And right now, I just want to yell atsomeone. A statue will do.
“If you were going to bleed out, did you have to do it in Theatron?” I ask Dionysus. “Surely there are nicer mountaintops to die on.”
Dionysus’s long, chiseled arms do not move, eternally stretched out to the world. I take it as a shrug.
“Please don’t be insulted,” I tell Dionysus while studying my nails, which have started turning a funny gray color over the past few weeks. “If I bled out on a mountain, I probably wouldn’t have expected monsters to come out ofmyblood, either.”
Dionysus does not laugh at this, unmoved as a harsh wind blows through the columns and down the steps.
“One of your Players causedthis,by the way.” I gesture vaguely at my crumbling self, not that I think Dionysus would care. “It didn’t start out so bad. Some nausea. Headaches. A bad case of influenza, the healers thought.”
Then came the aches that dwelled deep in my bones. A chill that settled over my skin unchanged by layers of wool or the heat of a fire. A tiredness eternally unsatisfied by sleep. No amount of nourishment added a thread of muscle to my bones.
The Player’s poison leeched the life from my flesh. I shudder, remembering her golden blood all over my hands.
I didn’t truly start to panic until the aches and pains dulled, though, overtaken instead by a vengeful ice that blustered through my veins like a winter storm and made my bones seize like frozen branches.
My body seems to have descended into the afterlife and left me behind.
As if to prove that point, the ground suddenly sways, dips beneath me, and my stomach lurches. I clutch the steps, my nails scraping the stone.Am I dizzy?
No. It’s the ground. The ground is really rumbling, shaking like it’s about to tear open.
A strange darkness rips through the clouds overhead, spreading like ink in water.
The world trembles again, and this time, shouts rise from the nearby Merchant Ring.
My heart thuds against my ribs as my gaze darts down the hill to the District.
Golden light blooms in the center like the rising sun. I wince, choking on a sweet, cloying tang in the air that tastes vaguely of perfume.
Move.I should not be here.The thoughts come in fragments.
Then I see it.
A sinister palace rushes up from the soil as if emerging from Hades itself. Its white marble towers tear free of the earth, roots dangling, clumps of dirt cascading down tiers that must span fifteen stories.
Hundreds of enormous columns glittering with bands of gold surface next, lining the center dome like soldiers standing guard, a haze of pale dust billowing in their wake. At its top, the carved shape of a crow, its marble wings stretched in eternal flight.
The Playhouse.
It’s returned. Today.
Now.
I should be frightened—I know this from my upbringing. The sight is unnatural and unholy, stealing the breath from my lungs. An intense draw to the Playhouse that I attribute to years of rage blankets my mind.
But for a strange moment, all is silent. The world seems empty, void of anyone or anything aside from me and the entity that ruined my future and stole my father’s. Its glowing stained glass windows peer back at me in the distance like the golden eyes of a beast.
What did you do to me?
A heartbeat later, chaos fractures down below. Worshippers from South Theatron race toward the Playhouse like moths to a flame, shrieking with glee. Meanwhile, those who bear marks scatter back toward the safety of the North’s wall, screaming at loved ones to follow.
“Riven!”
I startle at the sound of my name. Aunt Cassia flies down the steps of the archive temple, waving for me to stand, but even she pauses to take in the sight, frozen until she calls, “On your feet—now.”
The urgency in her face has me scrambling to push myself up, stumbling toward the steps after her.
