Nyx glared at her reflection.

  She’d hoped Tarchon had been seeing things, but sitting there, growing along the tips of her hair, was mould. Its glacial blue sheen stood out upon her dark locks.

  Stabbing her fingers through her hair, she tore the semi-opaque substance from her head. It slid off her hair easily.

  For now, the mould only grew upon her natural strands, but in time it would gradually eat its way down to the roots. When that happened, it would fully take the place of her hair. The mould was fragile, and often snapped at a mere touch, but it grew rapidly to make up for it.

  It was the first mutation to come in after finding herself in captivity of the Fleshsmiths. They’d cut her hair short in an attempt to remove it all, but as far as she was aware, that had simply accelerated the process. Nyx wouldn’t be able to stop the mould by wiping it free.

  As she bathed and donned her new robe, her mind spiralled. After she’d evolved, Nyx had gained the slightest of hopes that her mutations would stop revealing themselves over time. But that was now proven unrealistic. Even if she avoided opening her name, her changes remained inevitable.

  Not wanting to seem too suspicious, she didn’t cover her head when she flicked the shower lever and walked back out into the main workshop. Tarchon had been the one to point the mould out; she couldn’t hide herself immediately.

  At least for now, Nyx was confident it would take a few hours to regrow enough to be visible. But going forward, she had to be careful to keep her hood up lest someone spot its unnatural shade.

  From here on out, the mutations would only become more difficult to hide. Her tongue, her teeth, her saliva; while not things she couldn’t hide at a glance, the simple action of speaking and interacting with someone was sure to raise questions. As much as she appreciated Tarchon allowing her to stay at his safehouse, she had to find her own isolated place where she could gather strength without being discovered.

  Tarchon waited for her. One of his workbenches had been cleared of the mess — although the pile of the next table was suspiciously taller — and he offered a seat across from her. Knowing she really didn’t have much choice, she did as instructed.

  “Now, lets start with you.” Tarchon began without any word for small-talk. “What was your relation to the Fleshsmith cult?”

  “I didn’t have any. At least none besides K’tan being my overseer.”

  Tarchon’s gaze was emotionless. His face remained blank, and the glass orbs that replaced his eyes expressed no reaction. Despite his fully professional air, Nyx couldn’t help but suspect that he didn’t believe her.

  “Alright. How about something easier?” Maybe it was the benefit of having cameras for eyes, but Tarchon never wavered. Nyx tried not to let it affect her. “Did you know about the smuggling ring?”

  “I learnt of it not long before the disaster.”

  “How long before?”

  Nyx hesitated. She knew the proximity would paint her as suspicious, but she couldn’t lie; what if Tarchon had already interrogated Dan or Ari? “The day after my naming.”

  “So within a day of the Dark Star?”

  Wincing, she nodded.

  “Do you know how it happened?”

  Nyx shook her head. She could hardly tell him she did it herself.

  He hummed. Turbines revved in his chest as he looked down at her. Even sitting, the Technocultist towered over her. “There’s something that’s been troubling me. That night I brought Ari back to your ward, you weren’t surprised to see she’d been outside, nor that she was safe. Instead, you seemed far more intent on K’tan’s reaction. I can’t keep my memories digitised for long, but each time I replayed them, your reactions became more curious.”

  Her tongue ached from how hard she bit down. Nyx hadn’t thought she’d done anything to stand out, but here Tarchon was, questioning her because she had been too interested in seeing K’tan’s anger and fear.

  “Did you know that Ari had severe corruption poisoning when we found her? It took some of my more expensive chemical solutions to disperse it. Even now, I struggle to understand. For her to have experienced that level of corruption, she had to have been within the Dark Star, except escape should be all but impossible for those who don’t know what they’re doing. Not even I have a method to do so without destroying the core. So how did an unevolved child? Especially one affected by a dream-bug.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Nyx scrambled to think of some way to respond, but no ideas came to her mind that wouldn’t incriminate herself.

  “What is your relation to the Fleshsmiths?” Tarchon pressed. “Do you know what caused this Dark Star?”

  She remained silent.

  “You knew the Fleshsmith’s sacrificial ritual. It is clear you’ve had interactions with them. Was it the same one who gave you that catalyst on the day of your naming?”

  Again, Nyx couldn’t speak. How could she explain that she’d learnt their ritual by listening in on them from within the depths of their temple. She’d never been there in this life. He would never believe her.

  After a minute without response, Tarchon sighed. “I understand you wish to keep your silence, and I won’t hold it against you if that is your choice, but to denounce the Fleshsmiths for both their hand in the Dark Star Event and their illegal sacrifice trafficking ring, I need solid case. I need to prove without question their involvement.”

  He rose to his feet, still looking down on Nyx.

  “If you are concerned about retaliation, then be assured that your identity shall remain anonymous. If it is your abilities you wish to keep hidden, speak around them. Give me something to work with.”

  Nyx skimmed her mind for anything to work with. She refused to talk about anything related to her mutations or how she ignited the Dark Star, but if he was telling the truth and he truly intended to make this a political denunciation of one cult to another, then she didn’t not want that to happen.

  “That night… I’d followed K’tan out through the hole in my neighbouring room. He had Ari. He took her into the Fleshsmith territory.”

  “And what did you do?” he pressured.

  “I… I returned. There wasn’t anything I could have done against the cult.” The only thing she could do was lie. Anything else would reveal too much. No matter what Tarchon’s intent was for the Fleshsmiths, Nyx couldn’t even hint at her mutations or the fact that she’d been the origin of the disaster. Hopefully, he would accept it.

  Yet the Technocultist only stared down at her in silence.

  He stood there, hovering over her, waiting for her to continue. His sheer presence made her sweat. She wished she could tell him more, but there was nothing to say. All this effort to enact a denunciation wouldn’t matter after she’d ignited another Dark Star on their temple; it would be enough circumstantial evidence for the cults to denounce them anyway.

  Nyx almost jumped out of her seat when Tarchon sighed. The sound of high pressure gas releasing from some valve hardly matched his disappointed expression.

  “I see.” He flicked his wrist, and the small key-card slipped out of her pocket and slot itself back into his arm. “That is unfortunate. As I do not believe I can trust you, I can no longer offer you the refuge of my safe-house. Make sure not to forget anything.”

  Nyx could do nothing but gape. After discovering her mould, she’d been planning to tell him she would be leaving, so it ended up the same. But to be told that she was no longer welcome felt… infuriating. She could understand where he was coming from, and never trusted that this place was truly somewhere she could consider safe or permanent, yet the fact that she wasn’t the one to say she was leaving first made her indignant.

  “Alright. I was planning to find my own place anyway.”

  Trying not to huff in annoyance, she rose from her chair, grabbed her things, and made for the door. She didn’t stomp. That would be childish of her; she was supposed to be twenty two inside.

  “Don’t get yourself killed before the Trials.” She heard right before she stormed through the front door and made it back out into the refinery. Without that tag, she suddenly felt so much more vulnerable between the massive clanking machines that spun and slammed around her.

  She rushed along the metal walkway quickly, in case the defences were on a timer or something. Soon she found herself far enough that not even the sound reached her.

  This was less than ideal. Nyx had been hoping to spend a couple hours to inspect her new name before she set herself to hunt the Fleshsmiths. She could probably find a quiet spot to do so, but she’d already been attacked by two separate groups today; she didn’t like her chances if she left herself at all vulnerable.

  Instead, she would head out into Fleshsmith territory and see if she could figure it out by trial and error. If not, she could always look into it later. After she’d escaped the second Dark Star Event with the help of her little companion.

  “Eyeball, can you guide me to the core of the Fleshsmith temple without being spotted? Ideally right below their main forge, but otherwise as close as we can get without resistance.”

  Little God looked at her for a moment, then veered his gaze into the distance. He looked through walls and saw paths Nyx could never hope to know. After a minute, he finally turned back to Nyx.

  “Yes,” he said in that static voice of his.

  It might be frustrating to be kicked out of the place she’d slept for the past week, but with the prospect of giving the Fleshsmiths what they deserve right around the corner, her excitement was quick to overtake any other feeling. Taking away the place she had to return to only reinforced what she needed to do now. Before she could relish in luxury.

  She donned her hood and thumbed her rapier. The Fleshsmith forge — their main temple — was not on the surface like the pinnacle cults. It was in the furthest depths of Coral. Downward facing. Only those who knew its location could find it through the chaotic twisting of the tunnels down closer to the black hole.

  If Nyx didn’t have Little God, she couldn’t have even thought to do this. She’d lived in their temple for near a year. Despite that, she had no knowledge of the official path from the surface to the forge. And with her floating eyeball companion, she would be able to use the countless other, secret, passages into the cult.

  Should this work out, it might not be unreasonable to think she could repeat it with the other cults. It wouldn’t help her kill the cultists that lived nearer the unaffiliated regions — nor the highest creeds — but it could cut down on the number of people she needed to cut down in her path for vengeance.

  “Are you looking forward to this as much as I am, Eyeball?” Nyx said. “If things go well, we might wipe out half the Fleshsmiths in one night.”

  He nodded. “I will enjoy observing you.”

  Nyx grinned up at the floating orb. He was a bit dull — and a stick in the mud — but it was nice to have someone you knew was on your side.

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