Saia waited for the match to start on a bench at the field’s border, with all the other substitute players. Ilit would have started to play as a runner, as Héshe had established, then he’d be replaced with Saia at the first sign of fatigue.

The players of the Twilight Doves mingled with the team from the city of Agméze, the Stars of Jade, with green and yellow uniforms and a green circle in their half of the field. She wondered how people could travel from one city to another. She could only imagine them descending along a ladder similar to the one they’d used to hoist her, but that would have implied having the other city fly over Iriméze, and she was fairly sure it hadn’t happened. Or maybe they had ascended the ladder instead, flying under the city.

The opponents in the Doves’ half of the field gave her curious glances when they thought she wasn’t looking at him, unaware that she could see in every direction. She imagined it was because of the mask she was wearing, made of wood and vaguely shaped like a bird, with purple and pink plumes glued on.

It had been Héshe’s idea, after she had tried to change into another person and found out she couldn’t without copying all the information she needed from their viss into her own. Problem was, she didn’t know which data were necessary, and it was probably a lot more than she had anticipated, with the other person having to stand in her domain the whole time, wondering what was happening. It was also too expensive to find a statue that was realistic enough. Besides, her teammates would have inquired where Saia was, and it was difficult to believe she’d been replaced so close to an important match. So they’d chosen a simple mask, counting on the semi-darkness of the arena to conceal anything else that could identify her.

The players jogged up to their positions as the referée entered, the fog shifting under their feet. The stands were mostly dark, except for some specks of light where the staff or a spectator was holding a lantern. The screams of encouragement and the constant movement in the dark felt like they were surrounded by a restless night sky. Even the sprites beneath her seemed agitated, their viss buzzing to the point she could easily perceive it at the edge of her restricted domain.

Once both teams were positioned on the field and the narrators on the balcony, the refereé commanded silence. The ones to start were the Twilight Doves, as of mutual agreement.

The narrator took out a gray ball from the bag beside him and held it firmly with both hands.

“This is the story of Nobe, a young man who lives in Lyméze, the city of trees, half in perennial darkness and half in eternal light, the two sides mercifully divided by the waters of the twenty rivers.”

Saia remembered from Serit's lessons that water was an important element of shilvé’s faith. For that reason the cities in the stories usually had waterfalls or rivers, unlike any real city that was floating in the sky, where the water was gathered from rain and clouds.

“There were voices of foreign ambassadors coming to the city, and he dreamed to meet them and leave with them for foreign landscapes. He thought his desire was bound to only remain a dream he had to suppress as he crossed the city from dark to light to work as an apprentice carpenter.”

The public was almost quiet now, even if still restless.

“One day, while he was walking on the bridge of quartz that crossed the river, he heard someone speak to him. It was Lunushé’s voice, coming out of the water. He dropped to his knees while she gave him his mission.”

He stopped and stepped back. Saia knew he was smiling even without checking his expression. There were some murmurs of protest from the public, as if they had forgotten that it was the second narrator who introduced the goal of both protagonists.

The other narrator took a gray ball too. Her hair was tied high on top of her head, letting two big earrings twist over her shoulders and shine of a silvery light.

“Silan lived on the fourth level of the city, with the other children of viss.”

Saia felt her teammates and the spectators holding their breath. It was uncommon for a character to be a child of viss.

“One night, the goddess of death awakened her with whispers in the dark. She told her of the ambassadors and the danger that lay in their next meeting. ‘You'll have to save them,' she said. 'This is the mission for which I've created you in this city. Stop the assassin, even if you have to send their viss to me, in my palace under the waves.’”

Saia couldn't see Serit, even if she knew they were on the third row of stands somewhere at her back. She briefly wondered what they thought of that presentation. The book she’d read about the gods presented the goddess of death as a stern woman living in a palace that was half under the earth, half under the sea, even if there was discordance on the exact location. She constantly spun a thread of viss from her hands, letting it fall into the water, creating all the viss that existed in the world.

Her team’s narrator dropped the ball onto the field, starting the match. Ilit broke into a run, the other two runners of the Doves following a bit to the sides to intercept the opponents. He reached the ball first and passed it back to another runner before an adversary could touch his arm and force him to stop. The back and forth continued until a defender of the Stars caught the ball, and soon after one of their attackers scored on the green circle. That gave the chance to their narrator to expand on how her protagonist was choosing the weapons for the mission. Saia felt a bit uneasy in seeing so many connections to the goddess of death.

Despite the Doves’ best efforts, the Stars scored a second time, once again on their circle, with a green ball.

“As Silan descended the levels toward the bottom, she heard steps walking beside her in the dark. She raised her eyes to the left, but didn't see anyone. Someone tapped on her shoulder. She turned and saw a large hat that oozed dark, and below it, a figure shrouded in a cape with the symbol of the city.”

Saia saw her teammates glance up at their narrator. His face didn't betray anything, but he quickly replaced the green ball he was holding with a gray one.

“He's stalling,” the defender next to Saia murmured.

As the other narrator's description went on, she realized why: the character was a former palace guard, just like the one that Nobe was supposed to meet at the temple of Gélana. The personality was similar: someone who had failed a mission and left the guards because they couldn’t live with the shame.

It was still the other narrator's turn, predictably with a gray ball. Saia had the feeling the adversaries were holding back, wanting a score on the Doves’ circle that would force the narrator to continue the story despite not being ready. Saia expanded her domain to gauge the audience's reaction to the character that had just been introduced. She didn’t find enthusiasm or surprise in their viss, but there weren't particularly bad feelings either.

“Makes sense,” a spectator said. “They want to enter the palace, after all.”

“It’s so bland,” said another one on the other side of the arena.

“Maybe the next one.”

“Saia,” a staff member yelled, and she immediately shrunk her domain. “You’re going in.”

She stood and waited for the referée to stop the game. As soon as Ilit had run out of the field, she entered and got into position. After the whistle, she followed the opponent that was holding the ball, trying to ignore the hole created by the enormous expense of viss she’d used to expand her domain enough to reach the stands. She could feel the year she had just lost, like empty lungs underwater.

When the adversary threw the ball, she managed to reach it first. There wasn't enough time to get into the intricacies of the game, so she had trained on how to run as fast as she could while making it seem as natural as possible, snatch the ball, and throw it as soon as possible to the right player. She counted on the opponents focusing on her at least in the first few minutes, believing she was some sort of new prodigy that Héshe was showing off for the first time. The more they were focused on her, the more they would underestimate her teammates.

A Star touched her arm. She barely registered it, but she'd been on the lookout for that kind of thing, especially with a few opponents in her proximity. She stopped as the referée started to count, then threw the ball to an attacker with a bit more force than needed. One of the opponents managed to deviate the ball, but not to catch it. It rolled off, a defender and two runners immediately behind it.

The Stars had a chance to try a score in their own circle, but slowed down instead, bringing the ball closer to the purple one of the Doves. That gave her time to get an idea for a new character for her team's narrator, so that he could play a green ball next instead of a gray one. Problem was, she had no idea of who that character could be.

She tried to guess the expectations of the public based on what she'd seen and heard. They obviously wanted something new, but they also didn't seem particularly disappointed. After all, the opponents’ character could be useful in the story, specifically to enter the palace of the representatives and prevent the assassination. So she needed to think of a character that could be useful for the same reason.

She joined the circle of defenders around the scoring area. She had no idea who could know their way around such a guarded place. Maybe some kind of servant, but it didn't seem to be the exciting solution the spectators were looking for. She found nothing, except for a strong need to ask Aili instead. She always knew everything.

A sudden idea distracted her, giving an opponent the chance to try a scoring throw. A defender hit it, sending it far away, and Saia went in pursuit with the other runners, thinking fast. The Doves needed a character who knew a lot of things and was good at planning. They needed Aili.

Except she was a letter carrier, and shilvé didn't send people to deliver letters, but birds. So her character needed to be something else. A bird trainer, maybe.

The opponents scored on the purple circle. Saia expanded her domain a bit to include the ball and left a bit of her viss on it as it was carried away toward the balcony, her idea written as a string of different intensities.

The narrator caught the ball and slowly rotated it in his hands.

“Nobe left his job the next day,” he said, speaking slowly. “He started his descent toward the bottom of the city, head filled with dreams of glory. He imagined how it would be like to earn the gratitude of those ambassadors by saving them. Would they invite him to their houses in distant cities? Would they regard him as their peer? The voice of the goddess faded from his memory as he chose the temple of Gélana as his next stop.”

He put away the gray ball, seemed to hesitate a bit, then took out a green one. Saia buzzed with excitement, realizing he planned to use her idea. She focused on the trajectory of the ball, ready to snatch it out of the air.

She managed to arrive first, and immediately threw the ball to an attacker. It flew over the heads of the two defenders and the runner who were barring her way. She observed the action intently, waiting for a moment where she could sprint and interfere, but there was no need: two of the attackers threw the ball back and forth at each other right before the opponents could touch them, and the last throw was a score in the Doves’ circle.

The ball was kicked back to the narrator.

“At the temple, Nobe was welcomed by a woman with a dress of plumes, a flock of doves following her every step. She stared at Nobe and smiled, as if she already knew him, but didn't speak. He asked who she was, so she extended her arm and opened her hand.” He imitated the gesture. “A dove perched on it, a piece of paper in its beak. Nobe took it and read: ‘I’m Ailoma, servant of Gélana. Do you want to enter the palace?’ So Ailoma joined Nobe in his quest, promising to help him with the excuse of tending to the representatives’ birds.”

While the narrator spoke, Saia imagined the scene with the actual Aili in it, and not the shilvé version of her everyone else was certainly thinking about. The doves weren't her idea, but she had to admit they contributed to making the character interesting.

Once the narrator had finished, she reactivated her vision and expanded her domain to include all of the arena. Most of the public was hunched forward, enthralled by the narrator's voice. She could see their curiosity in the way their viss moved.

A runner yelled at her, and she realized she wasn't running anymore. Focusing on multiple places of the arena was relatively easy, but moving the statue at the same time required a lot of skills.

She was so pleased with herself she almost dismissed the feeling that something was wrong. She quickly checked the rows of seats, expecting to see a guard with their trident pointed at her or the angry figure of Héshe calling her name. Her domain had been expanded for too long, so she decided to ask Serit whether there was anything wrong.

She didn’t find them, but an empty seat stained with their viss, droplets of sweat, and an intense mixture of desperation and fear.