Act III Scene XXIII
Later that night, I follow my scripted blocking up to the Playhouse terrace, much as I resent obeying it. For right now, I have a role to play. By the slow, stumbled chatter, I assume I’m late for my entrance. They’ve run out of lines.
TITUS: “Riven!” His voice booms as I emerge, but I catch the tension in his smile. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are looking at either a new star Player or a corpse with a very nice jawline.”
Mattia kicks him.
MATTIA: “Do you think you could make it more than a few sentences without being such a shameless flirt?”
TITUS: “With wine like this and a face like yours?”
ARIUS: “Join us, Riven. There’s drink to go around.”
TITUS: “So, drink! Like there’s no tomorrow.” He winks but holds my gaze a beat too long, our earlier conversation written behind his eyes. There’s a small place below his ear where gold peeks through, the tiniest crack in his costume.
Moving to the couches, I seat myself in the space beside Parrish—realizing it isn’t incidentally empty but unwittingly reserved. More of it, scripted.
I catch Mattia’s attention, where she’s plucking figs from a bowl. Her gaze bounces away from mine. There’s a new rupture of gold at her hairline, spreading like a web. The Player in me sees it and feels disgusted, noting the urge to shed a deteriorating costume, empathizing.
But I am the costume, and I’m still here, so I shove those thoughts away.
RIVEN: “Any word on the council?”
Arius grimaces. Titus laughs.
MATTIA: “From what I hear, I don’t think Jude will be joining us tonight.”
JUDE: “Actually, he will.”
We all turn to where Jude stares blankly at us from the top of the steps.
I wonder if anyone else notices the messy way his gold irises have begun to bleed into the whites of his eyes. His handsome features, sharp before, are almost inhuman now.
“Any news?” Parrish chirps.
JUDE: “It would seem your speech moved them, Riven.” Moved them.
A kind way to phrase plucked every line of defense from their fingertips.
“They’ve surrendered. Signed onto Sil’s new terms, to go into effect beginning tomorrow, after the Great Dionysia winner’s been crowned.
” He finds a seat across from me but avoids my eyes. “The Playhouse has won.”
Silence shivers over the words.
Then my cast breaks into cheers, wine is poured, and chalices are clinked together.
I’ve done it, exactly what I was designed to do, taken the world for a stage. Handed it to Sil on a platter.
I hate to admit part of me feels good—complete. Playing my role as it was intended.
JUDE: “Confiscations of Eleutheraen weapons and the dismantling of resistance groups will begin immediately after. I expect none of it will go down cleanly.”
TITUS: “Well, enough of this doom and gloom! One of you will be dead tomorrow, and that’s exciting.”
The mere mention of the arena sets a chill in the air. As the quiet chorus of banter carefully sculpted around me plays out like a piece of sheet music, I clutch the Eleutheraen gold vial in my pocket, wondering what Galen would do, would say, if he could see me now.
ARIUS: “Well, Riven?”
I snap to attention, unsure what the question was, until I realize I know what’s been said, because I remember reading this scene. Red wine splashes over the sides of a crystal chalice Arius sets on the table. “Any predictions?” he clarifies. “About tomorrow?”
Parrish nudges me jokingly. “Suppose you’ll join us forever? We’ve got the whole world to perform on these days.”
I look widely at my cast. Jude’s knuckles are white around his cup. I raise my own.
RIVEN: “Ignorance is bliss.”
Our final night slips away with the shift of stars and the clearing of crowds below, though some hopeful onlookers sleep outside the Playhouse gates, craning their necks up toward the terrace.
The Players make their exits in pieces. First, Mattia, who always retires early. Then Parrish, who stretches, yawns, and mutters something about checking on her “experiment.” Then, stubbornly, Titus, who awakens from his drunken stupor at this proclamation.
Finally, Arius rubs his eyes, then floats down the stairs after the rest.
Alone, Jude and I say nothing to each other.
This scene is over. We’re supposed to go to bed, too. Being the obedient Player Jude always is, he numbly gathers his coat from over a chair without a word.
Fine. With my shoulders tight, I turn stiffly and stalk toward the stairs, making my peace with the thought that the next—and last—time we’ll see each other will be in the arena.
“Riven,” he blurts as I pad down the first three steps.
It’s the first unscripted word he’s deigned to utter since that conversation yesterday.
I throw a look over my shoulder, brow gathered.
We’re out of lines for this scene. And Jude has made his alliances clear.
“He speaks,” I say dryly. The lights in the stairwell leading to the common room flicker, dimming.
We’re off script, but somehow, it feels more natural than the words that were written for us.
“This is the safest time to talk—when we return to our rooms at night, before the lights shut off.” His voice is tight. “The same way it’s okay to smile and wave and break character during curtain call. The curtain is starting to shut.”
I pinch the corners of my mouth into a cold half smile. “Then I had best get backstage before it does.”
I scamper down a few more steps before he calls, exasperated, “Riven.”
But my next entrance, to my dressing room and then to my bed, is calling. I’m sure he can feel his own blocking, too.
“Please,” he adds stiffly, like the word takes a lot of work. “I know you’re mad, and you’re right to be. But can we please— Just please talk to me.”
I try to tell myself it’s silly to be angry with Jude, that I can’t feel any more betrayed by him than by myself. That we both accepted our roles, no matter how long ago it was.
But only one of us seems intent on seeing it through to the end.
And I am not just mad about that. I’m furious.
I breathe, look at him. “What, Jude?”
He watches me, suspicious as I climb back up the steps. “You helped the Playhouse evade a war tonight. I know you too well to think you did it out of the goodness of your heart.”
I sense the real question beneath his words, though. Can we go back to safely playing our roles now?
The torchlight flickers, then starts to dim. As it does, I catch a glimpse of him, an actual glimpse, of every face Jude has worn, every voice he has spoken to me with.
“I want to know why,” he says.
You may be my most resilient Player, Sil told me, but you had best believe Jude is my most loyal.
I hate that, in a sense, Sil has won. I don’t know if I’m looking at an ally or an enemy. Maybe some unholy combination of the two. But until I find out which, I do have a new part to play, and it will be a tricky one.
My mouth opens. It takes effort to form the words. Words that aren’t a line, that my tongue was never supposed to form. “Because I choose this,” I say. “I choose every life we will live after this. I choose our stage and this Playhouse. My home.”
The place where my mark once was twists with phantom pain at the lie.
But Jude doesn’t seem to notice me wince. Instead, he closes the space between us in two strides, throws his arms around me, and he weeps.