The change started in my hands. I could feel it before I could see it, and I almost groaned in relief as a coolness began spreading through my palms where a moment ago there had only been fire. Then I looked down, and the red lines running up my wrists had begun to fade, until the veins under my skin were the colour of old wine threaded with silver.
The pain did not stop. It just became more bearable, and more familiar. I had felt this same pain many times before, whenever I transformed into something new.
I lay against the skull and let it happen, and I tried very hard not to think about what I was becoming. From the moment I agreed to use the Loop the way the Hollow Avatar wanted it used, as a whetstone for decisions no sane man should have to make twice, I had made my peace with wherever those decisions took me.
That was when I felt the Law.
∞
