A shudder racks my body. It’s begun. I feel it. “Only Jude.”
“Yes. You two have a most inconvenient tendency to find each other, no matter who you’re playing.” The director scowls. “The more aware you become, the worse it gets. Jude is deteriorating quickly now, but we managed to keep him intact for fifteen years after his fourth wall broke. I’m sure we can atleastmanage the same for you.”
He shakes his head. “Wehaveto, Riven. For the sake of my Playhouse, for your cast. To claim what is rightfully ours: our audience.Youraudience. Theatron, in its entirety.”
And I realize now that Sil will be satisfied with nothing less. None of us would. We Players feed off their attention; corpses can’t be entertained, controlled. And the bigger our audience, the stronger we’ll become.
We want them alive. We want them groveling. Willing andfooled.
Fooled by me.
So few of you left.
I survey the room where the other auditionees stood at one time. Only, now, I recognize them for what they really were: Players. Tig. Phileas. Thyone. Linos. All of them, just Players in the costumes of auditionees.
There were always more than five of us.
“There’s no casting call. No competition to become a Player.” I have the nerve to sound surprised. “It’s all a performance.”
“The Playhouse is no place for mere mortals, Riven. We entertain the hopeful actors who come through our doors and dismiss them when the first night is through.” He shrugs. “The Great Dionysia is a beautiful thing. A good show! Let the mortals believe they’re in control. Let them think they might reach our ranks themselves.”
Each realization strikes me through the heart, though I can’t pretend I didn’t know, vague as the memories are.
Fate guides the feet of the willing and drags the heels of the defiant.
I shake off the words.I am more than the cards I am dealt. I have to be.Rivenhas to be.
I think I’ve even grown to like her.
“I amnotjust a role.” Anger radiates over my every word. “And I will notbe shed.”
Concern bleeds into Sil’s expression as he glances down at the Script and back up at me. “I will not lose another one of you.” He watches my eyes, looking for the thing under my skin that knows him. It stirs when he grips my shoulders. “You are a character. And you will let my Player go after all is said and done. Do you hear me,Riven?This form is no more real than the charactersyouplay onstage.”
Something wrestles within me at the reminder. Something alive and more aware than before. I smother it. But it’s there. Starving and angry and eager.
“You willlet my Player gowhen it is time,” he repeats, angrier now.
My heart aches, but I don’t dare reach inward for it. Because it isn’t mine. I’m sharing it with a monster. My thoughts, my words, my actions, all of them coming secondary to an ancient creature’s desires to execute a script written long ago.
“The Great Dionysia begins tonight,” says Sil, short. “A prelude to negotiations with the council in three days’ time.” He throws his arms out, grandiose. “I want you to change the tide! To make them believe the daughter of a man who broke the bond between worlds can be Theatron’s redeeming grace. You are the bridge between the Playhouse andthem.”
He smiles proudly. “History is easier to change than you think. All you need is enough people to believe it. And you will make them believe it.”
“They won’t forgive so easily,” I say quietly. And they shouldn’t.
“No, they won’t. But they willwonder. They will want to knowwhyyou chose the Playhouse over them. And your performance will break their reluctance.” His hand finds my chin, lifting it to face him. “The heart is stronger than the mind, Riven. Humans abandon their stubborn truths so long as theyfeelstrongly enough inclined to do so.”
His eyes are still that same soft blue, friendly and calm. Not hard or malicious. The relaxed expression of someone who already knows he’s won.
I shake from his grip. “No.”
Sil throws his head back, exasperated. “Do you know what theatre started as? You should. You were there.” He waves his hands. “Moralplays! Simple Comedies and Tragedies. All designed to teach an audience the difference between right and wrong. You’d be surprised how often people get the two mixed up.”
Something in me considers this, hesitates. “What gives you the right to determine which is which?”
He blinks, confusion dawning on his face. “That markdidmess you up, didn’t it?”
I don’t think it did, actually. I think maybe I’m seeing the world clearly for once.
