"Arrest me for what?" The answer wouldn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out, but Aida asked anyway.

  "Conspiracy, inciting Reck's murder, treason, whatever they can dredge up and pin on you." Eth shrugged. "When you control everything you can always find something."

  Aida glanced at Fallon, but he hung onto the ropes tightly, eyes closed and lips pressed tight.

  "I could fight it in court." Aida looked back towards the Cupola. "I didn't mean for Reck to die, just wanted to scare them."

  "They are the Court. Think." Eth poked Aida so hard between the eyes that she lost her balance and would have teetered back off the tower if not for her death-grip on a support.

  Suppressing her temper, Aida thought back to her first husband and his many law troubles before he enlisted. "Avoid the summons. If we don't know we're accused we can't go to court."

  Eth nodded. "Though you'll still be outcast, blacklisted-"

  Aida grinned. "Exiled."

  "Along with everyone following you."

  "Never liked those Dynasts much anyway. Doesn't sound that bad."

  They half-walked, half-floated to the netted bridge cutting through the Sighted Path. Squinting through the acrid, stinging smoke and endless floating river of refugees, Aida located the Thorn again. Jaxe's Ferals and other tiny purple-trimmed figures pushing to encircle it, shoving the surrounding throng back.

  Aida's heart sank. "Any other Thorns?"

  "Beyond the Irises, yes, but Ocyl's sealing them all."

  Indeed, beyond the collapsed Wicker Way, a huge net spread across the Iris. Those snared in it found themselves directed at spear-point down the networks of stairs jagging away from the Iris in all directions, jamming against those still flooding up the overcrowded, steep stairs.

  Aida shifted her focus to the ropes, pulling herself from one handhold to the next. Some day when all this was over, she wouldn't mind spending a day floating back-and-forth across and enjoying the weightlessness, but this was not the day. "So I have to get us through somehow."

  "Yes."

  "Can you tell me how I do it so I don't have to give myself a panic attack trying to figure it?"

  Eth sailed past, smirking back at her. "And miss the fun of watching you squirm?"

  "Great, thanks."

  Anxiety and worry destroyed any hope of enjoying the rest of the free-sailing journey across the heart of Heaven's Tread. At the Wicker Way's center, a large wooden launching-off or landing platform jutted into the rapidly-thinning Sighted Path. Aida paused there to watch over her followers and be sure they made it safely, but her attention continually drifted to the Thorn, who, and what waited there.

  Far below, or maybe above now, Wake's forces marched towards the Wicker Way's base. "They've spotted us."

  Aliasara rested a hand on her shoulder for a moment, baby still clutched to her chest and family gathered around. Using one hand to pull herself along the guide-ropes threaded about the platform, Aliasara made her way to the edge, hooked a leg around a rope, gazed lovingly down on her child, and sang the lullaby she'd sung to Aida in the bathhouse.

  Aida watched through a veil of tears as her friend finished the final refrain, kissed the baby's head, and leaned out into sparse traffic. A gentle shove sent the tiny bundle spinning off towards the hazy, waterfall-clouded far end of Jadeye.

  The woman hung suspended alone with her grief, then turned and passed through the caressing, comforting hands of her family. A long embrace with the worn, hard-bitten man who Aida guessed to be Aliasara's husband flooded Aida with guilt.

  She'd been so caught up in her own troubles, she called Aliasara her best friend but didn't even know her husband's name. Or any other family member's name for that matter.

  When close enough, Aida wrapped her friend in a hug. Fortunately, Aliasara kept the presence of mind to hold on or they might have drifted off on a potentially deadly trajectory.

  "I'm sorry again for the flu and that I'm not a better friend. I promise I'll do better in the future. With the friend thing, I mean. I don't think I've got more epidemics to unleash."

  Even now, Aliasara managed a smile. She kissed Aida's cheek. "You have my forgiveness, now and always. Don't worry about me. As you've seen, I have a large family supporting me. Focus on your family."

  "My family? What family I had is back on Earth."

  Aliasara gestured at Aida's followers drifting past, each one turning to smile, wave, or make some ritual gesture about their heads while coughing in the ever-thickening smoke. Amid them, Ryk and Eth clung to the ropes, arguing about something. Aliasara cupped Aida's cheek and turned her back.

  "Your family's far larger than you imagine and grows wherever words of your deeds reach. Whenever you doubt what you've done or whatever ill the Imminent says you will do, know that the history of the Dynasty reaches beyond the remembrance of anyone living until even the moldering books in Libriam and oldest Dynast's memory cannot encompass it. Never in that time a Dynast attempted half of what you've already done for us menials."

  "Not one?"

  "Not one. The Kin from which Dynasts arise are bred apart, fed even as babes on stories of superiority, their exalted place in the Book. Those who live to become Dynasts know nothing else. It has been centuries since the last barbarian Dynast who grew up somewhere outside the Book proper."

  "Hallelujah for us barbarians, I guess." Aida gave Aliasara a final hug as Eth gestured impatiently from the far end of the ropes.

  By the time down shifted direction and progress moved them down the far Wicker tower, Jaxe's forces controlled the Thorn Cupola utterly. Soldiers stood in ranks encircling the Thorn and sealing it off from the sea of potential emigrates churning about it like Mecca. Meanwhile, Wake's pursuing forces seethed up the Wicker Way's far end now above them.

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  "I'm terrible at planning," Aida said as they reached stone again and descended a wide, worn open-air stairway. "I've got squat on what to do after all that time."

  "I'm sure you'll come up with something," Aliasara said, rubbing her back.

  "I am not." Fallon looked away as if uncomfortable. "You see what awaits us."

  Aliasara glared at him. "She's gotten this far. Have you looked below us?"

  All about the base of the Wicker Way towards which they descended, thousands of Jadeye citizens gathered, looking up.

  "Got this far by the barest thread of luck." Fallon turned towards Aida but didn't meet her eyes. "There is something I need to tell you that shames me. I-"

  They turned the last right angle of the stairs and whatever Fallon said after washed away in a wave of cheers and chants. "Mother! Mother! Mother!"

  Overwhelmed by the sheer volume, Aida pressed back, Broadaxe and Ghillie immediately stepping in front of her.

  The Ferals' proximity reminded her. Aida bounded up a flight of stairs and leaned out as far as possible at the edge, looking up.

  "What are you doing?" Fallon hissed, grabbing her arm. "This is no time to change your mind."

  "Goldilocks! I saw her before we went up looking pretty bad, but I don't remember seeing her as we crossed the Wicker Way."

  "She is a Feral. If she was too weak to keep up she is not worth-"

  She punched Fallon, sending him stumbling down the stairs into a pack of Wretches.

  "She's human, a person!" Aida shouted, the ring at her throat thrumming. "Can't you get that into your thick head? They're all people: Wretches, Ferals, Valeers, menials, Dynasts even. Everyone."

  Another hand alighted on her shoulder. Aida whirled, surprised to see Ghillie behind her.

  Gone, she signed. Dying. Task.

  "What?"

  Ghillie pointed up. Aida stepped to stair edge again, leaning dangerously far out and craning her neck. "I can't see. What task?"

  She raced down the stairs and shoved her way through the crowd, ignoring their cries, brushing away grabbing hands, not stopping until she could see the purple-clad figures swarming up the far side of the Wicker Way.

  A flame flickered on the center platform.

  Her Ferals and the Imminents reached her, pushing the crowd back to give Aida space.

  "What's she doing?"

  "Buying us time." Eth didn't look up. "The Wicker Ways won't stand if the center is removed. We need go. Now."

  "She could cut it and join us!"

  "We told her when we first met her she wouldn't survive the Wretch Plague," Ryk said softly, looking intently at Aida. "She chose to die doing something meaningful for a cause that mattered rather than die for nothing."

  "Is that why she looked so miserable the whole time? That's cruel!"

  As he spoke, the platform above burst into flames, the fire spreading with startling rapidity.

  "It's what needed to be done. We stockpiled pitch and alcohol near the Wicker Way days ago." Eth pulled at Aida's arm. "If you want her sacrifice to matter, waiting here until the whole tower comes down on us will just make what she did for you meaningless."

  Angry yet powerless, Aida let herself be pulled. "I never asked her to do that for me. I barely knew her. I don't want anyone to die for me."

  "You didn't have to." Ryk's fingers brushed the back of her hand. "People make sacrifices for those they love."

  Aida jerked her hand away and wheeled on him. "Would she have died or did you just tell her that so she'd do what you wanted?"

  "Does it matter now? Done is done. She likely pushed off into the Path; a Reacher will hopefully grab her." Eth glanced among the reachers. Several sat unattended, their tentacles weaving about aimlessly in a way that Aida interpreted as distress.Others lay dead, killed by who-knew what, their long tentacles falling across several blocks. Only a few still did their duties.

  Eth grimaced as she looked back to the Wicker Way. "Brace yourself."

  "For what? What now?"

  A huge roar went up, the crowd's mood changing instantly from chanted devotion to seething rage as they spotted Wretches descending.

  "No, no! They're with me!" Aida shoved, yanked, and elbowed her way forwards. Her followers standing between the mob and the Wretches wrestled, punched, and struggled, but inexorably gave ground against the onrushing thousands pouring up the stone stairs.

  "Run! Climb!" Aida's shouts vanished in the sea of voices. She drove harder back towards the Wicker Way. "You fickle bastards, they're with me!"

  The Wretches scrambled the few stories to the top of the stone, but sparks, ash, and embers floated down from the growing conflagration above them. They stopped not far up the structure's wooded section.

  "Clear a path or they're going to kill them," Aida shouted at Ryk and her Ferals.

  "If we cut our way there, you will murder to prevent murder," Fallon shouted in her ear. "And this mindless menial horde will turn on us instantly."

  She knew he was right, but she didn't have to like it.

  Aida clutched the ring at her throat, trying to remember how she'd gotten it to work before. It seemed so clear, so obvious in the villa courtyard. But even if she did make it work, what if it made things even worse?

  "How are you not concerned?" Aida screamed at Eth as they struggled forward. "I'm not leaving them behind so if you don't want to die when that tower comes down on our heads, start running or tell me what to do."

  "Semon." Eth pointed to the stone stairs where a golden-robed, white-haired, one-eyed man ascended slowly, those above parting at his touch. Blood spattered his arms, head, and robes. Behind him followed a tight grouping of yellow-swathed men and women, heads bowed and chanting.

  The highest tendrils of mob broke through the last of Aida's resisting followers, scrambling up the wooden structure. Larger bits of smoldering debris began to fall amid the ash and sparks.

  At the last stone stair, the blood-soaked old man stopped, his groupies arraying below him. Above, hostile city folk hurled a few unfortunate Wretches off.

  Whatever Semon yelled vanished in the clamor, but his chorus half-chanted, half-shouted his words in unison, their voices stilling the ruckus until Aida could make out the words.

  "The Mother stands among us proclaiming those Wretches protected by her hand. Would you blaspheme and kill those touched by Holiness?"

  Those closest to the cowering Wretches turned, shouting over each other.

  "They brought the Plague!" "It's the Mother's Will!" "The Prophet said they were to blame!"

  "The Prophet is dead, a Martyr for the Mother." Grief overcame the man as he raised his bloody arms. "I am Semon, her First Disciple, and I failed to protect her from the Dynasty's assassin. She learned it was they who unleashed this Second Kiss through the Wretches and they killed her for it. Harm those poor vehicles for Dynasty's perfidy no more; they are but tools the Dynasty's hands to be discarded when their unwitting work was done."

  Aida utilized the crowd's stunned stillness to push the last bit to the Wicker Way, taking the stairs two-at-a-time. Angry shouts and curses echoed Semon's words.

  "Ten times ten times ten Dynasts rule over us yet twice that many Dynastic hands remain idle to aid us even as a thousand times more of our backs break serving them! For what? That they might reap our labor's rewards, sit in idle luxury, and make us all slaves, slavants, or sexual playthings for their depraved cravings?"

  More shouts and cries resounded as Aida took the final few flights.

  "Only one Dynast stands up for us. Only one raised her voice and with the power of truth hurled the Dynasty back. Only one risks all for those to whom she owes nothing, offers freedom from the yoke of Dynastic tyranny, challenges the false Ascendant Faith speaking an endless refrain serving only to keep us down."

  The last bit drew another silence followed by confused mutters. Aida's breath came in gasps as she took the last stairs.

  Semon glanced down at her as his disciples parted, his good eye gleaming.

  "Here is the Dynast whose Will we serve! Here is that Dynast, come to lead us from the Dynasty's clutches, enter willing Exile, rewrite the Book, and set all to rights. Here, the Mother of us Exiles!"

  Cheers erupted as she reached Semon's side, his hand on her shoulder turning her to face the sea of upturned, exultant faces.

  "Where was this... when I was down there... trying to get them to listen to me?" she panted between heaving breaths.

  "Smile and give them your blessing." Semon spoke softly, through a plastered-on smile. "You must learn when to stand above them and when to go among them. They are ignorant, superstitious, and suffering desperately. If you don't learn to control the flame of their love, it will consume you."

  So Aida smiled and extended her hands out like some portrait of the Virgin Mary. These people were whom she served and who would, in turn, serve her against the Dynasty's might. Two families at feud: Aida's immense, starving, downtrodden, angry; The Black Court's small, fractured, rich, powerful beyond reckoning.

  "Bring it," she murmured. The people knelt, heads bowed beneath glowing swirls of spark and ash.

  Next chapter: Hassani must make a choice between duty and family

  Characters and terms

  Characters (alphabetical)

  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"

  Aliasara: servant at Ocyl's villa who befriends Aida

  Arca: chief of the tribe that "adopted" Inro

  Avani: Hassani's daughter, an albino

  Baka: Dynast of Ziggurat?

  Broadaxe: large, axe-and-shield-wielding Feral protecting Aida

  Cairin: Arca's sister, slinger

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

  Denault: Hassani's husband. Shipwright, Kin.

  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

  Fetriene: Ocyl's soresearer

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

  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.

  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

  Rega: Inro's sister, Dynast of Monopolis

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

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

  Sava: Dynast of Libriam

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

  Stiller: serving boy at Ocyl's estate

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

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

  The Fallen

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

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

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

  Goldilocks: twitchy, spear-and-javelin carrying Feral guarding Aida. Died burning a Wicker Way in Heaven's Tread

  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.

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

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

  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.

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

  Terms (alphabetical)

  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

  Aze: swordmaker?

  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

  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

  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."

  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.

  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.

  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

  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.

  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

  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

  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

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

  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

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

  Terminus: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

  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: the flu. A horrific disease spread by Wretches.

  Wyres: lines run through the Vale between verses that allow communication between

  Ziggurat: the verse basing the Legions