SIL: “Any words you’d like to share, Riven?”
I swallow, conjure the lines I know were written for me. They come out stiff as ice.
RIVEN: “It will be an honor to perform in the arena with you, Jude.”
SIL: “And you, Jude?”
Thewhishof something piercing the air breaks the conversation, followed by the gasps of the audience as it soars overhead. I see a slant of gold ripping through the sky.
Then I hear myself scream.
Act III: Scene XVIII
I grasp onto Jude’s shoulder as I stumble.
At first, all I can think is that my leg feels like it’s been plunged into ice water.
Then I see the shaft of an arrow protruding above my knee, and pain explodes up my body, wakes something inside me. My Player. I’ve died many, many times, and this is perhaps closer to true death than I,we, have ever been.
Second Death. This arrow was made with Eleutheraen gold.
The other Players bolt on instinct, gathering around me like a shield. Jude is shouting something furiously at Sil, but I can’t make out what he’s saying over the ringing in my ears or the panicked audience.
A reproachful grumble that sounds like, “Hold it together,” falls out of my mouth as I test my leg.
Spots cloud my vision, and I blink them away in time to see Titus pluck a spear off the floor of the stage—a prop from our show—and throw it with brutal force into the audience, met by screams so loud, my ears pop.
My eyes follow the spear as it whips through the air and buries itself in the wall of an old, broken watchtower past the crowds—embedded beside a window it missed by mere inches.
In the window is a face, one I almost don’t recognize. But I know it, even at this distance.
Cassia locks eyes with me. Her hands still clutch the crossbow.
In a blink, it dawns on me. She tried her best to carry out my last request:Stop me.
She nods, acceptance of her failure in the resolute set of her shoulders. The Players will find her, if the crowds don’t find her first. I shudder to think what they’ll do. I try to mouth at her to run, togo.My mind is groggy, my mouth struggling to form words.
But she tried to undo it. She tried to stop me.
I think I begged her to. But the Player in me is awake, and she’s angry.Furiousthat the hands of someone so ordinary almost ended the never-ending performance of a Player with a single arrow. She pushes me to my feet with a ferocity I don’t possess, shoves away from Jude. She makes sure everyone in the crowd sees my hand grip the arrow and rip it from my own flesh.
A shout of agony dies in my throat, never making it to my lips as I straighten, hold the arrow in front of me, and drop it carelessly to the floor.
I’m not smiling, yet I feel the stretch of my lips pulling to either side of my face in a wide grin. I can’t seem to stop it.
My perspective slips. Shifts. Isn’t mine anymore. It’s someone else’s, and it’s bleeding into my own thoughts. My desires. My morals.
I want them dead.
What?The thought feels foreign. Not mine. No. I don’t. I don’t—I don’t—
But a new voice is there, and it’s louder than my own mind.
I want them all dead.
Act III: Scene XIX
Jude has two noses. Four nostrils total.
