Act III Scene XXXVII
The realization doesn’t slam into me with blunt force. It doesn’t punch me across the gut or crack through my mind like a peal of thunder.
It’s a dreadful, silent knowing that curls deep in my bones and begins to burn.
I rise to my feet and stare at Jude, taking one step back, two. His eyes are hollow, but there’s an amused cruelty glinting behind them. It dawns on me all at once.
Jude is gone. He’s been gone. His character was meant to die in the arena.
And, looking at him now, I realize he did. He has no scenes left, no more blocking. Just the monster beneath and a cutting gleam in his eye.
The air rushes from my lungs, freezes me in place.
“Give him back,” I say under my breath, a patient warning as my hands curl into fists and I glare at the monster. Rage coils hot under my skin. “Give him back now—”
Jude cocks his head like a bird, and a blank shadow falls over his gaze, a smile like cut glass carving across his mouth. “Lonely way to die, Riven. Even for you.”
My blood roars in my ears at the cold statement, words Jude would never say.
My pulse thuds so loud, I don’t hear Sil climb the steps of the stage, don’t notice him at all until I turn to bolt for the other wing, where the director blocks the exit.
My breaths come quicker, my eyes landing on the book in his hands.
A laugh nearly rips through my throat at the sheer irony, recalling my own steps that led me to the Playhouse not so long ago, eager for freedom, for power.
I look at my hands, stripped of most of their skin. Not free. Powerless.
“You don’t need to search for your contract,” Sil says. “I took the liberty of breaking its seal myself. Your freedoms are done and so are you, Riven.” His stare never leaves me. “I offer you every story in the world, and you choose the one where you die on my stage.”
Something bucks in me at the thought. No.
This is not how I’m supposed to die.
Before I can consider the consequences, I jolt forward, reaching for the Script in Sil’s hands, like I’ll be able to stop him from ending my life, from reeling my cast back to this cage. Like I’ll be able to search its pages and find Jude between its lines, discover some way to call him back.
But my legs go numb, and Sil laughs pityingly when my knees hit the marble with a crack, just barely out of reach. Though even from here, the power purring over the Script’s pages feels hot enough to rip through my skin. It probably would have shredded my flesh if I had managed to grab it.
“There’s no need for all this drama, Riven,” Sil says as I stare up at him with a hatred that burns at my core. “You’re eager to know how your story ends! That’s perfectly understandable. I’ll show you what it says.”
I don’t want to know. And yet—I can’t help but look as he leans down, tilts the Script in his palms so I can see the words. Before me, the pages almost seem to pulse, to breathe with power that has leashed us for ages.
And I begin to read.
Frost threads up my spine, wraps its chill around my heart as I go—drinking in words that throttle control over my castmates’ lives.
Words meant to end mine entirely.
Each one cuts into my skin, sinks into my bones. But especially the last two:
Nyxene enters.
The doors at the back of the auditorium fly open.
Instinct shouts at me to move, but a primal sort of terror slams into my chest, freezes me in place as a thick torrent of shadows bursts through the doors, moving toward me like a storm cloud.
Then the darkness gathers shape, unfolding into a monstrous, massive heap of twisted, overly long limbs that taper into obsidian claws.
The walls of the auditorium creak, like the weight of Nyxene crawling through the entrance will rip them down. Then I hear it: a low, animalistic clacking, drowned out by a cursed chorus of tangling whispers, hissing and unrecognizable, uttered in vile tones that fill my ears.
A scream catches in my throat, and I choke it back. My eyes widen, following those branch-like limbs as they stretch longer, skittering and clattering up the dome all the way to the catwalk, then slinking down the scarlet curtain—and tearing it clean through the center like expensive paper.
And within the darkness, a dozen quicksilver eyes.
Nyxene.
All at once, the marble feels like someone’s spilled ice over it. I buckle, inhaling, but the air thins in my lungs, too cold to breathe. My own name slips my mind.
The horrid whispering and clacking from the back of the auditorium creeps forward, accompanied by sharp, jutting movements as Nyxene closes in on the front row, each piercing click prickling across my skin like pins. I flinch away, my breaths coming so quick that my vision starts to spin.
“It’s as I told you, Riven.” I clench my teeth and open my eyes as Sil shakes his head down at me, that smile never faltering. “Characters who are too aware are of no use to me. I did try to avoid this.”
Gripping my fists so hard that my nails bite into my palms, I steel myself and dare a glance back at the velvet seats.
Nyxene’s shadows skulk through the orchestra pit now, those jagged claws reaching for me, a beast cornering its prey.
Panic clutches at my heart as I tear my gaze from the sight, searching the words Sil holds before my face as Gene flashes through my mind. The day the shadows tore her apart. Not just her role but all of her. The memories seize me as I stare at the Script, at the end of my story.
Second Death.
Fate bows to no man.
If this is mine, Fate will not take me without a fight.
I gasp for breath, but the air feels like icicles stabbing my lungs as I draw on my strength—praying I have some left.
But as Nyxene crawls onto the stage, I can’t seem to get to my feet. I grasp for my Craft, steeling myself to fight, ready to do it alone. Still, part of me looks to Jude for help, knowing deep down it’s in vain.
There’s no comfort to be found in his eyes, just a glittering edge of amusement that has bile rising at the back of my throat. I should have run when I had the chance. I should have gone with the others.
There’s a way out. There has to be—
JUDE: “Don’t worry over it, love. Death can’t be all that bad.” He shrugs, gaze empty. “And anyway, you seemed so scared to live.”
For a second, the words knock the air from my chest, each burrowing deep inside and twisting until something snaps.
“Jude,” Sil says. “Go back to your dressing room and wait for your castmates. Avoid all this unpleasantness—”
But before he can finish his sentence, those taloned shadows at last prowl onto the platform, the whispers echoing my name in my ears as Nyxene encroaches on that delicate radiance that shimmers around my skin like a live flame.
“What, and miss out?” Jude meanders past me, laughing. The cutting sound of it echoes and punches swiftly through my heart like a drum. Nyxene’s grotesque clicking looms closer while Jude saunters on, bored. “You know me.”
There’s a slight stiffness to his gait, to the set of his shoulders. He wanders behind Sil like he’s searching for a better view of what’s about to happen to me as Nyxene’s menacing limbs stretch across the marble.
But when he looks down at me, his steps come to a sharp halt, and there’s an all-too-familiar mischievous gleam in his eye. “I cannot resist a spectacle.”
At the familiar words, my gaze narrows on his, searching.
Jude winks.
Oh gods. It’s him. It’s him.
Well. I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked he couldn’t resist one last performance.
But just as fast as the wave of relief unclenches the terror from my chest, something even worse takes its place.
I barely have time to register it—the intent behind this charade, the calculation playing across his eyes a mere second before he moves.
Jude can’t hurt Sil.
But Nyxene can hurt Jude.
And as Nyxene circles me, ready to strike, Jude lunges for our director’s throat.
“Well then, Sil!” Jude announces.
He grits his teeth through a bitter laugh.
It’s as Nyxene’s shadows go dead still—and change direction at Sil’s startled roar of rage—that the Script tumbles from Sil’s hands and Jude growls, “To the godsdamned finale.”