Chương 34: Are You Sure It Was a Knife That Made That Hole?

"Are you always getting yourself in trouble, or is it only when I'm around?" Something in his arm hissed as the contraptions clicked and unwound themselves from preparing some attack. Tarchon stepped up to her, took one look through the sacrificial chamber, and hummed.

"Only when you're around," she said.

"You must be a curse. One worse than all my others." The Technocultist stared down at her, and suddenly she felt tiny. He stood two heads taller. With all those mechanical parts, he probably weighed ten times what she did. She clenched her fist and her eyes darted to his neck. Even ignoring the immense difference in their evolution tier, he was sure to be hurt if she struck those tubes and wires, right? She would fight back if he attacked.

His arms landed on her shoulders, picked her up like a marionette, and placed her to the side before she could react. Now with nothing blocking the narrow doorway — for him — he strode into the sacrificial chamber to inspect K'tan's husk. Nix had to take a breath. She was wound up from the ritual, and had immediately jumped to thinking the man was hostile. He hadn't shown that. If anything, he'd showed distaste for the overseer. The Technocultist may not be someone she trusted, but he wasn't her enemy.

Not right now, at least.

"So, he tried to sacrifice you, and you flipped it on him?" Making assumptions again? Well, at least this time you're right.

"Yes."

"How did you kill him?"

"Stabbed him with his own knife," Nix lied through her teeth. Tarchon pressed his heavy boot against K'tan, and rolled the corpse on its side. The hole through its head revealed to them both.

"Really?" Tarchon mused.

"Yep." Nix tried her best to seem nonchalant, while inside she was panicking.

"I might have been a bit… enthusiastic when I twisted the knife in his skull." The ritual had deformed much of the head-wound and left no blood in his body, so it shouldn't be too hard to believe. Still, the man's questions left her nervous. What if he discovered her mutations?

"And how did you break out of the shackles?" He kneeled down to pick up one of the pieces of chain that she'd cleaved in half to escape. Twirling it in his fingers, he glanced back to her.

"He never used them. When I woke up, I found him ready to stab me, so I struck out, and got lucky."

"Right." His tone exuded doubt. Nix took a step away, preparing to bolt if the need arose. She thought she'd been lucky that he'd been so late, considering how her mutations would have been revealed if he broke down that door before she'd opened it. But if he continued this line of questioning, he was certain to know something was up. Could she hide her mutations from a dedicated high-creed interrogator that was suspicious of her? The answer was an obvious no.

She needed to redirect his attention, or give him a reason to believe her. But how? Nothing came to mind.

"How are you?" Tarchon suddenly asked, as he trickled some fluid over the corpse.

"What?" the question was so mundane that it tripped her up. Tarchon turned to her as he flicked his fingers, igniting the husk with a spark.

"He was your overseer, correct? Was it not difficult?"

"Oh, fuck no. He was a bastard that tried to sacrifice me. Not only me; he's sold off other kids in the past years," she said.

"Ari was lucky to come back a couple days ago." Really, Nix would be worried about telling him if she hadn't already made herself a target for the Fleshsmiths. Even if she was lucky and the only people who knew of her promise as a sacrifice were K'tan and the cultists that died in the Dark Star Event, they would still come for her in retaliation for her overseers death. It was all about principle. They needed to make an example of those without protection for going against them…

even if they'd intended to kill K'tan themselves. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. The Fleshsmiths would know she killed K'tan. And now, they would know she told Tarchon about their human sacrifice trafficking ring. Though, considering how unsurprised the man looked, she needn't have bothered. Now done with disposing of the corpse, Tarchon returned to looming over Nix.

She self-consciously touched her side, worried that her wings were pressing out against the oversized robe too much. They certainly felt cramped. There was no way they weren't visible if he looked close enough.

"You knew how to finish the ritual." Nix immediately stepped back, ready for anything the man might pull. There was no satisfying answer she could give. Nix knew that. Tarchon knew that. How could someone who'd only ever lived in the Rearing Wards have learnt one of the cults' secret rituals? The Technocultist hummed as his eyes bore into her. She felt that same feeling of her soul being seen and brushed as that time beneath Still Tower.

"Be at ease," he said after what felt like minutes of tension.

"I do not intend to pry. You would not be the only one bending the rules to give yourself an edge. I'm sure even amongst your age group, there were dozens receiving assistance from the cults long before their naming. I just hope the person you bought this information from is more trustworthy than last you received 'help'." Oh. No, there he goes. Back to the false assumptions. Nix tried her best not to laugh. At least it saves me from any further explanations.

"Well, I did almost die-""Again," Tarchon added helpfully.

"Again," she admitted.

"So I'd very much like to get back to the ward to rest," and inspect these new wings. She stepped away, fully expecting to be let go, but Tarchon's words stopped her.

"The ward has been evacuated while the corruption is cleansed." He stepped out of the sacrificial chamber and shut the heavy door behind him.

"This wouldn't have happened in the first place if the cults didn't protest an inspection of the wards under the pretence of 'children's privacy'."

"Where were they evacuated to?" Nix asked, carefully watching the falling steam from Tarchon's sigh.

"Distributed between the wards."

"Oh…" That was going to make things hard. If she had to move, it was more than likely she'd be stuck with a roommate. She would never have the privacy to stretch her wings. They felt cramped already.

"But… I still have some concerns about the Fleshsmith's involvement, and as the victim of an attempted unlicenced human sacrifice, I have a vested interest in keeping you alive for the sake of this investigation." Nix tilted her head in question. It was odd that he was so specific, but her musings were soon interrupted as a small tag slid from the man's hand, which he handed to her. Flat, and about half the length of a finger, she held it without understanding what it was for.

"I assume you can handle a little bit of corruption?"

"Yes?" she responded, still not sure what the tag was for.

"That will allow you access to a safehouse." He then proceeded to give her directions.

"Do be careful not to approach without the tag on you. The defence systems aren't kind to trespassers." As she inspected the card and turned away, she wondered if it would be smarter to just decline. Nix had declared to herself that she would stay away from the cults, and doing this would be placing herself in the middle of an already brewing feud between the Fleshsmiths and the Technocult. Though, maybe it was better to accept.

She didn't have a grudge against the Technocultists — mostly because they were all dead by the time her sacrifice occured — but they were still a cult like any other. In the end, it came down to one thing.

"Does it have a private bath?"

"Yes." Tarchon said, emotionless, though his eyebrow did raise ever so slightly.

"Alright then, thanks."

"One more thing," he said.

"Was your overseer prepared to die?"

"Yes," Nix said. She knew it intimately. Tarchon suddenly pulled her shoulder to stare her in the eye. In an instant, she felt her touch slide over his name involuntarily, but it wasn't any willingness to die she felt. Instead, it was a scar. Or more closer to a memory etched into the side of his name. Every time he'd felt that determination and preparedness to die recorded for any who knew how to decipher it.

It was only as she saw the number of times he was intimately ready to die — eighty two, a staggering number — that another aspect of names made themselves known to her. She could read none of them, but there were so many variations, rises and falls, twists and turns to just a single name that she finally understood what onomasticians often spouted, but rarely could explain. A name, even if shared by multiple people, was infinitely different per individual.

Nix could only see the number of times Tarchon had been ready to die, but out of her reach was so much information that made his name what it was. All of his history. All of his memories were the building blocks of his name. She'd known it before — it was well known, after all — but she'd never truly understood what that meant until now.

"For the first few, it is better to combine them all. Especially so in your case." With that cryptic statement, he turned and walked away.

"I'll drop by in the next couple days… maybe. Good luck." Nix stared after him, still struggling to process what he'd just showed her. She moved her sense over her own name. If she could see it on others, surely she could see it on her own. Twice. Only twice had she been truly prepared to die. The first, when she was to be sacrificed by all the cults, and she knew there was no escape. She'd been ready to die as long as her murderers were punished. The second was the same moment she achieved this Feat.

But the subtle imprint of her own history through her Feat — her cursed names remained too indistinct to determine any records — was not what caught her attention most. The seams had widened. The puzzle pieces were shifting around each other with fluidity she'd not seen before. Even her curses seemed to glow with corruption; as if they were wide, and inviting what they contained to reach out for the rest of the world. She didn't understand at first.

All she knew was that Tarchon had done something with her Feat, and it had freed her name somehow. What was he talking about? Combining them? Names? Oh. Nix suddenly realised. Oh! She was ready to evolve.