Page 55 of The Opening Act is Death (The Carnival of The Damned)

Fifty Seven

Corvan - The Escapist’s End

I never escaped. I chose to stay. And that… that is the last and greatest illusion of all.

The Carnival is quiet now, not dead, not gone. Just… watching.

Its breath moves through the silk tents like fog over a battlefield, slow, reverent, remembering.

What we burned.

What we bled.

What we became.

I walk the grounds in silence, ash still clinging to the soles of my boots. The illusions are gone. Not shattered, released. They drift in the air like lanterns at dusk, still flickering, but no longer mine to control. I don’t need them anymore. I see the truth clearly now.

The boy who ran.

The man who lied.

The magician who built cages out of mirrors.

And her.

She stands at the center of it all, the throne rising behind her, scarlet and rust and knives. A queen made not of mercy or terror, but of survival, of choice.

Of a love that does not ask for softness, only truth.

Visha.

She looks at me now, not as a weapon, not as a ghost, as her equal. Her echo. Her king. Not because I saved her, not because she saved me, but because we burned it all down and chose what rose from the ash.

The Carnival will never be gentle.

It doesn’t want peace.

But it will have us.

And maybe… maybe that’s enough.