Aida crawled out of the tent dragging her clothes behind her. She stretched and dressed languidly, not caring that several figures crossed the Neck towards her as she did so.

  As the lead figure became clear, her heart warmed. "Aliasara!"

  Her friend looked a decade older and three kilograms lighter than last time she'd seen her. A flicker of that amazing smile appeared, then snuffed out. After a long hug that still felt too short, Aida opened her eyes and all warm feelings rapidly fell away. She wasn't sure she'd ever seen anything more creepy than the way the two Anticore dudes ambled across the Neck, clinging to the guide ropes with their fingers bending the wrong way to hold on to them.

  "What do they want?"

  Alisasara glanced at them, then turned to Aida, backed up a step, and looked her up and down. "How do you ruin your clothing so quickly?"

  Expecting giant tears or holes or something, Aida twisted about trying to see herself. "Just some fern stains and knee holes. Oh, and some moss stains on the backside. Need to teach those Ink people how to make some Levis."

  Rustling behind her drew their attention. Viviana ducked out of the tent wearing only a tunic that barely reached her thighs. Her long, brown hair fell free and loose. A mischievous smile danced about her lips as she swayed towards them. Alerestro stepped out a moment later, not even bothering with a tunic as he sauntered their way in his birthday suit.

  "Um, Aliasara, meet Viviana and Alerestro. My new... companions I guess." Aida suddenly felt uncomfortable introducing them, like she'd been holding back some secret. "I would have told you about them earlier but I haven't seen you for a while."

  Aliasara's look of disapproval as she looked them over hardened as she turned to Aida. "I apologize, Dynast. I was quite preoccupied burying half my family."

  "No, Aliasara, that's not what I meant," Aida said, groaning. "It's just-"

  Before she could figure out what she was going to say, Aliasara hugged her again. "No, it's okay, my Aida. They died free. Those who remain have all passed to the living side of the Plague. They say those whom it doesn't kill no long need fear it."

  As they pulled away, Aliasara's radiant smile made an appearance. "I've missed you and feel remiss for leaving you alone through all of this. I was too preoccupied with my own life to help you."

  "She's a pretty one," Viviana said, gliding around them and looking Aliasara over with a pleased expression. "I see why you keep her around."

  Aida brushed her fingers through Aliasara's long black hair and smiled. "She's my dearest friend. That she could be a cover model is a bonus."

  "She is indeed a model of radiance," Alerestro said, taking Aliasara's hand and kissing her palms. "The dearest friend of the Mother of Exiles is the dearest friend of Alerestro and Viviana."

  In spite of all the time she'd had to acclimate to their culture, Aida still felt a bit uncomfortable about Alerestro's casual nakedness. She'd never thought of herself as a prude, but compared to people of the Book she was a Puritan. Back at the rest home, she'd watched a documentaries on Medieval culture with accounts of nobles banging each other at the dinner table or walking about naked in their homes, but living it was another thing altogether. Then again, they also watched torturous executions for entertainment back then and half of them died before they were thirty, so maybe bodies in general were less precious and special back then.

  "A pleasure," Aliasara said, with no pleasure at all in her voice. The skeptical look she shot to Aida made her wonder if her friend was jealous or paranoid or maybe both. Had Aida accepted the attractive couple into her life too easily? Wouldn't be the first time she'd invited the wrong people into her life and not gotten rid of them soon enough.

  "Or the last, probably," she muttered to herself. She glanced at Ghillie, the Feral leaning at the mouth of the turtle shell. She often wondered what the Feral thought. Even during their signed conversations she wasn't sure she'd ever managed to get any personal details out of the woman. Ghillie chin-checked towards the Neck.

  Aida glanced that direction. Watching the Anticores clearing the last vertebrae then shuffling over in their unsettling manner pushed all other concerns away. Aliasara stepped to Aida's right and Viviana immediately took her left. Alerestro wandered back towards the tent, perhaps to grab some clothes as a stiff breeze came up.

  "Greetings again, Mother of Exiles of the 100th Dynasty."

  This made Aida frown. "Have you met anyone from other Dynasties?"

  A awkwardly-long, increasingly-uncomfortable pause.

  "Yes," the other one said.

  "Which one?"

  The first spoke again in their same method of alternating talking and gawking. "The 36th, of course."

  Aida blinked, trying to wrap her mind around it. She supposed Dynasts could live centuries, who knew how long these... whatever they were lived.

  "Of course," Aida said, smacking her hand against her forehead. "How silly of me. How old are you?"

  Another pause, mercifully not quite so long. "Which part?"

  "Riiight," Aida said, changing the subject quickly. "I suppose you come wanting a woman again?"

  One of them tilted its head in a way that it probably tried to present as inquisitiveness but came out instead as a horrible deformity. "Woman available?"

  "Absolutely not!"

  "No then," it said, thankfully righting its neck back to straight. Well, almost straight. These things never quite held themselves the way normal people did. A dozen tiny misalignments and rotations added up to a huge feeling of wrongness.

  "Okay... what do you want?"

  "Life. Growth. Expand. Cooperate." They said the words like a chant, just slightly out-of-sync with one another.

  She gritted her teeth, speaking quickly to help end this conversation as quickly as possible. "You said that before. You want to breed creatures here? Like the reacher hydra-octopus-vine things on Heaven's Tread?"

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

  One nodded poorly, the down motion triple the speed of the up. "Like, but grown for this verse. Adapt. Shitholes are most useful for-"

  "I don't really want to know," Aida said hastily, waving her hands. "I got that before. If we won't give you a woman, what do we trade?"

  "Trade?" the other one said.

  Viviana leaned in close to Aida's ear. "The Sect never ask for anything in trade except the odd breeding animal."

  "Why would they do that?" Aida whispered back.

  "Symbiosis," an Anticore said. "Sect help, Sect spread. 100th Dynasty spread and grow, Sect spread and grow."

  "Um... I don't really think of myself as part of the Dynasty anymore, but I suppose I still have their blood. So I guess why would anyone say no to free aid?"

  "No one ever does," Viviana said.

  "Then, sure, let's do it. Sounds like a win-win." After facing constant choices between a bad option and a worse one, this seemed like a slam-dunk. "Can't remember the last time I got one of those."

  "The Sect agrees," one of the Anticores said, bowing deeply in the middle of its torso where ribs should have been.

  "You don't have to do that," Aida said, looking away. "Really don't have to."

  As the two abruptly turned to shuffle off towards the Neck again without a word or gesture of parting, she turned to Aliasara, Viviana, and a newly-robed Alerestro. She glanced beyond them, hoping for a glimpse of Ryk. No luck. "Must be taking a nap or something."

  "Well done, Dynast," Alerestro said, smiling broadly. "Another step towards a flourishing verse."

  "Maybe finally a step forward without three steps backwards coming along with it," Aida said, glancing back at the Anticores. "They want a woman for the reason I think they want a woman, right? Or do I not want to know?"

  Viviana opened her mouth to speak, but before she could Aliasara stepped forward and began to recite in the way a schoolchild might a poem they'd memorized for class, repeating the 'Though shalt not' bit before every verse in a way that grew quickly tiresome:

  "Thou shalt not...

  ...disrupt the Donative.

  ...endanger a Dynast.

  ...disobey the Black Court.

  ...oppose an Inviolate

  ...arouse a God.

  ...sever a Thorn.

  ...kill a Master.

  ...give a woman to the Sect."

  After the recital, they all stared at her. Alerestro with amusement, Viviana with something like pity, and Aida with confusion. "What was that?"

  Aliasara pointedly ignored the other two and focused on Aida. She lifted her chin. "That was the Sacrosanct Chant, as we are taught from childhood. It is what holds the Book together. Or held, I suppose."

  "Huh. I sure hope 'arouse' means wake up and not the other thing," Aida said, staring off into the distance where the river draggin' gradually stomped its way across the horizon, its mass literally dredging a river into existence behind it. Small adjoining ponds or gullies remained behind along each side where it's immense paws or feet or whatever they were gouged and compacted massive holes as they hefted its impossible weight onward. "Wouldn't want that thing getting horny."

  Alerestro and Viviana laughed in a way that came across simultaneously genuine and somehow pointed at Aliasara, as though she where the butt of the joke. Aliasara clearly got the same sense as she crossed her arms and regarded them flatly.

  "Hold on. Uh uh. No no no no," Aida said, shaking her head. "Ain't none of that happening here."

  The beautiful couple's laughter died down as she crossed her own arms to match Aliasara and moved to stand beside her friend.

  "Did we do something wrong, Dynast?" Viviana said, sliding close to press up against Aida.

  Aida held her at arms length and looked her hard in the eyes. "I'm not sure what sort of game or political thing you two are up to here, but let me make something clear regardless. If you think you're going to subtly turn me against my best friend, the woman who held me together when I thought my brain was going to explode back in Jadeye and nursed me back to humanness, then you'd better rethink your plan. I chucked three Dynasts and all their Ferals across a courtyard with a word for laughing at her. As much as I like you both so far, I will break you in half if you try to come between us."

  Both bowed, managing a perfect combination of grace and contrition.

  "Of course, Dynast," Alerestro said, swooping in and wrapping an arm around Aliasara's shoulders. "If our humor came across too pointed, then we expressed ourselves poorly. We shall love her exactly as we love you."

  "Um, she's married so maybe not 'exactly' exactly," Aida said, glancing over at Ryk finally stirring from the tent. In full battle gear. "Oh crap, what's going down now?"

  Ghillie must have seen him emerge armed and armored for she pushed away from the turtle shell and stood near Aida. One hand slipped into her ghillie suit as her gaze swept their environment in every direction.

  "I hope you're just off to do a dress rehearsal or something," Aida said, looking everywhere for some sign of a threat.

  "Nothing dress about it," Ryk said. He winked, then startled Aida by grabbing her and performing some sort of foot sweep that drove her down onto the shell and he directly on top of her.

  "What the f-" she began, but the whistling whoosh of arrows zipping directly above them answered her questions.

  She sprang to her feet and reached for the fine sword she'd worn everywhere since Ocyl had gifted it to her then realized she'd probably be more of a danger to herself than anyone else if she tried to use it. Especially when up against trained killers. Against every instinct, she released the hilt.

  Rough voices called out. A dozen men rushed from the shadows, peeling layered rags away to reveal hardened leather armor. Bronze swords and spears glinted in the sun.

  "Best let me handle this," Ryk said, twisting his grip on his spear and bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Ghillie and I stop this with much less destruction if you stay out of it."

  "Dynast!" Alerestro shouted, pointing the other direction. He and Viviana seemed unbothered by the imminent violence. Aliasara, on the other hand had dropped to a crouch, eyes wide.

  Half-a-dozen more figures scrambled across the Neck's guide lines, moving with risky speed to flank them. As they watched, a man slipped and barely caught a foot line to save himself from a plummeting death.

  Aida stepped that direction, a hum building in her throat that set the strings vibrating in resonance. "Fat chance, lover boy. They picked the wrong Dynast."

  From the vertebrae, an archer raised a short bow and loosed in a smooth motion. Aida barked a shout and the arrow shattered into a thousand splinters a few meters from her that barely touched her as the wind swept them away.

  "As you wish. I knew you would do it no matter what I said, but I promised Eth I would try. Just don't say I didn't warn you afterwards." Ryk shot her a grin before sprinting towards the mouth.

  Some rational part of her mind said she should be scared or at least worried, but months of pent-up frustration stirred with anger. These assassins or whoever they were dared to attack her here in her own home, in front of her own people.

  "Not this time." With Ghillie close at her side, she strode towards them. The hum at the base of her throat pitched up as its resonance amplified and reverberated. Her whole body began to vibrate in tune. "Maybe someone hired them to kill me, but that doesn't mean they have any idea who they're fucking with."

  Next chapter: Back in Berujat, Fatma finds use for her 'pet Inviolate' as the Small Masters meet to discuss the formation of the Slave Legions.

  Adonissian: a Phero who poses as a traveling musician. Died of the Wretch Plague in Heaven's Tread.

  Aida: MC. Mother of Exiles. "Ender of Verses?" "Savior of Dynasties?"

  Aj: a long-slumbering, powerful being which annihilated Inro's Sunset Legions. Also "almost destroyed the Dynasty single-handedly six-and-some centuries ago"

  Alerestro: a handsome, multi-talented man from Azure. Partner of Viviana

  Aliasara: servant at Ocyl's villa who befriends Aida

  Anticores: a pair of Sect representatives, off-putting and strange

  Arca: chief of the tribe that "adopted" Inro

  Asta: Tertius Dynast of Silk.

  Avani: Hassani's daughter, an albino

  Baka: Dynast of Ziggurat. Huge, massively strong. Tertius.

  "Braid"; a thug who accosted Aida in Jadeye. His face gifted to Aida by Ocyl.

  Broadaxe: large, axe-and-shield-wielding Feral protecting Aida. Killed by Jaxe in Jadeye

  Cairin: Arca's sister, slinger

  Das: Rega's Immanent

  Deai: Hassani's swordmaster, renowned for killing a Paragon

  Denault: Hassani's husband. Shipwright, Kin.

  Eonora: a Legion officer in Ziggurat

  Eth: a young Imminent

  Ghillie: a 3rd Feral who wears a primitive Ghillie suit. Carries cross between kunai and acupuncture needles

  Ghulen: Rega's "pet monster", an Inviolate

  Goboro: a fat, amiable scribe friend of Hassani's in Libriam

  Fallon: Aida's Seneschal. Died killing the Inviolate Rasofi in Jadeye

  Fatma: slaver?

  Feral: a bone-masked woman of violence (Feral) in Aida's service. Knife wielder. Killed by Ghillie in Jadeye.

  Fetriene: Ocyl's soresearer

  Goldilocks: twitchy, spear-and-javelin carrying Feral guarding Aida. Died burning a Wicker Way in Jadeye.

  Hassani: Inviolate agent of the Black Court, sent by Fractious Fraction

  Hue: Vibrant accompanying Simon

  Huspara: minor bureaucrat in Libriam

  Inro: Dynast formerly ruling Sunset

  Izbali: a silent tribal shaman

  Janali: Ocyl's elegant Seneschal

  Jaxe: Dynast of Stacks. "Young" (Secounds), wealthy. Also has "the Pale" (an Albino). Ancient.

  Johine: crude slave

  Kass/Kassenia: mercenary attached to Adonissian. Died of Wretch Plague?

  Maxem: High Parser from Ink, ambassador to Jadeye

  Ocyl: Dynast of Heaven's Tread, powerful and unpredictable

  Parathas: Aida's skinscribe. Also a mountaineer.

  "Professor, The": leader of Aida's Wretches

  Rasofi: Inviolate killed by Fallon in Jadeye

  Reck: Dynast of Chalk, "not witty enough to be clever and takes himself too seriously to be ironic". Paranoid, Fractious Fraction. Tertius. Died to a mob of menials in Jadeye.

  Rega: Inro's sister, Dynast of Monopolis. Septemius

  Riccaro: majordomo of Ocyl's estate. Hung by a looting mob in Heaven's Tread.

  Rustrovan/"Rusty": Eth's old, gap-toothed skinscribe

  Ryk: "the most beautiful man Aida had ever seen", a Paragon

  Sadar: odd boy traveling with Semon

  Sava: Dynast of Libriam

  Savalius: Grand Quartermaster of the Legions

  Semon "Goldtongue": white-haired, one-eyed master of cults. First Disciple of the Mother.

  Stiller: serving boy at Ocyl's estate. Rendered mute by psychological or head-trauma

  Strygen: a dusa traveling with Semon

  Taesal: one of Rega's other Inviolates, axe scar to face

  "Toothy": leader of a group of thugs who accosted Aida in Heaven's Tread. Killed by Feral in Jadeye

  Tyrs: many-pierced Secundus Dynast of Forge

  Valeer: a mentally challenged, unkempt individual able to manipulate Thorns. Died in Jadeye to "Braid".

  Vanyen: A crippled young woman who created the Cult of the Mother. Martyred Prophet of the Mother. Murdered by Semon Dynastic Assassins.

  Venner: Grandmaster of Optimimes in Jadeye, "best in the entire Book"

  Viviana: gorgeous, multi-talented ex-slave from Berujat. Partner of Alerestro.

  Wake: Dynast of Graves, marries even though they all die. Quintus. Isolate.

  White Spiral: an older Feral in Aida's service. Archer. Died protecting Aida in Jadeye

  36th Dynasty: A Dynasty the Anticores have met?.

  100th Dynasty: The Dynasty ruling the Book.

  Adventures of Bubo, The: popular kids story

  All, The: All the verses, even those beyond The Book.

  Ancients: a major Dynastic Chapter, an "elite number", "own Ziggurat" and "run the great bank that is Monopolis"

  Anchorites: individuals capable of creating anchor points affixed to nothing.

  Annalis compound: sprawling complex in Libriam, heart of The Book's bureaucracy. Arrivals 'Dirt' home to new dispatches, Archives 'Dust' storage for old material. Paths and Ways storage for 'nails.

  Anticore: Sect creature which "wears convincing human skins" with "swarming insects... beneath the skin"

  Arborian: gardeners from Groves?

  Ascen, The/The Ascendant: divinities "watching over every verse"?

  Assessor: census-taker

  Audits/"Diggers": Libriam internal affairs

  Autumn: verse rich in gold?

  Aze: swordmaker?

  Azure: A verse?

  Berujat: "fleshmarkets"; primary seat of slave trade and home of most Lineage Masters, owned by Fraction.

  Black Court: a realm of pure darkness. Also, those who rule there. Where Partaking happens.

  Black Court Tribunal: localized Black Court authority?

  Blood, The: imbibed at Partaking, transforms one into a Dynast if they survive

  Book of Verses, The: the 1,000 verses ruled by the Dynasty. "The Kiloverse"

  Broadcliff, Tallmarket: cities in Stacks

  Calms: periods when ever-blowing winds die down in Berujat

  Canyon of Cages: cliff where slaves are held in Berujat

  Cave Dwellers: tribes that live in the underground in Origin, keep others out until "the Return"

  Century Thread: additional threads appearing elsewhere on the body every century a Dynast lives

  Cerebrist: creator of slavants

  Chalk/"Vistas": verse entirely made of chalky cliff, belongs to Reck

  Chant, The/Sacrosanct Chant: some sort of law in the Dynasty?

  Chant of Inoculation: chant supposed to protect against disease, "Mudra of Cleansing"

  Chapters: power groupings among the Dynasts of the Book: predominantly The Ancients, the Fractious Fraction, and Isolates.

  Circular Sea: an ocean abutting the Jadeye segment of Heaven's Tread

  Clock Priest: priests from Gears who track and tell time religiously

  Commu: chewed drug/herb?

  ConMach: convoy? courier? "ConMach drains the very life from the Directory's verses". Supply "ConMach machines"

  Crowmen: buy corpses to return them to life and service as rotters

  Cupola Thorn: the main Thorn in the city Jadeye in Heaven's Tread, a stone dome built over it

  Currence: something valuable inside old coins? "harder than currence"? "Solid current forms currence." Currence melts to watter.

  Currency: money, gold coins once held currence inside to give value, now debased

  Current: some form of energy that powers "artifices"? "Solid current forms currence."

  Directory: "the Directory to Ink is like the Dynasty to the Book", dominating rulers of Ink

  Donative, The: Black Court taxes, taken by Legion if not offered. Don't pay, no Partaking every century.

  Dusa: people with manipulable hair of silver wire, from Gears

  Dynast: individual given rule of a verse if they survive Partaking. Ageless and hard to kill. Regenerative. Sustained by "the Blood"; no food or water necessary.

  Dynast's Tower: a massive tower at the peak of Ziggurat.

  Dynasty: the Dynasts who rule the Book

  Ebon: founder of the Dynasty and Black Court

  Ebon Saga: the tale of Ebon's foundation of The Book and Dynasty

  Ebonese: the language of the Book

  Echoseer shells: devices to allow one to "see" in the Black Court

  El: semi-insubstantial snake/remora-like creatures that follow gods (and sometimes Dynasts) around

  "Emperor of Everything": popular kids story about Inro turning down becoming emperor, then crushing those who elevated a different Dynast

  Feral: bone-masked bodyguards who require the essence of their master to survive. "Damned to Ferals" as a form of capital punishment. "the damned", "damned to a Feral"

  Fetalist: Imminent faction who believe the future is unchangeable

  First Thread/Primus: a fresh Dynast/the first luminescent silver thread etched into their foreheads.

  Forge: verse ruled by Tyrs with much metalworking

  Fractious Fraction/"DissatisFaction"/"The Renewal": a major Dynastic Chapter who "hate everyone including each other", "entice every freemancer and Lineage Master" ... "to Berujat". For those with "verses deficient in maor ways."

  Gates, The: Inter-verse travel method created by Ebon. Opened with Limn

  God, A: unique, "undying" creatures of immense size, The First Ones

  God's Rote: child's first memorization, what gods are

  God-dwellers: "monks" who live on a god

  God-touched: those who have physically touched a god (and lived)

  Gonist: organ dealers and traders

  Gons: self-sustaining organs capable of living outside a host

  Graves: a verse "Made of the dead by the dead for the dead".

  Groves: a forest verse

  Heaven's Tread: a verse "inside a hollow rolling pin", host to Jadeye, the largest city in the Book

  High Parser: officials from Ink

  Imminent: seers advising Dynasts and shaping course of The Book

  Imminent Prophecy: something about a barbarian Dynast, Ender of Verses and/or Savior of Dynasties?

  Inevitables; faction of Imminent who believe it is their sacred duty to ensure the future comes to pass as seen

  Ink: home verse of the Skeinry, Keens, Directory, and "the Faded People"

  Innoculist: doctors who teach chants "brought from Logos" to cure disease

  Inviolate: agents of the black court who "serve the Black Court, protect the Dynasty, uphold the Chant, root out corruption" with "unlimited, undisclosed, and untraceable budgets"

  Inviolate Vial: carried by Inviolates as badge of office

  Iode: substance that ignites when crushed

  Iris: the giant portals leading between one cylinder of Heaven's Tread to the next

  Isolates: a major Dynastic Chapter with a "unified stand for independence", "cheat the Donative, stockpil[e] currence and watter" "hire Keen mercenaries" "raise own private Legions in secret"

  Jade Eye, The: the "giant emerald" at the middle of Ocyl's Spire in Jadeye

  Jadeye: the largest city in the Book and major trade hub, in Heaven's Trade

  Jar: Name of a "gold" coin now made of brass. Once held currence within.

  Jaxeday: holiday in Stacks with boat carvings, feasts, games of Fishhead, dances, and storytelling

  Jaxestack: a whitewashed stack on Stacks home to Jaxekin

  Jutland Reach: a verse with guns?

  Green People: tribes that live in the jungles of Origin

  Keen: Ink warriors wearing impossibly-heavy iron armor whose power source drains color from the area about it. "Tank knights"

  Kin: descendants of a Dynast, most desperately trying to reach 100 so they can Partake

  Kiss, The: disease that wiped out "hundreds of verses", also name for the time period when Aj became active last and destroyed 100s of verses before halting in Sunset

  Lambent ram: animal whose wool glows?

  Letch: sect bred leech-like creature designed to stop bleeding on wounds

  Libriam: a swampy verse home to the Annalis, heart of The Book's bureaucracy

  Libwe: tribe possessing the "holy" Limn clay bed.

  Limn: "infused clay" bearing some sort of internal power, used by Ebon to found the Dynasty

  Lineage: a line of mancers taught by a Master

  Linemen: workers on the Stacks trolleys who pull the cars along the lines

  Lizard Hunters: Arca's people, walkers of the wastes of Origin

  Logos: "the thought realm"

  Machine Curse: something that stops machines from working between verses?

  Mancers: "no mancers arc (could) affect it", people with abilities beyond human normal, usually trained/implanted by a Master.

  Master's Markets: primary slave market in the Book in Berujat

  Menial: common folk

  Molt: person able to shed skins (see skins)

  Mon, The: "the Outsiders". "exist only to destroy the Book" with their "demonic and monstrous children" from "the Hells beyond"

  Monopolis: the "City of Currency", bank verse ruled by Rega

  Mourne, The: something dangerous that lurks in the Vale, "the why we do not tarry"

  Mune: someone from the Collective on Dost?

  Nameday: when children are named

  Ocyl's Preserve: a garden "beyond the Circular Sea" in Heaven's Tread?

  Ocyl's Spire: the tower home to the court of Ocyl, Dyanst of Heaven's Tread

  One Tribe, The: Arca's new tribe incorporating the Libwe and whomever else is conquered or enticed to join.

  One-Eighth Shithole: Aida's verse. Unfortunately. A desolate place home to volcanoes and a giant dead turtle

  Optomime: gadgeteer

  Origin: the First Verse, from which Ebon originated, containing the "Cities Below". The "first page of The Book"

  Pale, The: light-skinned people, conquered by Ebon during the founding of the Dynasty. Alternately, albinism

  Paragon: warrior who can see the future

  Partaking: the ritual that creates Dynasts (or kills those who try). Performed by some unknown, large creature in the Black Court.

  Phero: Lineage whose scent creates overwhelming attraction

  'pillar: fuzzy Sect-bred giant caterpillar pet

  Porcelain Guard: Ocyl's white-masked Ferals

  Pure Priest of the Ascen/Blind Priests: priests praising the Ascen and back the Black Court

  Rags: derogatory name for alliance of Isolates and Fractious Fraction. Call themselves "Resistance Against the Grevious Ancient Coup."

  Reachers: massive, Sect-bred creatures that direct traffic and rescue unfortunates in the Sighted Path in Jadeye

  Reconquest: time four-hundred years ago when Inro "drove [tribals] back into civilization's fold at spear point"

  Rotters: sack-clothed, crudely-masked 'zombies' uses as pack-beasts and simple laborers. Created/sold by Crowmen.

  Royal Strider: giant striders which carry carriages of the wealthy slung underneath them

  Sect, The: breeders of useful insectoid- and/or sauroid-like creatures

  Seericide: seers capable of Knowing everything as they die

  Seneschal: chief servant of a Dynast, bear permanent strings allowing them to speak and understand any language

  Shale: a verse famous for its expensive stone

  Shore Striders: tribes that live along the oceans of Caves

  Shackle Pens: slave pens near Master's Market in Berujat?

  Shrineway: religious section of Jadeye "brailled prayers along the walls ... [and] cobblestones"

  Sighted Path: the zero-g road down the center of Heaven's Tread

  Silk: verse owned by Asta where all of verse's silk originates

  Sixth Tier Rebellion: last major uprising, in Ziggurat a century ago when "half the legions rose up". Put down by Baka

  Skeinry: iron-plated communication centers where Skeiners translate vibrations sent by wyre from other verses

  Skin/Hollow: animate skin of a molt able to move, talk, and share snatches of its experience with its molt

  Skinlife: living tattoos

  Skinscribe: individuals brailled with lore, walking libraries

  Slavant: an individual who "loses much" to be implanted with an ability

  Soresearer: individuals capable of "healing" by cauterizing wounds with their hands

  Stacks: An ocean verse comprised of tall pillars jutting up from the seas. Trolleys run on long ropes between them "affixed by Anchorites to airy nothing"

  Striders: "stilt-legged gray-skinned insect-lizard"s used as fast mounts, large enough to carry several riders

  Strings: worn or implanted wire devices that translate speech

  Stone Walkers: tribes that live in the cold of Origin

  Subterrane, The: inter-verse travel route accessed by Ebon via Limn

  Sunset: the verse where Aj was 'contained', formerly protected by Dynast Inro. The "Prison of Prisons" holds mad Dynasts, monsters and demons... vaults of dangerous relics.

  Sunset Legions/Vault Legions: Inro's Legions, wiped out by Aj in Sunset

  Surgon: person able to remove organs

  Swirl: A verse. "The pleasure barges of Swirl"

  Syphon: machine ConMach uses to "drain the very life" and color from a verse to "fuel... machinery"

  Tangle, The: the jungles of the One-Eighth

  Terminus: "Gates End", a verse?

  Thorn: huge, curling thorns which Valeers can use as gateways to the Vale, doorways between verses. Grow into verses over centuries

  Thrum: guide in the Black Court

  Tribunal: group of three Dynasts coming together to make ruling or pass judgment

  Twine: "one soul threaded through two bodies"

  Unkillable Swordsman: a Paragon killed by Deia long ago

  Vale: "The Place Between". A realm of high-contrast black and white full of thorns and Thorns.

  Vale Walkers: discoverers of verses

  Valeer: people capable of activating Thorns, barely functional of anything else

  Valeer's 'nail: crystals containing wafers that allow travel within the Vale to specific verses without a Valeer

  Venger: muscle man?

  Verse: a pocket universe or world

  Verser Lord/Lady: agents of an individual Dynast who rule part of a verse at the whim of their Dynast

  Vibrant: color-changing individuals from Ink?

  Watter: an energetic liquid. "Currence melts to watter. Watter's current dissipates over time, leaving water."

  Weeping Falls: Jadeye Iris flowing with waterfalls

  Wicker Way: towers of stone, wood, and rope that connect opposite far sides of Jadeye

  Wiz of Berujat: multi-minded?

  World Spear: an immense stack on Stacks

  Wretch: untouchables forced to walk on all fours, "the human refuse that cleans up the literal waste piles"

  Wretch Plague/Dynast's Plague: the flu. A horrific disease spread by Wretches.

  Wyres: lines run through the Vale between verses that allow communication between. A giant Ziggurat