Nix enjoyed her time with Dan and Ari. It was fun to just speak with other people that didn’t — as far as she knew — have ulterior motives. It was something she’d had far too little experience.

Not wanting to scar them with the stigma of being close to the ‘cursed girl’, Nix left them to return alone. Well, her intentions weren’t wholly out of the goodness of her heart. She still intended to reenact the naming ritual from last night.

With how startled she’d been from the sudden appearance of her plumage, she’d not properly dug into what her Feat could see. If it truly was her Feat.

So, clutching her gifted book to her chest, and carrying the new robes she’d bought — traditional black with red highlights to better hide her feathers — Nix head for the nearest public ritual chamber. The place wasn’t anything fancy, but it was isolated and quiet. Perfect.

The pentagram and runes were already carved into the floor here, so it was only a matter of lighting the candles and sitting within. As her breathing slowed and her mind calmed, she realised she truly felt content with how things were going.

She’d not yet increased her strength beyond that of the sickly child she was, but so much more had happened. Before she’d returned to the past, Nix had been certain there had never been anyone who’d cared for her. K’tan had been the only one, and he’d betrayed her. But now she knew that had been his manipulation on perceptions.

The other carers had shown genuine worry at her bloody state last night, and now she had two ward-mates who actually talked to her. She felt like celebrating already.

… but she knew it wouldn’t remain.

This… kindness she’d received was just a taste of what her life could eventually become. Yet that life would never eventuate if she wasn’t ready to face everything that came her way. Not only was she going to face what she had last time, but there were surely challenges that she couldn’t have imagined.

Her goal was to take down the pinnacle cults. That was not something that would come easily. She knew that. And she knew that the only possible way she could ever succeed is if she pushed herself. If she took risks that she probably shouldn’t.

While in this ritual chamber, she intended to learn more about herself and her names. Her curses and mutations were something she had always despised, but she needed to know everything even if she never used them.

The echo of her hymns twisted into her consciousness and Nix soon returned to her meditative trance. Nothing but her and the void. It was comforting, as it had always been, but nix was not here to escape the truth of her world. She was here to see her name.

It appeared before her, as if on command.

Wasting no time, Nix focused on the last of her names: the Feat. ‘Zylth’ was the same as before, and inspecting it with those same mental fingers as she had last time revealed no addition to its description. She allow her touch to linger. It was difficult to say how long while in this trance, but she assumed at least an hour. Her touch tried to feel out everything that created the name, and eventually, her patience was rewarded.

Not with anything grand, but the sense of what could best be equated to a seam. It felt like the name had components. Three parts that made a single whole. But it also felt like more could be added. It felt almost like a puzzle piece, yet the edges that could slot into other parts did not make it seem unfinished. They were whole, both together and alone.

If she considered that the name ‘Zylth’ was actually a variant on ‘Zyl’, than there was simply an added component onto the name? It was that component that allowed her to feel her names.

Considering she had both other parts as well, then the base name’s ability should be available to her as well. She just… didn’t know what that was. Maybe she’d ask when she went to get Tarchon to take out the bolts. He seemed to be rather loose with high creed secrets; it would be a waste if she didn’t take advantage.

Despite the Feat’s odd sense that let her feel her name, she didn’t think it would qualify as an onomastics skill as it was more akin to sinking your hand into a bath and trying to gauge its volume. It was good for feeling and interacting, but not so much actually determining details of what it touched.

She couldn’t think of any way that matched up with any interpretation of its description.

‘See through the binds of equal deceit’ didn’t make sense in terms of a self reflective skill. Its wording was explicitly focused on something external, but that was the opposite of what she’d seen… unless this touch was possible to extend beyond herself.

The equal deceit part caught her up the most. Her first thought was that she could feel out the seams in skills up to the number of her own. But that didn’t explain why she got the Feat in the first place. Was it possible that the Feat counted her mutations buried within her bundled curses as concealed power?

That would explain a lot about how she achieved this variation in the first place; if she’d had all her mutations from the day of her death, then the fight against that amalgamation would have been easy. Just those chitinous claws of hers would have been nice.

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So, it was reasonably likely that the Feat could work on other people. Nix just needed to figure out how.

Hmm… that might work.

If her idea failed, then she would need to spend who knows how much longer to pull herself back into the ritual. Her mental fingers glided over her name, almost covering it in the touch, and she opened her eyes. Standing up, while keeping her focus on that sense, she walked out of the ritual circle.

The name disappeared, but her touch didn’t.

She couldn’t feel what her name was, nor could she get any details of their descriptions, but she could feel their shape. She slid her mind’s finger over the Feat, and along the trio of curses. Each was distinct. Despite not seeing the names, she knew which was ‘Nix’ and which were the additives.

Unlike her Feat, the trio of curses felt inherently different. Even as she hovered her touch over their surface — not going so far as to start opening them again — there were no seams. They didn’t feel like puzzle pieces.

This was a lot more helpful than having to enact the ritual every time. Assuming she could feel out her name without the initial guide of the ritual, then she would never need to guess whether she’d gained another name.

She needed to work on casting this feeling out to inspect other’s names. It may not give her much information on what they could do, but it might give her a decent understanding of their strength by feeling out the number of name components they had. Though, she would need to see if it was actually usable. If it took her an hour to feel out someone’s strength, that would be less than ideal. Especially if they were attacking her.

After the confrontation with Kal earlier, Nix had bought a knife. It was a small thing, typically used as a means to draw blood, but it was sharp.

If Nix was determined to change things, she had to be ready for things to change. Neither the amalgamation, nor a fight with her ward’s bullies had she been expecting, but they had happened. If those boys were a bit more brutal, if they hadn’t pulled away from actually throwing punches and actually tried to kill Nix there, there wouldn’t have been a thing she could do.

She knew none of those boys were murderers, but that wasn’t something she could assume outright. A knife as small as the one now strapped beneath her robe was not much, but it gave her something to defend herself if she found herself in a difficult situation.

In a situation where she was being attacked, she doubted she would have the time to worry about checking her opponent’s general strength. That was not what this Feat was for. At least not for Nix. Not for a while. Its utility lay in the inspection of prospective enemies.

If it worked the way she thought it might, then she would be able to tell how many names K’tan had, and how powerful his evolution had been. She could see how far she needed to grow to take out the first of her targets.

But that would have to wait.

Nix scanned her new touch over the three curses. All three were equally indistinct and fuzzy, but they had aspects that put them apart. ‘Oth’ felt almost nostalgic as she brushed over it. The feeling was detached, and clearly not her own emotion, but the name had an aspect of that in its shape… somehow.

It wasn’t the only name that gave a sense of emotion to its form. ‘Ine’ felt new and unfamiliar. That wasn’t Nix’s emotions, but the literal shape of the name. It was like the unknown; possibly fresh and exciting. Possibly dangerous and terrifying.

The base name, ‘Nix’, was as interesting a sensation as it was depressing. Sickly, vengeful and dark, this was without a doubt where most of her blood curses settled.

She returned her touch to ‘Ine’. Slowly, ever so slightly, she poked at it. Nix already knew ‘Oth’ grew her mutations, but she wasn’t sure if it was the same for the others as well. If they offered her some opportunity that wouldn’t declare her as the perfect sacrifice as her mutations had, then she would leap on it. She was desperate for whatever she could get.

Unlike last time, she was much more careful with her manipulations. She didn’t try to open the name, only pulled at it slightly. Focusing more on her own body than the name, she soon found a growing burning sensation in her chest. Her handling halted immediately, and she looked down on herself.

After making sure nobody was peeking in from the sole door to her chamber, she twisted to face a corner and opened her robe. In the middle of her sternum, there was a wrinkle in her skin. She touched it, and found a hard lump. Something had begun growing right in the centre of her breastbone.

Nix let out a deep breath and stifled her growing unease.

She was certain now, with this mutation she’d never experienced before and the feelings of each name, that ‘Oth’ held the changes she’d faced in her previous life, and ‘Ine’ held the ones she had yet to face.

There had been no reason to believe her mutations were coming to a stop when she’d been sacrificed — there had been those inky tears, after all — but she’d been hoping it had all been coming to an end. If it continued endlessly, then what would she look like in ten years? Twenty? At what point did she stop being human and become an amalgamation herself?

Pulling her hand away from her chest, she covered herself and focused on her base name.

If the other two instigated her mutations, then was it even worth doing the same for ‘Nix’? She would just be encouraging another change to begin. Nix truly considered not even trying, just to avoid the disappointment if it turned out the same. But as her mental finger feathered over her name, she knew she had to at least try. Too much was riding on every small gain she could get.

So, Nix pulled.

The room darkened immediately. What were mere shadows before became voids of nothingness. The candle-flames were strangled by the encroaching darkness, and began to twist and dance as if in terrified flail. Light of the horrified flames reflected off only the engraved divots of pentagrams and runes; each of which seemed to glow in a sickly yellow light, as if channelling the candles’ terror.

Nix snapped her head to the side. She swore she’d just seen something move. Something large. Something that could not have possibly fit in the space between her and the wall.

By opening her name, she’d unleashed the corruption of a thousand curses. The room was changing by the second; twisted beyond natural. Ritual circles in this chamber weren’t designed to handle any corruption, and quickly she found them burning shapes into her mind. Words she couldn’t understand formed amongst those rapidly deteriorating patterns, and she was forced to snap her eyes closed.

Her mental hand ripped away from her name. She let it fall back into place, but as she opened her eyes, the room was no less corrupt. An unsettling sound droned in her ear, but she was already up and racing for the door. Thankfully, the corruption wasn’t so bad that the door itself had disappeared.

She slid out into the hall between chambers, and sighed in relief at the lack of corruption.

‘Nix’ held an unbelievable amount of corruption. It was horrifying. It was damning. But it was something she could use.