Page 34 of The Opening Act is Death
I am the queen of knives, the mistress of pain and control. But beneath the mask, beneath the dance of blades, there is a flicker, fragile and raw. Memories haunt me. The girl who once danced barefoot on broken glass, laughing despite the blood. The girl who believed in light, even when the shadows pressed close. But that girl is buried beneath years of betrayal, silence, and survival. I built these walls to keep her safe or maybe to keepeveryone else out. Corvan’s voice pulls me back from the edge of myself, soft as a promise.
“I don’t want to lose you.”
Those words break something open. I want to scream, to run, to hide. But I want to believe. To feel. I remember the nights before The Carnival, the ache of loneliness, the cold that no fire could chase away. I remember the knives, sharp, honest, and certain, the only things I could trust. Now, his hand on my cheek feels like a question and an answer.
“Hold on to me,” he says, and maybe, just maybe, I want to.
The mirrors reflect a woman torn between the queen and the girl, between control and surrender. Between silence and the desperate, trembling hope that I can be more than The Carnival’s warden. The embers glow faintly now, threatening to become a blaze. And for the first time in a long time, I don’t want to snuff them out.
Forty Five
Corvan - Illusions Unraveled
Secrets peel back like old skin, raw and exposed. Loyalty fractures beneath the weight of truth.
The air inside the Ringmaster’s tent is thick, heavy with secrets too long buried. I follow the faint trail of smoke and old magic, each step drawing me closer to the heart of The Carnival’s shadowed truth. Visha isn’t just the queen of knives. She’s the architect of this cursed place, and the keeper of its darkest betrayals.
Pages torn from old journals, hidden beneath loose floorboards, whisper the story she never told me. Promises broken. Deals made in blood, souls sacrificed for power. I feel the weight of it pressing down on me, cold and unforgiving. Why did she keep this from me? Was I ever more than a pawn in her game? Or worse… a casualty?
My hands tremble as I touch the brittle pages, the ink smeared by tears or sweat or blood. Each word is a knife twisting in my gut. Visha’s face haunts my mind, fierce, unreadable, a queen who rules with fire but hides a storm beneath. I want toconfront her, to demand the truth, to hear the story behind the lies.
But The Carnival watches, silent, waiting and I know that some illusions can never be fully unraveled without breaking everything. The loyalty I swore to her, to us, fractures in the shadows. I am caught between love and betrayal, between the man I want to be and the truth I must face. The final illusion demands honesty, and I am not sure if I am ready to pay its price. The musty air of the Ringmaster’s tent presses down on me, thick with silence and secrets. Each breath tastes like dust and forgotten promises.
I stare at the brittle pages in my hands, words stained with time and blood. They tell a story I wasn’t meant to see. Visha…my queen, my torment, is a maze of shadows and half-truths. The architect of The Carnival’s curse. The keeper of betrayals that cut deeper than any blade.
How long have I been walking blind? How many lies have I swallowed, disguised as love? A twisting knot tightens in my chest. Every page I turn peels away the illusion I built around us, layer by fragile layer. Her secrets are poison dripping slow and cruel. Each revelation is a blade that severs trust, not just in her, but in myself.
Was I ever more than a pawn? An escape act in her twisted game? Or a ghost tethered to a dying Carnival? The truth is a mirror shattered across the floor. I see my reflection, fractured, bleeding, unrecognizable. The man who believed in redemption.
The man who hoped love could rewrite the past. But now, all I see is doubt.
Fear.
Betrayal.
I want to scream. To demand answers, to rage and fall apart, but the silence is suffocating, the weight unbearable. And somewhere deep inside, beneath the rubble of my faith, I stillwant to believe that the woman behind the mask is more than the sum of her sins. The final illusion is unraveling. And I don’t know if I’m ready for the truth to be revealed, or for everything to fall apart.
Forty Six
Corvan Alone — Wrestling the Truth
The tent is empty now. No whispers, no footsteps, just the fading echo of secrets I wasn’t meant to uncover. I sink to the floor, the brittle pages slipping from my grasp like ghosts. The words burn in my mind, each syllable a shard piercing my heart. How did I not see it? How did I fool myself into believing this was love, not a trap?
Visha, my queen, my torment, woven from pain and power, the puppeteer of The Carnival’s dark web.
And I… a pawn dancing in her shadow.
I trace the cracks in the wooden floor, each fracture mirroring my unraveling soul. I want to hate her. To curse the lies and the silence, but beneath the rage, there’s something softer, fragile. A flicker of understanding, maybe even forgiveness.
Because beneath the layers of betrayal, I see the woman who made impossible choices, who built this twisted world from shards of broken dreams. And despite it all, I still want to believe in us, in the possibility of something real beyond theillusions. But belief is a fragile thing, and right now, mine feels like it’s slipping through my fingers,
like smoke in the dark.
I close my eyes and whisper into the silence, what now?
The answer is uncertain, a storm waiting to break, a final illusion hanging by a thread.
Forty Seven
