“You know there’s a secret entrance, right?” Dan said, voice hushed.

For a few long moments, Nix just stood with her jaw slightly agape. One of her ward-mates had actually spoken to her? Civilly? The only time they ever spoke to her was to speak at her. To yell or cry or bully like children, but never to engage her.

She was struck speechless.

Of course she knew of the hole through steel the other kids used; it was only two rooms over from her. It had been hard to miss the less-than-subtle kids trying to sneak in at night when she’d grown up here.

“Yes.” Nix finally realised she’d left his question hanging an awkwardly long time. “Of course I know about it. Why?”

Dan glanced down the hall, struggling to keep eye contact with Nix, and she was suddenly aware he felt just as strange about this encounter as she did. “You know we use it to avoid K’tan’s anger, and you…” he trailed off, unsure how to continue.

As he stood there, mulling over his thoughts, Nix considered simply pushing past him and taking refuge in her room. It had been a long day, and she really wanted to find out what that Feat she apparently received was.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “From what happened after the Naming Ceremony, I mean.” he quickly added.

Ah, Nix realised. He was hiding in the darkness of the halls when I arrived, wasn’t he? He must have seen me in my bloodsoaked gown.

“I’m not dead,” she shrugged, finally brushing aside some of the sheer oddity of the situation.

Dan nodded, still as awkwardly as when he’d begun. His eyes dropped to the metal frames in his hands. He hadn’t stopped fiddling with them since Nix arrived.

Eversight assists.

They were a rather… uncomfortable looking tool of induction into the Cult of the Everseeing Eye. Intended to be strapped to ones eyelids to keep them open, they were meant to prepare a trainee for when they would need to remain wide-eyed ceaselessly.

The boy clearly had something else on his mind, but he couldn’t seem to gather the courage. Curious, Nix waited, but Dan suddenly nodded again, and walked away from her. He head to his room.

And not even a goodnight?

“You know I’m the cursed girl right?” Nix asked before he could run too far. She used the term she’d heard so often when they were talking behind her back. “Why did you speak to me?

Dan stopped in his tracks and glanced back. “It’s… uh, getting close to that time of year.”

Nix had absolutely no idea what he meant. “What?”

“Just…” he hesitated, as if the words themselves were too hard to say. “It is far too dangerous to be testing K’tan’s patience right now. You don’t want to be the one he chooses.”

Dan opened his door and was gone before Nix could grasp his words.

The one he chooses? Nix asked to herself. Choose for what?

That was probably the longest someone Nix’s own age had ever spoken to her. And it had been to warn her about K’tan? Where was this the last time around? Why did he warn her of his untrustworthy nature now, and not in her last life when she needed it?

Nix stared down the door he fled through. She was so tempted to barge in there and demand more answers, but she held back. Doing so would only start a fight with him and whoever was his roommate, and she still wanted to begin her name ritual. Dan was obviously being cagey about something, but as the only one in the entire dorm to have crossed the perception that you could inherit curses from proximity, she didn’t feel all that interested in burning one of the few, narrow bridges she hadn’t known she had.

She opened the door to her room and slunk inside, thinking about what could have changed to make him warn her, and how her ward-mates seemed far more wary and fearful around K’tan.

Between Ari and now Dan, it was clear that the picture she had in her head of K’tan getting along with everyone was not true. Had it been her own closeness to the man when she was young that forged this perception? He had been the only one she trusted. That might have made her think everyone else trusted him too.

But what exactly were they afraid of? As far as Nix could remember, the only time his persona of the kind guardian broke, was when the kids came home late. Specifically, when the other overseers had to call him to bring his kids back to their ward.

Any other time, he was the picture of serenity.

What do they know that they never told me?

Nix wasn’t about to let this go. She’d already resolved herself to punishing, then murdering K’tan, but if there was something more he was hiding — some twisted trait not even she’d known — then Nix wanted to know. As she was, she was weak. If there was anything she could use against the man, she would. And if that meant she actually had to approach some of her ward-mates… well, they were just a bunch of kids after all. What’s the worst that could happen?

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For now, she had a name she wanted to see.

She closed the door behind her. Now, as she had many times in the past, Nix wished the door had a lock. Her ripped and destroyed gown found itself wedged in the narrow gap beneath the heavy frame. It wouldn’t stop K’tan… or any of her ward-mates, but she hoped it would give her that little more time to react.

Everyone in the wards had at one point in time tried to use a wedge for privacy, but the doors brushed too low along the ground for them to be effective. Especially considering the rug only covered one corner of the room and didn’t reach the door.

Nix reached her bolted down bedside table and opened a drawer. The packets of candles and chalk had been given as a generic gift to everyone the night before their naming. It was seen as a rite of passage. Once you were named, you would work to enter the cult of your choosing. That meant a lot of rituals.

Tearing open the pack, she placed the candles evenly around the room before sketching a basic pentagram into the thin, replaceable floorboards.

This version of the naming ritual required very little resources besides time. It wasn’t comprehensive, and wouldn’t work until the proper, official ceremony gave one access to their name — not for lack of trying by her ward-mates in the months and years prior.

They technically weren’t allowed to enact rituals until their naming day, but the rule was practically ignored. If a caretaker discovered a kid before their naming had gone and bought some chalk, they’d clap their hands and encourage such enthusiasm for their future, rather than chide.

And still… Nix had been one of the few that waited until her Naming.

She sat in the middle of the pentagon decorated with only a few runes and began her hymn. It was one she knew entirely by heart. In her captivity, she’d not been able to enact any rituals — even the ones like this that did not require corruption — but she’d certainly spent a lot of time practising.

Her voice flowed with the subtle notes, sounding far more elegant and clear to her own ears now that it wasn’t marred by a missing tongue, or the echoing tone it once became.

She relaxed into the effort. A meditative state overcame her as she sunk into the calming process. Even if she was still as weak as ever, Nix was glad she hadn’t lost this. It had taken her years of patience and effort to achieve, after all. She’d been worried it wouldn’t transfer when she actually got to perform a ritual.

The world seemed to seep out of existence around her as she continued to drown in her trance. Her mind grew dark. Like the core of the black hole far beneath their feet. Not even Little God could reach her here. She was alone. Utterly, and entirely alone.

Time passed. Nix lost all concept of it. But soon, her name began to scrawl itself across her senses. Unlike the ceremony, it didn’t come all at once. It began with her first, then her additives. The scribbling across her senses was so slow even in her timeless trance, and Nix felt dread that the technocultist had lied to her after all. That she hadn’t achieved a Feat.

But then, it appeared.

Nix-ine-oth-Zylth

Zylth — One who struggles without need. Neither help, power, nor might will satisfy their plight. Those who confine themselves in the eye of death can see through the binds of equal deceit.

As soon as she read her Feat, the dark world of her meditation collapsed around her.

Are you fucking kidding me? Struggles without need? I didn’t exactly have any other options than to fight that amalgamation. So, what? Just because I didn’t call out for help when I was close to death, I got a Feat?

Nix rolled to her back and spread her arms across the floor. She was pretty certain that if Tarchon had been paying attention to the fight and was ready to save her if she failed to kill the amalgamation, then she would never have achieved the additive. Feats weren’t that easy to gain. And whatever bestowed the names —whether it was the Eidolon Gods or the world itself — knew when you were facing a challenge, and when you weren’t.

And she doubted she would have received this name if the amalgamation was actually weaker than her. Even if the benefit was minimal, if it was that easy, then everyone would have it just to boost their prospective evolution.

Nix groaned. Why can’t you just be clear?!

Her best guess to the requirements for this feat was that she’d had options available to her that she’d outright refused to take, even if it meant death. And somehow still beat a creature stronger than herself. But she wasn’t certain that was all.

A cryptic description usually denoted a high tiered name, and yet it just made it frustrating for Nix. She wanted to understand it. It wasn’t like she could go and ask some onomastician to tell her its meaning; she was still wary about making herself stand out. Plus, Tarchon’s dismissiveness about the name declared just how pointless it probably was.

Though, he did say she had a variant…

As she felt over the name’s description again, she focused on the last line. It had to be a deliberate choice of words.

Confine myself? After my last life? How dare you. She harrumphed.

But the mention of seeing through deceit was interesting. She had no idea what it could mean. The way it was described made Nix think that she could see options an opponent might have that she shared… but she wasn’t sure how that might play out. She hoped it wasn’t what she thought; if it simply gave her an insight into other’s desperation or willingness to die, she could see why Tarchon thought it was a pointless Feat

A name was only as useful as how well it was understood. And a Feat like this… if it was useful at all, it might take some experimenting.

In the meantime, she cast her mind over her first three names. They all still read only curse, but there was a niggling sensation at the back of her mind. One that hadn’t been there at the naming ceremony.

Each of her cursed names now appeared fuzzy. Their descriptions were less distinct, yet more intense and specific at the same time. The only word she could see when looking at them remained ‘curse’, but it was almost like she could see a layer beneath them. Something she couldn’t comprehend.

Curious, she poked and prodded at them, finding the third to be… more susceptible, somehow. Her mental fingers skimmed the surface of Oth, and she got the sense of a shell to crack; a box to open. Enraptured, she reached within, determined to find what this odd hidden aspect of her curse was.

An ache ran down her spine. It wasn’t painful, but it was anything but normal. She pressed deeper. There was something within her name; she knew it. But as the crack in Oth opened wider, the name became more fuzzy and indistinct. Her sense couldn’t comprehend what was happening, but she kept going. She had to know what laid within.

Until that ache spread from her lower spine to her ribs.

Glancing down, and shifting her robe, she snapped her mental fingers out of her name with a startled yelp. Feathers, in their black and red grandeur, now spread all around her midriff. Between her waist and ribs, only the navel was free of plumage.

Nix scrambled back, knocking over a pair of candles — which were quick to extinguish — in her haste to get out of the ritual circle. She quickly found herself in the corner nook between her bed and the wall, where she glanced over her body again.

By touching her name, she had accelerated her mutations. A week had passed in a moment.