Page 31 of The Opening Act is Death
Corvan - The Illusion Collapses
The Carnival burns. The magic rips. The truth costs blood.
The Carnival isn’t just tearing apart— it’s tearing me apart. Every crack in the mirrors beneath my feet fractures something inside me. I’m bleeding and not just from the cuts in the wood, but from the fissures in my soul.
How many illusions have I built on bones?
How many lies did I sell myself to survive?
The smoke thickens, choking. It seeps into my lungs and burns the truth raw in my chest. I look to Visha. She stands like a shard of ice, sharp, jagged, and impossible to hold without bleeding. But even though she is breaking, I see it in the flicker of her eyes. A tempest of fury and fear, of rage barely tethered to control. I want to tell her I’m sorry.
But the words catch in my throat like knives.You should have told me sooner,her silence screams.You should have trusted me before the fire.The calliope’s wail pierces the dark, a twisted lullaby for the damned. The ground shakes beneath us,the heartbeat of a dying god. The Carnival’s voice coils around us, venomous and unforgiving:
“You built your cage with whispers and shadows. Now you live in its poison.”
I fall to my knees, the weight of all I hid crashed down. Visha’s hand reaches for mine, trembling but steady. Not the queen I knew, not the ringmaster who danced on blades. Just a woman raw and real, bleeding alongside me. The fire flickers, casting monstrous shadows that swallow us whole. Our reflections warp and splinter in the broken mirrors; strangers staring back with haunted eyes.
This was never supposed to be survival.
We were meant to be kings and queens of ashes, rulers of ruin.
And now?
We are nothing but ghosts clawing at the edges of a dying dream. But in her grip, I find a flicker of something fierce, not hope, but defiance. The Carnival may burn, the illusions may crumble, but we are still here. Still fighting, stillalive,and maybe, just maybe, that is enough to start again. The Carnival isn’t just falling apart, It’s unmakingme, shredding the illusions I thought would keep me whole. I feel every crack beneath my feet as if it’s a wound in my skin. Splinters bite deep, drawing blood I didn’t know I had left to give.
How many times have I vanished?
How many faces have I worn, like masks sewn from desperate lies?
And in all those reflections — was I ever really there?
Smoke chokes the tent, thick and bitter, crawling into my lungs like regret made physical. Each breath tastes like ashes and memories, sharp, suffocating. I look at Visha, her silhouette is carved from shadows and fire, the queen I loved and the woman I fear losing. Her eyes flash with storms I cannot calm. In them, I see a mirror of my own shattered self rage, grief, a fierce loneliness I know too well. I want to reach for her. I want to hold her like the last fragile thing left in this broken world. But the weight of what I’ve kept hidden; the boy who vanished, the silence I fed her, crushes the words before they can form.
I was never worthy of you.
I still am not.
The calliope wails, twisting the air into something cruel and mournful. The ground trembles beneath us, the heartbeat of a dying carnival. The Carnival’s voice coils through the smoke, venomous and merciless:
“You built your prison from shadows and half-truths. Now you are trapped inside.”
I fall to my knees again, the floor cold and unforgiving beneath my palms. The blood on the wood is mine, from cuts and fractures and sins I cannot erase. Visha’s hand finds mine. It’s trembling, fragile, but it anchors me like nothing else.
Not the queen of knives.
Not the warden of pain.
Just a woman broken and bleeding beside me, her fingers press into my skin, quiet and relentless. A silent plea to stay, to fight, to not vanish again. I look up, and for a moment, I seeher, not the shadow who haunts me, but the girl who danced barefoot inbroken light, who believed in fire and fury and fractured love. And I know, whatever this is, whatever this carnage becomes, we are entwined.
Our pain.
Our sins.
Our shattered illusions.
The fire flickers, shadows twisting into monstrous shapes. Our reflections warp in the broken mirrors, haunted eyes staring back with every mistake we’ve ever made.
This was never meant to be survival.
