Page 35 of The Opening Act is Death
Visha - The Blood-Bound Pact
Power carved from pain. Freedom forged in darkness.
The night is thick with something old and hungry. The air hums beneath the blood-red moon, heavy with whispers only I can hear. The Carnival waits, restless, pulsing, a beast craving a new master, or its final breath. I stand at the edge of the abyss, the old grimoire open before me, its pages stained with the echoes of sacrifices past.
This pact is no mere deal. It is a binding, a blood promise forged in shadows and fire. The cost is more than flesh and bone. It is my soul laid bare, a sacrifice on the altar of power. I can feel it tugging, the dark promise of release from pain, the seductive call of control beyond human limits. But every bargain demands a price. One misstep, and The Carnival and I will burn in chains no magic can break. My fingers tremble as I trace the ancient runes, the weight of destiny pressing down like iron in my chest.
Am I ready to become more than the queen of knives?Or am I signing my own death warrant?
The flames flicker behind me, casting twisted shadows that dance like ghosts. I take a breath, steadying the storm inside. This is the moment where pain becomes power. Where fear becomes fury. Where I either break free or break forever. The night swallows me whole. The air is thick with iron and whispers, old voices carried on the wind, voices that know my name and all the darkness I hide beneath my skin.
I stand before the ancient grimoire, its leather cracked and soft like aged flesh. The pages bleed inked sigils and cruel promises, each word a tether binding me tighter to a fate I both fear and crave. I trace the runes with trembling fingers, feeling the surge of power ripple beneath my skin. This pact, a thread weaving me into The Carnival’s ancient heart, the raw pulse beneath the velvet mask.
The price echoes in my bones: sacrifice, pain, loss. But also freedom, a brutal liberation from the fractures I carry, the endless ache of control. Flames dance behind me, licking the shadows with hungry tongues, casting grotesque shapes that twist like twisted memories.
Will I become the monster I’ve always feared? Or will this darkness finally carve me free?
The words come unbidden a chant, half prayer, half curse, I speak them into the night, and The Carnival listens. The blood on my hands is both curse and covenant. I can feel The Carnival’s breath against my skin, hungry, waiting, unforgiving. This is no surrender. This is a reckoning.
The knife’s edge gleams sharp, ready to cut the last thread, to sever the past and bind me forever. I step forward, heart pounding, into the unknown, into power beyond pain.
Forty Eight
Corvan - The Price of Escape
Running from the past means falling into the present and into her brutal kindness.
The air is cold and biting, thick with smoke and desperation. I run through the winding corridors and shattered tents, heart pounding and not just from the chase, but the weight of everything I’m trying to leave behind me. The Carnival’s shadow claws at me, whispering doubts and threats but I keep pushing forward, chasing a fleeting hope of freedom. I don’t hear her footsteps until she is behind me, silent, unstoppable.
“Corvan,” her voice is low, sharp as a blade, but beneath it something fierce and unexpected. I falter, breath ragged, walls closing in.
“You can’t run,” she says, and there’s no pleading, only brutal truth. When she catches me, it’s not with mercy. It’s with hands that are harsh but sure gripping, dragging me back from the edge. And in that fierce hold, I feel a kindness I never knew she had, a fierce, unyielding protectiveness that terrifies and grounds me all at once. I want to fight, to break free.But instead, I let myself be caught. Because sometimes survival means surrender to the queen of knives, and to the only person who might save me.
Cold bites through my skin as I dart through the winding tents and collapsing corridors. The Carnival blurs around me, twisted shapes flickering in the smoke. Every heartbeat screams to stop, to turn back. But I can’t, not yet. The weight of secrets presses down like stones in my chest. Every shadow threatens to unravel the fragile hope I clutch, the hope that I can outrun the ghosts that haunt me. Then footsteps, soft, precise, inevitable.
“Corvan.” Her voice cuts through the haze sharp and low, laced with that familiar edge that never truly leaves her.
I freeze, breath ragged, muscles tight as wire, no use hiding. No use running. She moves with the lethal grace of the queen I once feared, now something else a fierce protector I didn’t know I needed. Her hands catch me before I fall, steady and rough. Gripping me with a strength that burns through my defenses.
“I’m not letting you go,” she says, voice raw with something I can’t name, something fierce and tender all at once. I want to pull away, to scream, to fight but the walls are closing in, and in that moment, I understand sometimes survival means surrender. Surrender to the fire, the pain, the woman who holds me like a lifeline in the dark. She presses a blade’s edge to my skin, not to wound, but to remind me I’m still here, still alive.
“Stay,” she demands, “or everything you run from will catch you anyway.”
I nod, breath hitching. Because even broken, even bruised I know I belong here.
With her.
Forty Nine
Visha - Dance of the Damned
When the damned rise, only fury and fire can hold the darkness at bay. But love, fragile and fierce, may be the wildest dance of all.
The Carnival shakes beneath the thunderous roar of the uprising. Bodies surge like a tide of broken souls, their snarls sharp as shattered glass. The sickly lantern light flickers, casting grotesque shadows that leap and writhe across the bloodstained canvas. I grip my knives, twin shards of cold steel, fingers tightening around their familiar weight. The first attacker lunges at a twisted marionette with cracked porcelain skin and eyes like dying stars. I pivot, blades slicing through the stale air, steel flashing, cutting a clean arc across his throat.
His scream is swallowed by the roar, a desperate sound lost in the chorus of chaos. The dance begins, brutal, violent, unrelenting. Feet pivot and slide across slick wood, knives trace deadly lines of fire and ice. I move with savage grace, a predator in her element. Every strike calculated, every dodge a whisper of years spent mastering pain and control. Behind the bladeflashes, memories cut deep, a girl once trembling in the dark, blood on bare feet, dreams shattered like glass beneath the heel of betrayal.
The echo of her screams, silent now, but always there, fueling the fury that surges through me. Another attacker, a ragged thing with broken chains swings a rusted hook. I catch it with a blade, steel biting metal, sparks flying. Twisting free, I drive a knife through his chest, watching the light die behind hollow eyes.
