There it was.

The announcement that would leave Nix branded as a lost cause and irredeemable for as long as she lived… at least until they discovered how good of a sacrifice she made.

She didn’t gape. She didn’t break down and fall to her knees as she did last time. Nix turned and strode past the mixture of wary and pitying gazes. She didn’t even glance towards the prospectors. There was no use wasting her time on hope to be chosen when she knew she wouldn’t. Besides, each cult that held fault in her death had representatives here. The last thing she wanted was to be picked up by one of them.

The cultist’s attention didn’t linger, but her ward-mates’ certainly did.

Nix made her way to the other side of the courtyard — opposite K’tan and his deceitfully concerned gaze — and calmly settled on a low bench typically reserved for ritual equipment. When her gaze found the group surrounding the ritual circle, no less than a dozen head spun away. The onomastician never stopped the name granting ceremonies, but it seemed they all remained more interested in her then their friends.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t expected such. Last time, it had been a nightmare. Not only did her hopes get crushed, but going last had left each of her ward-mates with nothing but Nix to focus on, and none of them forgot the way she broke down.

Considering she wasn’t an emotional wreck this time, pushing in line hadn’t been necessary. But she has still been labelled as cursed. Cursed and fated to remain cursed. Of course they would stare after such a spectacle; most people didn’t even think it was possible.

But their gazes were soft and lacked any impact. Nothing like what she’d now experienced. It was a bunch of kids that started at her, and she was glad to find there wasn’t even the sliver of desire to run and hide as Ari did. As Nix had.

She still would have preferred to avoid this ceremony entirely, but doing such would have attracted the attention of far worse people than just the few kids of her ward. A kid, not wanting to learn their name? A most suspicious occurrence.

Well, it’s not like she didn’t know of any reasons some might want to keep their names hidden, but the cults were adamant about recording everyone’s names.

If most cultists didn’t want to do everything in their power to keep their secret skills hidden, they would mandate the record of names even after a naming ceremony. Not that they could keep it hidden from a competent enough onomastician.

That brought Nix to her current problem. She had raised A̱l'Darvi’s curiosity with her given name being labelled as a curse. It was obvious from his name that he’d already had two evolutions — first the ‘Al’ which represented the path of onomastics, then the inflection — but did that mean he could pick apart her name from a glance? Or was that something only the stronger ones could do?

“Why do you hide from your name?”

With a jolt, Nix spun to the voice that spoke with a roll of static, like it was speaking through the noise of an ancient radio.

As soon as she saw the floating eyeball about the size of her fist wrapped in a small cloud of black smoke, Nix groaned. She immediately quietened herself as the number of students staring at her tripled.

She thought she’d been relieved of this torment. When it hadn’t come back with her, she’d assumed her return to the past gave her back her sanity… but clearly she’d been mistaken. Her hand fell to her side, where she touched the feather beneath two layers of cloth. It still hadn’t sprouted, so there went the slight hope that this eye was the result of some mutation and not her own insanity.

“So many empty names.” The eye glances towards the ritual of another kid as she gets her name given. “Why do they not know their own soul?"

Why is it speaking so much? Nix eyed the back of the floating orb. The black smoke twirled lazily, and seemed to faze in and out of reality. It had never spoken more than a few words at a time. And the time between was usually staggering. Had her own mind decided that returning to the past wasn’t crazy enough, and had to add voices to the back of her head?

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“Why do so many despise their own soul?” it sounded baffled.

Nix ignored the figment of her imagination. Her prolonged solitude had resulted in this creature, and as much as she willed it, it wouldn’t go away.

Couldn’t you have been a puppy? I’d take a corrupted abomination of one… or a spider. If I was going to make an imaginary friend for myself, why’d I have to make you an eye?

As the rest of her ward received their names, Nix turned her attention around the surface of Coral. It was so nice seeing it again. Their immediate surroundings were a sort of quarantined space in the centre of the safe zone. Only facilities related to the Rearing Wards were allowed to be constructed.

Considering the Wards themselves were mostly within Coral — not so deep as to experience any corruption — that left the centre of the safe zone as the only place not striving to reach the Great Iris. It made Coral’s surface appear almost like a bowl. Buildings started gradual, rising only a few floors while still within the safe zone, before rising to incredible heights near the edge. Those taller buildings could only reach such heights with the support of alien constructs of flesh, illogical architecture, and other such means that went way over Nix’s head.

But above them all, stood the temples of the four pinnacle cults.

To the north was the tallest. The Cult of the Everseeing Eye built their temple along the largest remaining section of glass dome. Thin and long, their structure’s entire purpose was to reach as close to the Great Pupil as they could. Almost directly above her, a massive observatory hung in the sky.

The Bodytwisters and Scriptures held their temples to the east and south, respectively. Both held unreasonable amounts of flesh in their designs, but the flesh of the Scriptures moved. It was constant. And any time Nix turned that way, she shivered in revulsion.

It was well known that the fourth pinnacle temple was nothing more than a show of strength. That they could match the other cults. The Machine God Worshippers all lived in the depths of Coral. They worked, prayed and engaged in rituals as close as they could to the heart of Coral; where they believe the Machine God controlled the platform.

The other cults either didn’t care, or lacked the resources to grandstand to such a degree.

Nix wished it was so easy to understand the interior of Coral. Out here, you could see to the outer edges. You could comprehend how everything fit in place, and organised themselves together.

That was impossible below.

On a few separate occasions, Nix miraculously found opportunities to escape. Yet mapping the corridors was pointless down there. Paths would loop on themselves, stairs led up to the same room, and most strangely of all, her cell would shift into an impossibly vast forest.

That last one hadn’t been an escape attempt. It had simply happened. Dark Star Events were a terrifying reality.

Nix snapped out of her daydreaming as she noticed one of the boys storming her way. He was clearly fuming. Considering the gap in the crowd behind him, he’d just had his naming.

“You should just leave,” he snapped, not daring to come close. “You bring bad luck to us all.”

Her mouth opened, but he was already racing out of the courtyard. Another boy was quick to join his side, tossing her a conflicted look that wasn’t exactly accusing, but certainly wasn’t apologetic.

She slowly closed her jaw as he disappeared around the low wall bordering the courtyard. What would she have even said? I’m sorry I’m cursed? It shouldn’t have anything to do with luck… but if it did, then didn’t that mean her future was set in stone? She couldn’t think that.

So he didn’t get a good name, how horrible. At least he had the opportunity to earn more. As Nix considered her own name, the only future she could imagine was more curses.

Seriously, how could my second additive mean curse as well?

The group of fifteen-year-olds were a mix of joyous and gloomy. Most were gloomy. Nix entertained the thought that it truly was her presence that gave them poor results… and found she didn’t care. More than likely that was just how every naming ceremony was; a few getting more than they wanted, and everyone else left disappointed.

They were quickly progressing through the rituals, and soon Nix would be able to break off from the past. Instead of returning to the ward as she had last time, she would go out into the city and strike a clear line between what was, and what will be.

“Why do you let them go unpunished?” The radio static voice sounded completely curious and unjudging. As if it could not comprehend human interaction, but viciously wished to learn.

Nix didn’t care much for her ward-mates. They’d never reached out to her, either to help or simply provide a psychological pillar, but they’d also not participated in her murder. She wasn’t interested in getting along with them, but she wouldn’t go out of her way to harm them.

Her murderers, on the other hand?

I can’t, Nix thought, unwilling to respond to the eye aloud and seem insane. I don’t know how. She glanced towards the four major temples, then to K’tan. I don’t know how, but I will. One day.