Act III Scene XXVI
My name is Alistaire Hunt.
As the morbid excitement of the audience rampages through the vents and carries into my dressing room, all I can think of is that first lie.
That first mistake. It’s enough to drown out Parrish’s humming as she buzzes around my head like a bee, weaving threads of gold into my hair.
At the moment, she looks so meek, it’s hard to picture her ever winning her own blood battle to claim her place in our cast.
PARRISH: “It’s all right; it isn’t the first time someone’s wondered.
” I must have been staring. She taps at my jaw to get me to turn and starts painting my lips.
“They always underestimate the small ones. I was put in the arena with Marcus at the time. He was new enough to be the perfect degree of prideful—the sort that made him laugh at my efforts.”
RIVEN: “What did you do?”
PARRISH: “Most Players with a knack for Compulsion imbue new emotions in their audience, but my talents lie in the exaggeration of what’s already there.
Marcus was overconfident, and I amplified that to a sort of blissful unawareness.
Pretty easy after that. Oh, don’t look so shocked! Jude wouldn’t do that. Not his style.”
I shift uncomfortably at the reminder. I’ll be locked in with Jude until one of us is dead.
And based on last night, he seems perfectly fine with that being him.
PARRISH: “But that said…” She bites her lip, goes back to braiding. “Watch your surroundings. Don’t trust them, I mean. In the arena. And Jude, he always goes for throats—”
SIL: “Drama queen, always has been.” Parrish and I look over our shoulders to find Sil at the door, a flat, square box in his hands. “Turns everything into a bloody performance whether he’s supposed to or not.”
The unwelcome memory of Dorian’s ear in the snow flashes across my vision, while Parrish moves to excuse herself rather quickly.
She catches my eye before she goes, though, gives me a subtle nod. Then presses her hands to the door; I catch the smallest rip in her elbow, the gold exposed beneath as she vanishes.
SIL: “But you, Riven.” He rests the box on my vanity as the door clicks shut. “You are patient. Clever. Leave him to his ego and theatrics, and Jude will destroy himself.”
With a click, the box snaps open, revealing a tangle of golden leaves fashioned into a thin, glittering wreath. Sil removes it with care.
“Remember,” he says, positioning the wreath over the crown of braids atop my head. “Everything you see in the arena isn’t happening.” The sharpened edges dig into my scalp, but I don’t let him see me flinch. “Stick to your bridge. Do not let Jude have control over the illusion.”
My pulse races as Sil brushes the intricate plait Parrish styled over my shoulder, and I think my hair must have grown a foot in the time I’ve been here. The face in the mirror looks so unlike the one I came in here with.
Strangely, I think I miss the old one.
SIL: “Don’t make the mistake of thinking he’ll take the first shot he gets.
He isn’t there just to kill you.” His hands settle on my shoulders, locking eyes with me in the mirror.
“He’s there to make a show of it. Break a leg, Riven,” he tells me.
Just as he’s told me before every Great Dionysia before.
Sil moves for the door, and my mouth opens. “You’ve gone to great lengths, Sil—keeping all of us together. Safe. Here.”
He stills at the unscripted line, hand at the doorknob. “Such is the burden of a director.” His words are clipped at the edges.
“It’s curious—how you ended up with the Script the way you did.”
I can see from here the muscle ticking in Sil’s jaw. “Some Playhouse mysteries may never be solved,” he says, showing his teeth an awful lot.
For a moment, Sil doesn’t look like my director. He looks like what he is: a selfish man with the hands of a thief and alchemist. Wielding the stolen power of a god, to use and to exploit for his own purposes.
I wonder if Sil was as powerless as me once. Desperate, hungry, angry. Maybe a day existed before greed overtook his bones and throttled his every desire. But if there was, it doesn’t matter now.
Nothing is enough for a selfish and simple man. Nothing short of ruling the world.
“Your audience is counting on you,” Sil says, tone short. “See that you don’t keep them waiting.”
The door snaps shut behind him with a little more force than necessary.
I retrieve the weapons Parrish laid out for me: two daggers, which I secure beneath the flexible layers of my dress, slit high on either side of my hips for easy movement.
A long, polished bow. A quiver full of arrows.
I pull the thirteenth one out, examining its point.
Then, drawing a breath, slip the small golden vial that Galen gave me from beneath my neckline, where it hangs on a chain.
My eyes burn, but my hands are sure as they unscrew the vial and dip the point of the arrow into Eleutheraen gold, assuring myself I won’t have to use it. That it will never come down to this.
Jude’s words from last night counter the thought. I will play whatever role I have to if it means holding on to you. Let the gods judge me a villain for it.
But I will not play a role anymore.
I will not be Sil’s pawn, tool, or weapon.
I will not be the villain of his story.
And as gold dries on the arrowhead, which I stow carefully back into my quiver, I can only hope Jude won’t be the villain in mine. The vial vanishes beneath the neckline of my dress.
I’m about to head for the arena when a gentle hum snags my attention.
The voice beckons me back to the mirror, a soft melody emanating from the other side. I’ve known it since it sang to me through the mirror years ago, comforting me when I was frightened.
He hums the very same tune now, though in a lower, richer tone.
Slowly, I place my palm to the mirror. The glass ripples at my touch.
Then it warms, and I imagine a second palm meeting the other side of the glass. I can almost see the white scar slashed across it. From the depths of my memory, I recall the words to the tune he hums. A forgotten rhyme from an old play.
Until next time,
Until then,
So long until
We’re back again.