SIL: “Let the show begin!”
The lights dim, and I shut my eyes, embracing the warmth twirling at my fingertips. Craft nips at the air.
They will want to knowwhyyou chose the Playhouse over them.
It’s tempting. So tempting. No one would be the wiser. They’d never know I’m the true villain of their story.
For the next three days, we’ll perform this new show in five acts. We won’t sleep, eat, or drink. On the fourth, we’ll rest—an intermission for debate as the Playhouse and the council sign a new agreement.
On the fifth day, Jude and I will fight.
The heart is stronger than the mind. Humans abandon their stubborn truths so long as theyfeelstrongly enough inclined to do so.
The script for this performance is five hundred and thirteen pages,carefully crafted lines into the shape of a simple parable that waits on my tongue, stirs in my bones. One that rewrites Theatron’s history, carving the new story into the eyes that watch.
Rewriting history is easy, Sil told me.
You just need enough people to believe it.
The audience settles comfortably into their seats, and the moon illuminates our stage. For the first time in a long time, North and South Theatron sit side by side.
And Sil has done a remarkable job convincing them the enemy is each other.
Waiting, I set my eyes on my glass-green shoes, the color stark against the gilded platform at my feet as I pull in three deep breaths. Jude materializes at my side, ready for our entrance.
“Jude,” I whisper, feeling the call of the stage in my blood as the show roars to life. “Help me stop him.” I flinch at my own words, the same ones Gene spoke to him,beggedhim.
Jude refuses to meet my eye, his gaze on the stage.
JUDE: “Break a leg, Riven.”
Then the show begins, and we move for our entrance in a performance that was set, written, and cast fifteen years ago.
Act III: Scene XVI
Act I:
The first act is a story I know but haven’t heard in a long, long time.
The story of a simple man. A craftsman, no less. Sil is younger in this version of events, played and Mimicked by Parrish.
I watch with dread from backstage at the depiction of Sil introducing the first Players. Us. As he drains the well dry of story, of song, ofCraft,he assures his new Players that this is what they are meant for.
A prop book rests in his hands to represent the Script as he makes them grand promises of spotlights and splendor and endless stages. He promises this will fix the world, because he is a smart man, and he can fix the world.
They agree. It makes sense. It sounds nice.
He binds them to the book in his hands.
And the world is their stage.
Act II:
Arius’s lyrical narration pulls the audience through Theatron’s histories, its wars, its Players, all in captivating song and sugary words. He skillfully omits the Playhouse’s part in most of it. His melodies are a corridor from a dreadful past to a bright future.
One that rests in Sil’s trustworthy, capable hands.
Act III:
