Act III Scene XXIX
“So be it,” he says, his hands balling into fists.
At the dark shift in his voice, I take a defensive step back.
JUDE: “There are three things I will have you know before the end of this, Riven.” An edge cuts into his words as he recites the line. “One, that this is not your home.”
He throws his hands out, gesturing widely to the windows, where the illusion of the District awaits outside. Instantly, they shatter, glass scattering everywhere. A piece bites into my palm when I duck to cover my face.
JUDE: “No matter where you go, no matter who you become, and no matter what you do, you will always come home.” He bites down on each word. “Home here, where we belong, home to the Playhouse.”
At that line, an anger in me wakens. Being trapped here in the Playhouse. Being planted in the real world like a festering wound. Being used like a chess piece.
Do not let Jude have control over the illusion, Sil’s voice prompts in my head.
I move fast, doing exactly what I did on this day ten years ago when I was marked: I start to shove the worktable over, only now, with the strength of the Player I know I am. My arms thrust it at Jude with a force that pins his back to the wall.
The crash of the impact shudders through the stone walls as I grip the handle of the door and summon a command under my breath.
The foundations of his illusion splinter, rumble.
A groan peels my attention back to Jude, who pushes the workbench off, jaw tightening, the proud glint of a challenge accepted in his eyes.
The walls shake as I slip outside and slam the door shut on him. His mirage collapses, the houses and streets he conjured crumbling to ash.
“Methexis,” I utter, and my Craft rushes in response.
I need to buy time before Sil realizes something has gone wrong. Make it seem like I’m fighting back until I can get Jude to reason with me.
I kneel and speak to the ground. You are not dust, I tell the rubble as it swirls uneasily, like something living is beneath it. You are limestone. You are war-torn. You are an ancient city.
Two can play at his memory game. I saw his recollections, too.
The dust rises, solidifying into tall, cracked columns topped by heavy marble domes.
I sing to the stone until it smooths into a winding path between dry grasses.
The tips of my fingers prod at the sky, summoning a white moon and a foreboding wind.
The scent of fear stifles the air, sharp and bitter.
I draw from my bridge until the illusion molds into the shape of a different city: the lost ruins of Thymele. The same city I saw in Jude’s memory—a false memory made up for his role.
But whether the memory is real or not, Jude remembers every bit like it happened.
I creep along the empty streets of my illusion until I find him.
He faces away from me, statue-like at a crossroads, his attention roaming warily. Shoving my heels into the ground, I back behind the thick trunk of a tree and watch from afar.
Then his shoulders shrink inward like a child’s, eyes shifty and uncertain as he blinks up at the sky, like he can’t remember what he’s doing or why he’s here.
I reach out, nip and pull at his mind with Compulsion until nothing exists except this moment, this memory. “You are young.” I weave deception into my tone as the wind carries my whispers to his ears. “You are scared.”
The earth rumbles again as the wind thickens, black with smoke. I raise my mouth to the sky and command it to turn red as blood.
Finally, with a flick of my wrist, I resurrect the illusion of stakes rising from the earth, the burned golden remains of our fellow Players scorched upon them. Flames race through the streets, tearing toward Jude. He cries out, staggering back.
He may not have lived this memory, but the Player in him knows the scene well. We all do.
Jude collapses to his knees, staring at the burning Players on the hill, no longer the terrifying creature from a moment ago. He looks small, vulnerable. I catch a glimpse of the hopeful thing he is at heart, before fear and pride hardened him.
I conjure a mask for myself: that boy I saw in Jude’s memory, morphing inward, younger, innocent. Dipping my thumb into the ground, I swipe ash over my cheek and notice the rough calluses of my costumed hands.
Then I run into the burning city. As someone familiar, a friend. Someone he’ll trust. “Jude!”
He blinks in my direction, eyes wide and frightened. Recognition blooms in his expression.
I motion for him to follow me, running for the shelter of the city’s temple built to honor the first Players. Under my breath, I conjure the distant chorus of slaughter, a gust of shattering limestone. Jude’s feet pound after mine, all the way to the columns of the temple.
I don’t need Jude to let his guard down. I only need him fooled long enough to lure him toward one of the heavier columns.
Embers fall over the city like rain as we dart through the temple’s courtyard, the night sky deepening into a darker, angry red. I lean down, brushing my fingers to the stone. “Tremble,” I tell them and straighten before Jude notices.
The ground obeys, shifting beneath us. Jude swears and runs between two of the columns as the marble splits at our feet. He whirls, running his hands through his hair, eyes wide and blinking, like he knows something is off about his surroundings but can’t place what it is.
I watch the pillars, straining my Craft toward them. “You are weak,” I whisper to them.
Jude pauses a few feet from the columns, shoulders rigid. His gaze narrows at the faded tile at his feet, then up at the columns.
“You cannot stand,” I tell the pillars as Jude approaches them for cover with caution. He kneels to the ground, plucking a stick from the tile defensively.
I close my eyes and focus. “You will fall,” I command them.
But when I open my eyes, Jude isn’t by the pillars. He stands only a few feet from me as the column tips behind him. With a thunderous crash, the falling support beam shakes the foundations of the earth. Overhead, the dome ceiling lurches inward, begins to crumble.
Then I register the object in Jude’s hands. Not a stick. A pointed silver spear, the one he held when he stepped into the arena.
No sooner have I grasped the turning tables before Jude pivots and throws the spear. The head slices across the air.
A sharp pain explodes through my side.
JUDE: “Impressive. You had me a moment.” His tone drawls, putting on a show for the crowd as I lay gasping, the spearhead buried in my side.
My torso feels wet, warm. His steps approach.
“You should have chosen someone else to Mimic.” Jude’s brow draws together in annoyance at my mask, which dissolves from my skin.
I’m unable to hold the illusion any longer.
“Lukas never made it out of the city. Wasn’t fast enough.
I told you I escaped alone.” He tilts his head.
“Why are you drawing this out, Riven? I’ve given you several opportunities now. Finish it.”
I gasp for breath, but it falls right out of my lungs. Pain scorches from my side and pulses through my body. This isn’t enough to kill me—Jude knows that. He just wants me angry enough to fight back. And he’s right. That anger is warming behind my eyes, starting to burn in my throat.
He knows if I won’t follow the Script, the monster beneath my skin will.
“I won’t fight you,” I rasp. “I am done.”
Jude whips his gaze up like he’s heard something strange, searching the false world around us.
Then he winces, clutching a hand to his temples.
As he does, something twists in my mind, and I feel it, too.
The Script. Our performance has gone awry, and the near-irresistible urge to submit to the words written for us is calling us back.
Something like panic flashes across his face. Then, quick and merciless as a whip, Jude grips the end of the spear before I can pull it from my side, and twists.
“Fight me, Riven!” he roars as the city crumbles, my illusion slipping and breaking as the urge to suspend my reality, to let this body die for a moment, overwhelms my thoughts.
Darkness bruises my vision. Above us, cracks in the temple dome spread like tree branches, ready to fall in a hailstorm of rock and debris. Marble splits beneath my back.
My mind begs for rest, to release the illusion and embrace the shadows hovering over my vision, eager to take me. I am so tired of fighting.
Surely, Sil knows by now. Knows something has gone wrong.
JUDE: “The second thing I will have you know before the end of this.” The skin across his left eyebrow is splitting, gold bleeding viciously down the side of his face.
His costume tearing more as I push us further and further off script.
“There is no true good, and no evil. Only those powerful enough to decide which is which.”
My eyes narrow at the chain around his neck—bare now. The coin gone.
Two sides of a shiny coin used to purchase terrible things.
I will not be used anymore.
In the distance, I hear screams. The roar of the audience. Someone calling my name.
Jude gives the spear a final twist, shouting at me to fight back, but blood roars in my ears over his words.
Then: exactly what Jude wants. Something visceral and unforgiving boils in my blood, rises to the surface. The Player beneath my skin, summoned by the dangerous realization that I’m refusing my role, a marionette yanking on its own strings.
White-hot Craft bursts behind my eyes.
My gaze turns on Jude, and fury frames it. I’m going to kill you.
No. I sever the thought, strangle the overwhelming intention to fight, to kill, to rip the spear from my flesh and slash it across Jude’s throat.
Shadows eclipse my vision, my blood burning through my veins. With a cry, I throw my hand onto the marble and voice to the stone a final command.
Before Jude can react, the dome falls and the ground splits open, swallowing us both.