Chapter 1026: Staging of a New Play
The release date of The Wolf Princess had finally arrived.
Victor woke to a soft rustling from the other side of the pillow. He opened his eyes: the space beside him was empty, nothing left but a few long strands of hair and the lingering warmth of a young woman.
“Tinkle?”
“Your Excellency, you’re awake?” She sounded alarmed. “Did I disturb you?”
He sat up and leaned back against the headboard, letting the smile come naturally.
She was still fumbling with her dress — only half-on, her smooth back entirely bare, one side of her chest barely concealed. There was something particularly charming about her in this state: not coy, not calculated, simply flustered.
“Your Excellency — please stop looking at me like that,” Tinkle said, reddening.
“This is exactly what the noble young ladies of the great houses can never offer.” Victor chuckled. “All right, I’ll stop. But I should tell you — you won’t get it properly fastened without help.”
She glanced down at herself. “Oh.”
“Come here.” He held out a hand. “But get me some water first. I’m parched.”
After he’d worked through the laces — a system that had, before the invention of elastic, required genuinely strong hands — Victor left his hands resting lightly at her waist. “Done. It suits you well. Deceptive things, these dresses. Flashy construction, endless inconvenience.”
“I never knew that.” Tinkle stuck out her tongue.
“Most noble goods are the same.” He laughed. “Ornament without function. Pretty to look at; a misery to use.” He tilted his head. “You can’t wait to wear it out today, can you?”
“No, no — I woke up early to be ready sooner, so I wouldn’t hold you up —” She shook her hands in denial. “I’ll go fetch water for washing and start on breakfast.”
“Wearing that for kitchen work?” He watched her, then relented. “Fine. Go. I want an omelet and toast — and make yourself a serving. Don’t forget.”
“Yes, thank you, Your Excellency.” She bowed. “And thank you for the dress. And for the ticket.”
The door closed behind her.
Victor climbed out of bed and poured himself a glass of red wine.
This is the other pleasure of this type of company — they feel genuine gratitude for small things. A noble young lady given the same dress and the same ticket would offer, at best, a cool smile and a comment about the seat quality. Eighty gold royals between two tickets was not a great sum. The company of someone who actually anticipated what they were about to see was worth considerably more.
He swirled the wine and considered the question that had been sitting at the back of his thoughts since yesterday.
Forty gold royals. What kind of show justified forty gold royals?
“Master, are you truly going?”
Roentgen hovered in the doorway as Kajen Fels adjusted his coat, his expression as composed and deliberate as always. She pressed on: “May might have offered to recommend your play to His Majesty, but that could simply be a pretext. If she’s using your name to improve her own standing, you’d be walking into her trap.”
“I agree with Roentgen,” Egrepo said from across the room. “She’s not trustworthy anymore. And even if she does have access to the king through her husband — what does that prove?”
“Her husband is the Chief Knight,” Bernis said carefully. “Even if she can’t see His Majesty directly, she could at least pass a message —”
“You’re speaking up for her again?” Roentgen turned on her. “Don’t forget how she treated us.”
“Didn’t Master say she hadn’t interfered with City Hall?”
“Who knows if she was lying —”
“Enough.” Kajen’s voice was quiet but absolute. The room went still. “I’m not going because of that recommendation, and you know it. She may be conceited. But we cannot conduct ourselves this way. I have to see it regardless of what I think of her.” He paused, then snorted. “A play fledglings have barely rehearsed — and she has the nerve to say it will be the best thing she’s ever seen. If I don’t go, that means I’ve already been intimidated by the claim. Going is the only honest response.” He placed four finely printed tickets on the table. “She hasn’t sent admission tickets. She’s sent a challenge. Those of you who accept it, follow me. Those who don’t — don’t criticize what you haven’t seen.”
The new theater was already buzzing before ten o’clock.
Those who couldn’t afford the premiere had come anyway — hoping, at minimum, to catch something from outside. They found, to their puzzlement, that this wasn’t possible. The building had no windows. Its shape was an inverted bowl of plain grey cement, compact and austere — perhaps a quarter of the Central Square in area, no more than fifteen meters in any direction, a single story. It looked nothing like a theater. Nothing like anything, really.
Victor walked through the front entrance with Tinkle at his side, still unconvinced.
Several checkpoints along narrow corridors required him to surrender his God’s Stone of Retaliation and his self-defense dagger before he reached the inner doors.
They pushed through — and the light hit them.
“Wow,” Tinkle said, before she could stop herself.
Victor was equally struck. The theater was illuminated by magic stones — not decorative ones, not the modest chips occasionally seen in wealthy households. Four full clusters of Stones of Lightning hung from the arched dome, flooding the windowless hall with warm light. Heat rose gently from the floor. The deck chairs were set well apart from one another, a full arm’s length between each, so the room felt spacious and unhurried despite its small footprint.
He’d only ever seen magic stones of this quality in the hands of Black Money.
This man is putting them in a public theater.
The arithmetic reassembled itself in his head: a space this size, chairs spaced this generously, perhaps fifty to eighty total seats. Forty gold royals per premium ticket. The math held, barely, if you assumed near-perfect occupancy every night. The experience was being sold at a real premium not to exploit wealthy patrons but because the costs of running this place were extraordinary.
He looked around the hall again, searching for the stage.
There wasn’t one.
Only the chairs, the dome, the floor vents pushing out warm air, and one massive stone pillar rising from the center of the floor to meet the ceiling.
Unless, Victor thought, they intend to dance around the pillar.
He sat down in his seat — Row 3, No. 10 — still trying to work out the architecture.
“You’re from the Lothar family,” said a voice beside him.
He turned. The woman was elegantly dressed, assured in her bearing — not Tinkle’s kind of charm but a different and equally studied kind.
“Victor Lothar. And you?”
“Denise Payton, from the City of Glow.” She placed a hand at her chest and smiled. “I’ve heard the name.”
“A young lady from the Payton family,” he said. “I hadn’t expected to meet anyone from home.”
“Neither had I.” She gestured to her other side. “This is His Excellency Yorko — formerly the Kingdom of Dawn’s messenger. He was kind enough to invite me.”
More introductions followed. Through Yorko, Victor found himself acquainted with several figures from Graycastle — City Hall officials in the front row, their tickets gifted by His Majesty; wealthy merchants and visiting guests in the middle rows. In one cluster near the side, he recognized figures he associated with King’s City’s theatrical world.
A small, exclusive banquet of notables. At forty gold royals a seat, it couldn’t have been otherwise.
Then the serving carts arrived — a dozen or so pushing a trolley each through a separate entrance, placing paper packets into the holders at each chair.
Tinkle picked hers up and squinted at it. “P — ‘popcorn’?”
Victor examined the adjacent items: something labelled french fries, and something labelled milk in a soft container unlike anything he’d handled. He turned it over. Not parchment. Not leather. Something new — pliable, sealed at the top. A small illustration beneath the label showed, step by step, how to use the attached straw.
He followed the steps and drew up a mouthful of milk.
A stupid feeling came over him: the particular satisfaction of mastering something completely novel. Even the milk, which he normally found too bland to bother with, tasted sweeter. He examined the packet again. Thoughtful design — no sharp edges, no spillage risk if tipped in the holder, impossible to injure a neighbor with accidentally. Whoever had designed this was a merchant by instinct regardless of what title they held.
He was reaching for the popcorn when a voice filled the hall without any visible source.
“Welcome to the magic movie theater of Graycastle. The Wolf Princess is about to begin. Please return to your seats and listen carefully to the following rules. If any problem arises during the screening, act in accordance with these rules to prevent accidents.”
A stir ran through the room — everyone looking around, trying to locate the voice.
“The runtime is two hours and fifteen minutes, with no intermission. Do not leave your seat unassisted. If you need help, pull the bell cord beneath your seat and wait.”
“Second: this will be an unprecedented viewing experience. Do not panic regardless of what you observe. Remember that it is a very special kind of play — not a real event. Anyone who causes harm or loss to another person will be held accountable by the Neverwinter Police Department.”
Victor smiled. Is there really anyone left who might mistake a play for reality? He glanced back at the theater professionals in their seats. Their expressions said everything he was thinking.
Tinkle, however, had both hands tight on her armrests.
A long pause followed, as though giving the room time to settle into itself.
“Please enjoy this dreamy moment in time. The show will now begin.”
The four clusters of Stones of Lightning began, slowly, to ascend toward the dome — and vanish.
The hall dimmed.
Victor opened his mouth slightly. Darkness is a liability in any performance — everyone knows this. He felt his curiosity sharpen as the light faded, wondering how they intended to manage it.
Then, before the thought could complete itself —
A white flash.
And then black. Not ordinary darkness — not the dark of a cloudy night or a shuttered room. The blackest dark he had ever experienced. The kind that made the concept of where he was suddenly unclear. He could feel the chair under him; without that pressure he might not have known whether he was still in it.
From around the hall came sounds he was not accustomed to hearing from this sort of crowd: short, startled cries; the high pitch of someone genuinely frightened.
Not just empty talk, he thought, remembering the warning about panic.
Then a gentle light appeared overhead.
The hall was lit again — but the theater had disappeared.
Victor’s eyes went wide. His hands found the armrests. The floor was gone. Below his feet, through some mechanism he could not begin to explain, stretched open sky — mountains below, pale with snow, forest in grey patches — the ground several kilometers beneath him. Cold wind brushed his ears. Snowflakes drifted past his face.
Every reflex in his body insisted that he was falling.
“Our story begins in the capital of a mountainous province in the far north,” said a steady, composed voice, “where two lively and adorable princesses reside —”
Victor sat rigid in his seat.
Is there really anyone left on earth who can mistake a play for reality?
He thought this, uselessly, from the edge of a sky.