Nix took off K’tan’s robe to reveal her new mutations. Almost without her input, her wings snapped wide. Having been bound ever since they grew in, they felt amazing to stretch. While the feeling was slightly different, it was similar to the freedom of her arms after days of the fleshchain holding them behind her back.

She tossed the robe to the side. The thing would be burnt later. Or melted, if she was willing to try the acid showerhead. The cloth was decent quality, but she wouldn’t keep anything of K’tan’s on her if possible.

The bastard was now dead. She could hardly even believe it; her first revenge had been achieved. It was hard to tell if she felt more satisfied, relieved, or annoyed that the man couldn’t be here to suffer in his demise.

For her next kill, she might consider hiring a soulsinger to bring them back just to drive home their loss before the black hole ate them.

Not that such vengeance will be satisfied any time soon. Sure, there were some individuals that were worse than the rest, and could be cut down without much trouble, but her goal was to take down the cults and the leaders who sacrificed her. Until she’d gathered strength, even considering such an option was suicide.

Nix moved her wings forward. As easy as kicking her legs, they did as she wanted. What she wasn’t so sure about, was where to put her hands as the wings wrapped around her front. She was too slow to decide, and found herself in the embrace of her own wings. With how large they were, they were incredibly effective at covering her. One wing raised and one lowered as they curved around from her back to hide her entire front.

Well, Nix wasn’t sure that would ever be helpful. It was her wings she needed to hide; not herself.

But… her feathers were soft. She was curious what it would be like to lay down wrapped up like this. Her sleep would be amazing. Unfortunately, that would pose far too great a risk of being discovered. She would need to rest with her wings uncomfortably bound.

With her hands, Nix tried to push open her wings, only to find them resisting her strength. Were her wings strong? Or was that just her own lacking strength showing itself?

Out of curiosity, she dropped to the floor and tried to do a few push-ups. Her arms lasted twenty. Far more than what she could previously do, so the sacrificial cultivation had helped, but not enough to make her arms that of a harbinger.

It was when she used her wings that Nix felt impressed. They had trouble finding purchase on the ground — a lack of hands will do that — but once she’d found a posture that worked, it was effortless. Nix could lift herself with her wings all day and they wouldn’t get tired. In fact, she was sure the rest of her body would become tired of flying before her wings did.

Flying.

The very thought of the possibility sent a thrill down Nix’s spine. She could fly! She was so tempted to run outside and try it out in the open space of the refinery.

But doing so would be stupid. Even discounting the dangers of Technocult territory, it would only take one wandering eye to spot her and fate would repeat. If she truly wanted to try them out, she needed to go somewhere that she could be certain nobody else would go.

Considering how strong her wings were, it was truly a shame they were absolutely horrible at grabbing things. Thoughts of swinging blades in each extra limb were shattered as she tried to pick up the bundle of cloth from the ground, but found her feathers slipped without ever getting a grip. They were feathered wings. Not winged arms like one might find on a bat.

Nix didn’t feel that disappointed though. Feathers felt nice.

Suddenly realising what she was doing, she snapped her fingers away from stroking her wings. These were mutations; a sign of her curses manifesting in the world. They were the root origin of her life going the way it had. She shouldn’t be enjoying them. If they’d never appeared, she never would have faced hardship.

Well, unless K’tan had chosen to have her sacrificed anyway.

What might have happened then? If K’tan had chosen her as a sacrifice, and she hadn’t been their ‘perfect sacrifice’, she wouldn’t have been passed around through all the major cults. She would have died in the first week.

It was… a way of looking at the events that she never considered. In that way, her mutations had given her seven more years to live.

Seven years of isolation, confinement and torture.

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Brushing aside the thoughts, she sunk her fingers beneath the skulk shroud that clung to her chest. It fought her as she tugged it off, but stopped moving after being tossed to the side.

The return of her new sight was like a jolt to her system. Immediately, she felt her focus on the bathroom tiling amplify. The surface coating was immaculate, with the surface remaining consistent and flat even as she began to see the detailed crystalline structure that grew ever more elaborate as she watched. When her sight reached through that surface coating, and found the thick structure behind, she finally slammed her hand over her eye.

A small trail of motes flowed off the wall and through her hand, but thankfully, it didn’t seem like much of the wall had been damaged. It was far more resistant than K’tan’s head.

Nix expected her hand to hurt, but apparently even her greedy eye knew not to harm itself.

She got a fuzzy, indistinct silhouette when she looked into the chitin of her hand. No matter how hard she tried to focus, it wouldn’t explore her body to the same depths it did anything else it laid eye on. But… at least this was better than continuing to look into nothingness and feeling blind. She would need to see if she could make a cover from her own body. Maybe a bundle of her hair would work?

Preferably, she’d learn to control the eye so she could keep it tucked beneath her robe for emergencies. A weapon that relied on nothing but observing a person was invaluable.

Slowly opening her hand, she tucked her chin and gazed into the depths of that crimson gem. A tinge of violet spun through the centre like a ribbon; the iris or pupil. The crystal was small, about an inch. Sharp and smooth edges of the gem bordered her skin. Nix could almost lose herself in the constant twirling of colour, but there was something far more concerning to worry about.

The bright, glowing veins that sprouted from the sides of the eye stood out like flares. If not for the skulk shroud, they would have shone through the robe.

Thankfully, they seemed to have shrunk since she was in the sacrificial chamber, but they still hadn’t fully returned her veins and arteries to their usual — unluminescent — state. It was honestly hard to tell if the crimson glow was from her blood, or whatever powered the eye… assuming there was a difference at all.

A thought occurred to her, and — after taking out the second skulk shroud piece — she held K’tan’s robe ahead of her. Her third eye, as greedy as it was, observed the cloth immediately.

Nix watched the eye as it consumed every thread of the outfit. Sure enough, her guess was right. The veins were growing.

The more she observed and consumed, the more that glowing energy spread through her body. It would mean that she couldn’t use it haphazardly, unless she wanted to be discovered… or find out what happened when it spread all through her body.

She thumbed the edge of the gem where it sprouted from her sternum, before turning to the last of her changes from earlier.

Her body refused to twist enough to let her see, but the bathroom mirror made up for it… even if her wings still got in the way. All along her spine, small, sharp points poked through the skin. They were clearly bone. Each vertebra had begun to grow and spike out from her back, ending in very sharp points.

Despite the numerous breaks in skin, there was not a speck of blood. Whether it was burnt away in the ritual, or there hadn’t been any in the first place, Nix didn’t know. What was important, was that they hadn’t caused her back to become a fountain of blood as they grew out.

Nix rubbed her finger around one. It was hard and smooth, but still relatively small. She could hide these away as long as they didn’t grow to some insane length any time soon.

As she passed her finger over the pointy tip of her bone, she was surprised by just how sharp it was. If she’d still had skin, it would have pierced her finger.

I’m going to have to find rubber or something to blunt them, Nix thought. Well, there’s enough trash lying around out there that I’ll find something I can steal.

Stepping up to the shower knobs, she turned on the soapy water. Nix made very sure it was actually water spitting from the nozzle before she shoved her head underneath.

A relieved sigh slipped from her lips as soon as the warmth flowed down her back.

Her ethereal touch moved back to her name. It shifted slowly; the seams separate and waiting to be reconnected in ways she didn’t understand. For a moment, Nix worried that evolving might not be the smartest thing to do.

There had been plenty of stories of people choosing an evolution and the path it led them locked them out of the abilities they relied upon previously. Did nix really want to sacrifice such an obviously useful ability as her Feat? If the base, ‘Zyl’, only told when someone was ready to die, or gave an indication of how many times they had experienced such, then she could understand why Tarchon told her to combine it away.

But ‘Zylth’ had the ability to inspect names. It allowed her a fairly decent indicator to strength, even if it didn’t give insight into exactly what that strength was. Did she really want to risk losing such an advantage?

The whole reason she’d been so happy to achieve a Feat — despite it’s initially unimpressive showing — was to evolve out the curses that had corrupted her name. To give her a future that wouldn’t repeat. Yet it was that Feat that allowed her to make those cursed names more than they were. Because ‘Zylth’ allowed her to interact with her cursed names, she’d been able to both control her mutations and slaughter a whole pit of Fleshsmith cultists.

It allowed her to be more than her curses. She didn’t want to give it up. So despite Tarchon’s recommendation, Nix fully intended to only evolve her curses. It was something she’d always feared would be her only option… and even now the thought they would combine into something far worse than she already had to experience rattled her mind, but as long as she had ‘Zylth’ she would be able to use it.

With her mind made, she shut off the water and shook her wings.

When she slept, the evolution options would come. When she slept, she would choose the option that truly separated the past from her future.

Soon, she would not be Nix-ine-oth-Zylth.

She would be something more.