto that train. It takes more to impress me now.
Somehow, these garbled thoughts bring a huff to my lips and the word “mediocre,” before the rest of my brain wakes up.
“I’m sorry the accommodations don’t suit you,” says a voice with a laugh, and I lift my eyes to see a figure illuminated in the now-open door, the night dark and encroaching around him. A drift of snow rushes in, and I shiver as Dorian pushes the door closed and stalks forward.
I feel eyes on my back, hear chatter—there are people behind me. One of them whispers something that sounds like, “Don’t look her in the eyes.”
“I cannot stress this enough, but capturing me is truly useless,” I say, realizing how dry my throat is when the words come out in a rasp.
To be fair, I am frightened, but after being held prisoner in the Playhouse by immortal monsters, being kidnapped by humans feels more like a time-out.
Dorian blinks at me, a passive smile drifting across his weathered face.
If I look close enough, I almost think I can see wheels turning just behind that unsettling gleam in his eyes.
“I don’t think that’s true. Have you seen this?
” He hooks a finger at someone behind me, and I hear heavy steps.
Then Dorian is holding a newspaper. He taps the front page.
“When morning comes, this headline will be in every newspaper across Theatron.”
It reads:
who is alistaire hunt?
My lips silently mouth the words along the top line.
Audiences shocked after auditionee replaces Lead Player Jude Stepharros in one of the most convincing Mimicry performances seen to date.
A classic Playhouse trick, most say, though speculations about Jude’s absence at the stage door have given birth to rumors about the Lead Player’s health… and whereabouts.
Still, with no face of her own yet to be seen onstage, it begs the question: Who is Alistaire Hunt?
“It would seem you have a curse, Alistaire,” Dorian says loosely.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I mutter, pulling on my bindings. They don’t budge.
“A natural, the Playhouse would call you,” he goes on. “And that creates a most unique problem for us. You’re marked, you see.” I wince with disgust when he presses two fingers to my collar and tucks it back, revealing the blistering, but healing, skin. “Or…you were.”
I try to look over my shoulder, catching a glimpse of the cloaked audience behind me.
So this is the notorious resistance.
I don’t know why I imagined Dorian as young. Up close, I decide he can’t be younger than sixty, a hard ruggedness to his form and weathered face that suggests I am far from the most intimidating thing he has encountered.
“If you were to take the place of Jude Stepharros—” Dorian says, interrupted by my burst of laughter, which he ignores.
“If you were to take his place in the cast and news were to—and it will—break that you are not from South of the Cut…well, that would make you, Riven Hesper, the very first Player from the North. In history. Certainly the only marked Player to set foot onstage.”
“You make it sound glamorous,” I feign. Cracking jokes makes it feel less serious. I know where he’s going with this. There’s never been a Player who hailed from North of the Cut.
And certainly not one who happens to be the daughter of the dead Peacemaker.
“The political upheaval alone would cripple Theatron. Throw the entire philosophy of the North into jeopardy.” That unserious, singsong voice again. His eyes lock on mine. “Should you take Jude’s place, your presence alone could very well open the gates wide to the North for the Playhouse.”
I say nothing as his words crawl over my skin, seep into my bones.
“Is that what you want? Are you truly that selfish?” Dorian almost sounds sincere, until his voice drops to a snarl. “I guess we should expect nothing less from the Playhouse.” He pauses. “Your Player-worshipping traitor of a father would be proud.”
It feels like I’ve been slapped across the face. Player-worshipping. Traitor.
What is he talking about?
“Where is Galen?” I demand.
“Your brother was sent away. He should have known we do not help the likes of the Playhouse. I should have thanked him for the information, though. It made it easier to track you.”
A bitter taste fills my mouth. “I am not their next Player.”
Dorian sighs, a sad look on his face as he reaches into his breast pocket and retrieves a vial. “I’m afraid it’s a chance we can’t take, Riven.”
The bottle looks familiar—that twisted silver cap that forms the shape of a serpent. I’ve seen one just like it in Jude’s dressing room.
Poison of Echidna. It’s lethal. Instant.
“I am going to ask you one more time.” He tilts his head, smiles kindly. “Where is Jude Stepharros?”
“I don’t know!” I answer truthfully.
“Are you willing to help us track him?” the woman—Eleni—counters. And I realize the real reason they’ve kept me alive. She saw the Craft in my eyes, knows I could possibly track him by it, probably find him if I tried.
I open my mouth, close it. Could I? I was willing to hand Jude over to Syrene. But that was supposed to be a trade.
Looking at Dorian, at his hunters, at the Eleutheraen weapons strapped to their belts…I don’t think there would be any trade if they got their hands on Jude.
“No.” The word shocks me more than it does them. “I won’t.”
Dorian twists his lips. “That’s disappointing.”
“Wait,” I protest, bucking and pulling at my ties. “Wait, but I—I know things. About the Players, about their director—”
Dorian roughly pushes my sleeve farther up, pulls a torch from the wall. Beneath the flame, my veins shine gold.
My stomach feels like it’s full of lead.
“It runs in your blood now,” he concludes, resolute and emotionless.
“It can be purged,” I insist. “My allegiance is with the North, not with the—”
“Yet you won’t help us find him, a Player you’ve set loose on the world?” he asks. “You expect any of us to believe you’re capable of telling the truth?”
I can’t stand the look of his blue-gray eyes, the swift conviction behind them.
So this is how it ends. Not by the selfishness of a Player who trapped me but at the hands of my own kind.
Dorian pops the lid off the bottle, and the sound sends my vision tunneling. My blood burns hot—really hot as he grips my chin and brings the bottle to my lips.
This isn’t how I’m supposed to die.
Panic shouts in my mind, and I buck, throwing my weight to the side as hard as I can.
My chair swings and then comes crashing down on my left as I pull hard on my binds. Someone yells to Dorian as my ties snap.
I roll onto the ground and make a beeline for the door.
Someone snatches my hands and forces them behind me, whipping me around so fast, the air is shoved out of my lungs. It gives me a chance to take in the rest of my surroundings—the stone walls behind me, the gleaming gold weapons strung up in display beside a narrow hallway leading out.
Dorian’s entourage lines the back of the room. I don’t count them—eight? Ten? I barely catch more than a flickering glimpse of their faces, hard and rugged like Dorian’s, by the light of the torches.
More boots come barreling in from that narrow hall.
It takes way more of them to hold me than it should. I want to convince myself it’s the adrenaline, but I know it’s something else. There’s Craft in my blood. I am stronger than I should be. Stronger than a mortal should be.
A lot of things are shouted, but I only care about one phrase.
“Eleutheraen gold—to hold her—”
Fear grips my spine as instinct sends me reaching for my bridge, riling my anger and tugging desperately on the Craft there—
But before I can do anything with it, I’m thrust back into my chair, and something heavy loops over my arms, pulling tight. Chains. One of the Eleutheraen links is jagged and scratches the skin of my shoulder, a violent burning sensation left in its wake.
Do something! I think furiously at myself. Figure this out—
But the yelling around me, the calls for Eleutheraen gold, the weight of chains cinched around my shoulders…
My world slows, my body too heavy, like it desperately wants to go to sleep and never wake up. Nausea whirls in the pit of my stomach as I pull in a breath.
Help. The word is a shout in my head, useless. I’m alone. I’m alone, and I need to get out of this—
“I don’t want to harm you, Riven,” Dorian growls, leaning down to face me when I’m at last restrained. “Were it simpler, I would gladly return you to your brother. I wish that I could.”
“Then why don’t you?” I challenge, but my voice is strained. “He’ll tell you I’m marked. That I do not belong to the Playhouse—” I rail against the chains but feel weaker each time I try.
To my horror, a thought crosses my mind: What if Dorian is right? Look at where I am. What it takes to hold me.
What if I am no better than a Player?
I have no idea what I am anymore. But whatever it is, it feels lonely.
“And when the world learns who you are?” Dorian says, catching his breath.
I grip the armrests of the chair and grit my teeth until my jaw aches.
“Daughter of the murdered Peacemaker! If she can trust the Playhouse—join it!—why shouldn’t everyone?
” He shows me the bottle again. “This is not about you. Think of your people, Riven. Your family. Surely you must see this is the best thing you can do for them?”
I breathe hard, exhausted. I don’t want to believe him. But his words…they start to sound right, to make horrible sense.
Dorian approaches me with caution, watching my hands like they’re claws. Suddenly, it’s not that I’m too tired to fight him, to fight all of them.
I’m just not sure I should.
I stop pulling on my chains.
Dorian leans down, bracing an arm on his knee and staring deep into my eyes, like he’ll find every lie I’ve ever told there. Slowly, my gaze drops to the poison in his hand.
The door flies open again, the wind howling through. I shiver harder.
“Sir!”
A boy, no older than fifteen with a freckled face, stands there with a worried look. “Sir, you need to see something—it’s urgent.” His voice is frail and panicked, eyes bouncing between my situation and something happening outside.
Dorian stills a moment, patience thinning as he says, “I’m sure it can wait—”
“It can’t, sir.”
There’s a shift in the room as Dorian’s people exchange concerned looks.
“Watch her,” Dorian orders to my army of babysitters and stalks out after the boy, calling for the man named Basel to follow.
The one built like a granite statue lumbers out after them, enormous gilded axe in hand.
In their absence, Eleni—his obvious second-in-command—and another woman who might have more muscles in her neck than I have in my entire body stand by the door, eyes on me.
As if waiting for me to try and make another grand escape.
I don’t.
If I expected commotion to follow, none does. Nothing. Even the howl of the wind falls eerily silent. I tune in to the careful breathing of those around me.
As fate would have it, I am sorely out of luck, because when the door creaks open, Dorian stalks back in, unbothered by whatever situation awaited him outside. He stares at me and stills, shaking his head. “Where were we?”
I brace myself for the poison as Eleni steps aside to let him through.
Do I deserve this? Part of me wonders if I might.
At least Jude said it kills quick.
There’s a sly grin on Dorian’s face that I don’t like at all as he leans close. But when he tilts his head at me, I pause, find myself struggling to recall if it was his left ear that was missing. It was his left ear. Not his right. Wasn’t it?
“Don’t look so scared,” he whispers, voice dropping so low, I think only I can hear it. “What did I teach you about your nerves? Three deep breaths.”
My breathing stops altogether.
“You aren’t Dorian,” I say.
“Dorian? No.” He smiles. Gold curls under one of his irises. “Not I.”