The Small Masters' council met in a spacious, pleasantly-breezy tower thrusting above the cracked canyon lands that dominated Berujat's geography. Crying birds, cracking whips, creaking carts, and the cacophony of a thousand shouting throats echoed from the Fleshmarket below. Its maze of cages and bazaars, merchant stalls and guard barracks, bankers guild houses and Master's estates filled every available scrap of space atop the nearest dozen plateaus. Chain hoists, cranes, and rope bridges jutted into and across dozens of chasms, canyons, and fissures.

  Around the tower, ten royal striders knelt in a plaza, napping, groaning at one another, or chewing massive cuds rolled out from a small barn attached to the tower's base. Dozens of guards, servants, slaves, and attendants argued, lounged, complained, traded gossip or small items, or played at picking out the finest specimen out of each passing slave chain or wagon and betting on the price they'd fetch at auction.

  Inside the tower, dozens of male and female slaves wearing only elaborate jewelry and wisps of silk poured gleaming pitchers of chilled wine or held woven baskets of fruits, fresh bread, and cakes. Others carried jars of oil or worked at rubbing it into the hair, shoulders, or necks of the Small Masters. Several bodyguards for each master lounged on benches or couches placed against every wall, a few even expensive Ferals and more-than-likely a few freemancers among them. Their silver- and gold-traced panoplies gleamed. Several hosted drifting skin-life, the living inklings weaving around patches of scar.

  Fatma sneered at them as she entered, pulling a sheer silken cowl away. Fine silver chains ran from her nose to her ear. Scarlet and gold silks matched the fine golden chains, thick arm bands, and ruby-studded rings glittering against her deeply-tanned skin. A slender, cowled figure followed her, but settled into the shadows of the chamber's periphery before reaching the room's well-lit central area.

  At the table's head, a corpulent man wearing an open, toga-like garment snapped his fingers at Fatma, annoyance writ across his dark features. Brailled bumps ran down his left arm, as they did those of every Master present. His, however, ran all the way onto his shoulder and across his flabby peck so wide and long did the count of his fleshswaps run.

  "Small Master Fatma," he said, his voice surprisingly high-pitched coming out of so much mass. "So nice of you to finally arrive."

  "Small Master Godge, so nice of you to never leave." Fatma's deep, melodious voice sounded more like that of a singer than the holder of a thousand chains. "I trust I've missed nothing of import?"

  "Nothing of import?" Godge cried, waiving his hands. The motion knocked over the gorgeous slave woman massaging his shoulder.

  "You stupid Wretch," he screamed at her as she scrambled back to her feet, half-cowering. He turned to the other masters and sighed. "Slaves these days. Nothing like the quality we could find when I was younger."

  A woman nearly his size sprawling across a divan on the far side of the table laughed, patting a handsome slave on the head as he powdered ponderous breasts barely contained in her layered-silk gown. "Whatever the quality, with so many selling their children now, can't complain about the quantity. Grow a nice crop a decade from now if the Dynasts don't destroy everything before then."

  Godge grunted and gestured out the window in the vague direction of the nearest Thorn. "If the Rags insist on this idiotic plan to steal all our slaves and turn them into some form of doomed Legion, those kids will be all we have, Ardina."

  "Surely they wouldn't be so foolish," Fatma said, laughing as she accepted a gilded goblet from an attractive, redheaded slave. "Arming slaves? Preposterous. At best they'll get slaughtered and all our hard work will be thrown away. At worst, they'll revolt the moment they're handed weapons and we'll be blamed for it."

  "They're proposing to offer freedom to any slave who kills a Legionnaire or any of their other innumerable enemies," Ardina said, her piggish, shrewd eyes sizing Fatma up. "An idea with some merit, perhaps, if you believe the slaves could or would ever stand up to the approach of a Legion, much less a ten-rank-deep phalanx marching towards them under the thunderous beat of war drums."

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  "They will try. They will fail. We'll be bereft of slaves regardless," Ijran said. The lean, black-bearded, olive-skinned Small Master exhaled a cloud of smoke from their long, lacquered pipe. One of their eyes regarded Fatma while the other stared at Godge. While they tapped ash from their pipe with one hand, they jotted notes on a wax tablet with the other. "The slaves will be slaughtered if used poorly, be all set free if used well, and desert the Rag ranks in countless numbers every Verse they enter either way. And we all bicker and strive to create separate deals with the Dynasts all the while knowing they hold every advantage over us."

  Godge frowned at Ijran. "You speak as though you are any different, my multi-minded friend. I don't see you volunteering to turn your slaves over to the combined wisdom of the Small Masters or trying to compose some deal on all of our behalves. Perhaps you're in as much disagreement with yourselves as we've been these last weeks since Wake and Ruja announced the Slave Legions?"

  "We know enough to realize that any deal we make as a single council will instantly be betrayed and undercut by half our dozen." Ijran looked about the room, the black and the green eye each sizing a different Master at its own pace. "No. Another more decisive action must be taken, we've agreed."

  Ardina laughed. "Your 'we' may have agreed, but the rest of us remain unconvinced as to the best course of action. Last I checked, you all weren't in charge of this council any more than any one of the rest of us."

  "There is no more time," Ijran said, both eyes aligning on the obese woman. "Ruja said we had until the next Calm to decide how to best lay our resources at his feet. We've since decided nothing, as I'm sure he expected. He'll indignantly assume our truculence is resistance and use it as an excuse to simply seize all of them without recompense."

  "I'll kill all my slaves before letting that entitled Dynast take them from me," Godge shouted, pounding his wide fist on the table so hard he set his rolls jiggling. Many of the others in the council echoed the sentiment from their divan chairs and palanquins. "It sounds like we're in agreement on that sentiment at least."

  "Wasteful and stupid," Ijran said.

  Fatma leaned forward, playing with her goblet and smiling. "We have another idea."

  Ardina shook her head, eyes narrowing on Fatma. "You've barely half the slave count of the least of us here, Fatma. Were it not for Ijran's insistence that we hold our count at twelve, you'd never hope to find even the most meager seat at this table. You should be grateful we allow you even a single bodyguard here as most of us feel you're stature shouldn't even allow for that mark of eminence. All that, and now you propose to decide what course all the Small Masters should take on important affairs?"

  "Ijran and I have already decided," Fatma said, staring at Ardina over the lip of her cup. "Ruja's Versers gather slaves from your pens and cages as we speak while their brass Jars flow into mine and Ijran's vaults."

  "What? You'd never!" Godge shouted, trying to heft himself to his feet. The table creaked. He fell back onto his cushions, attendants rushing forward and his half-dozen bodyguards all peeling away from the walls with hands on weapons.

  "We've been looking for an excuse to purge you from the council, Fatma," Ardina said, actually managing to heave herself to standing. She leaned menacingly over the table. "Even if your words are true, you and Ijran won't live to count a single coin. You haven't signed a deal here, but your own death warrant."

  Ijran moved beside Fatma, his three wary bodyguards drawing curved blades and sliding small shields onto their arms. Each Small Master was only allowed a handful of bodyguards, according to their seniority, and Ijran's three stood outnumbered more than ten-to-one.

  "Foolish Fatma." Ardina grinned, crossing her bracelet-thick arms. "More foolish Ijran for letting her impulsiveness doom all of you too. What use is a multi-minded Wiz if they let a single-minded, Pale upstart guide him?"

  "Since she acquired a unique slave whose weight shifted the scales of our calculus considerably," Ijran said, one eye glancing at the plain-robed figure striding from the shadows and pulling back their cowl. A tan, blond-haired woman emerged from its depths, her face pocked with innumerable sliver-scars. As she shed the robe, a shirt of bronze maille, thick leather bracers and greaves, and a heavy-scabbarded sword comprised her entire armory.

  "A Pale, emaciated woman with a sword is your edge? And you think you're somehow getting out of this alive?" Godge sneered as slaves struggled to drag his divan away from the table. The doors shuddered shut as his bodyguards levered a bracing bar across it. "No escaping now."

  "Unfortunate for you," Fatma said with a glance at the swordswoman. "Hassani, kill them all."

  Hassani couldn't have cared less about the politics of slavers, but she couldn't agree more that the Book could do with a few less of them. The sword slid from its grease-packed home, seemingly no more than a leg-long, hand-width span of back-lit ice.

  "Aze blade," Ardina hissed, eyes widening as she staggered back.

  Godge looked at it and Hassani without recognition. "Whatever the weapon, all I see is another dead woman with a fancy sword. Kill them."

  Next chapter: Same chapter. Hassani vs a room full of slavers and their bodyguard. Fight!

  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