SIL: “Riven Hesper will compete in the Great Dionysia. Will you have her?”
The crowd, their hearts swelled by my speech, release their approval in waves of cheers and cries that shake the stage.
Slowly, I raise my eyes and meet Jude’s gaze. He doesn’t look angry, or scared, or confused.
His face is full of relief.
Before I can question it, Sil calls out, “Why delay, council?” He turns back toward the mixed expressions on their faces. They hold no ground here. “We have our champion. I see no reason to delay. The Great Dionysia will begin tomorrow!”
Act III: Scene VI
News of my confession doesn’t just make the local District paper the next day.
Instead, it makes the headlines ofeverypaper in every town and every city across Theatron, flooding the media with rumors of caged actors in the North and teens removing their marks for a chance in the spotlight. Many report of the unmanageable, record number of patrons from both the SouthandNorth arriving in the District to witness the five-day Great Dionysia.
Which begins tonight. In a few hours’ time.
Three days of performance.
The fourth day: an intermission for both sides to agree to a new treaty, whatever the terms may be.
On the fifth day, the finale: a battle of Craft between Jude and me that only one of us will walk out of.
As evening falls over the dining hall, heralding our last meal before the Great Dionysia, a sharp whisper catches my attention. I raise my eyes and see Mattia staring back at me from the Players’ table as Arius leans in to mutter something to her.
“I willnotshare a stage with amarked,” she hisses back at him. “Insulting.”
The revelation of my mark was, predictably, not a welcome one with the Players. Except for Titus, who largely regarded the whole thing as hilarious and commended my stupidity.
But I don’t find Mattia’s threats any more unsettling than the tables my fellow auditionees once sat at, now empty. Like they were never here. When I inquired about where the remaining auditionees went, Sil simply shrugged and asked who I was talking about.
Sitting in the dining hall for a casual last meal feels outrageous and borderline comical as the clock ticks closer to the Great Dionysia.Thisfeels more like a performance than anything.
Outside the dining hall’s floor-to-ceiling windows, an audience eagerly watches.
I numbly go back to flipping through articles. Reporters ruthlessly resurrect the story of “Michail Hesper the Peacemaker,” rehashing it in an increasingly unflattering light in the South. Meanwhile, in the North, my father’s story is made into the tale of a man caught between worlds. His loyalties are nearly as hotly debated as my own. Protests against my eligibility to compete began in several different territories this morning.
My mother could not be reached for comment.
I shove the paper off the table, doing my best not to care.
But something catches my eye as I toss another mindless article aside. A solagraph from my classroom from nearly ten years ago. It sits below the headline:riven hesper: what we know so far
The image is poor and grainy, in absent shades of black and white. But I can make out the forced smile of my teacher, Professor Ariti, hands clutched in front of her. The twelve toothy grins of my classmates filed in front of the chalkboard. My younger self stands centered at the back for the sake of my height. The pinched sides of my eight-year-old mouth look more like a grimace.
It’s no wonder. I remember this day. The day after I received my mark. This image couldn’t have been snapped more than a few hours after I passed out in class and subsequently stumbled out of the nurse’s station, groggy and irritable.
Today, I see something I hadn’t noticed before in the corner of the image. First, the nurse tucked in the back, watching me with concern. She hovered for most of the day afterward. But beside her, barely noticeable in the right corner, is another face I recall from that day—a stranger, kind and unassuming, with bright hazel eyes. A healer who looked over my mark after it got infected, though I don’t recall ever seeing him again afterward.
In the solagraph, it’s hard to tell if he meant to be captured. His hand is raised in a polite wave goodbye, one leg already halfway through the open door. But the way his knuckles are clutched white around a healer’s kit tells a different story.
My fork clatters onto my plate as I lean close, my breath stilling in my lungs.
There’s a ring on his middle finger. Though grainy, I recognize the shape.
Finders Keepers. And there, across his open palm, a bandage with the edge of a long, deep cut peeking out at his wrist.
The paper shrivels at the corners as my fists clench. My heart starts to pound.
