Page 12 of The Opening Act is Death
Visha - When Blood Blooms
I shouldn’t have saved him, and now The Carnival wants an answer. The moment my blade hesitated, The Carnival stopped breathing. It didn’t scream or snarl, it didn’t gnash its teeth or tear at its own seams. No, it went still, utterly, terrifyingly still. As if the very heart of it, the rotten, pulsing thing beneath the velvet, was holding its breath. Waiting to see if I would betray it, and I did.
Not in the way a performer steps off script, or a guest tries to run from their own reflection. No, this betrayal was quieter, a pause mid-spin, a glance held too long. A life spared that should’ve spilled across the stage like a red confession.
Corvan.The Escapist.
He faltered during his act, his illusion, some bleeding, twisting mirror of guilt.Fractured. The sky cracked above him like glass, the screams weren’t part of the show anymore. Instead of letting The Carnival devour him for it…I stepped in.
No flourish, no warning, justme. Silent, sharp, sovereign cutting through the chaos like a guillotine in silk. The crowdscattered, shadows hissed. But I didn’t touch him, not with my blade nor even with my voice. I only looked at him, and that was enough. He looked at me like I was salvation, and I turned my back and walked away. That’s what damnation feels like, not fire, not punishment, but the suffocating weight ofwhat didn’t happen.
Now, The Carnival watches me like a wounded beast watching its master flinch, hungry, confused and angry. Even the bone-chimes don’t sing. The ghosts, my sweet audience of the damned, whisper too loudly behind the curtains. I hear them mutter my name as if testing its sharpness.
Visha.
Madame Noire.
Warden.
Traitor.
I slipped out alone that night, barefoot for once. The knives stay sheathed, and my steps are silent as I walk the path behind the cracked carousel, past the old tent where no one performs anymore. Where I first bound my soul to The Carnival with a signature written in blood. The roses that bloom along the fence turn their petals toward me, black-edged and venomous. They always did prefer vengeance to sentiment.
“You’re faltering,” the Ringmaster said earlier, he hadn’t raised his voice. He never needed to.
“I didn’t hesitate,” I lied.
“You didn’tfinish.” He smiled. “The Carnival notices.”
“I spared him because the crowd needed order.”
“You spared him becauseyouneeded to feel something.”
I didn’t respond. I didn’t have to. He was right.
Tonight, I return to the stage when no one is watching, it’s slick with blood from another show. Someone else’s sins. Not mine, not his, but still… The Carnival is starving. It wantspayment.I offer a performance, not for the crowd. Not forthe ghosts, but for me to remember who I am. The girl I buried beneath the floorboards rises like smoke in my mind. Pink ribbons, bruised toes, a mouth full of roses and lies. She should’ve stayed dead. But Corvan looked at me like she still lived.
And worse… Ifelther, for a breath, for the span of one heartbeat between illusion and collapse, I remembered what it was to ache. To yearn. Towant.
I dance.
And every movement is a denial of softness.
Every spin a rejection of mercy.
I slice the air with blades sharpened by rage and shame and the rotting root of something I cannot name. Blood blooms on the boards below mine, maybe. I don’t know. The Carnival drinks it either way. When I stop, I fall to my knees. No applause. No music. Only silence.
Onlyhim.
His scent still lingers in the folds of my costume. That mix of old smoke and jasmine, the memory of his voice saying my name like it meant something; like I still meant something.
“Forgive me. I let him live.” I curl my fingers into the stage, as I whisper to the girl beneath it. And worse, I want to do it again.
Shadows stir behind the curtains, The Carnival has heard me. I feel it settling its weight against my bones, deciding if I am still worthy of the title I gave myself. Tomorrow, I may kill him. Tonight though, I can’t. Because tonight… I dream of blood blooming not from violence, but from touch. From heat, from the moment his hand ghosted too close to mine, I didn’t pull away. Tonight, I dream of him whispering my name against my throat while the world burns around us.
Tonight, The Carnival does not ownme. But tomorrow it might take me apart from daring to hope.
Eighteen
