The horrors

  within Sunset's sundered prison

  attacked instantly,

  pressing Aj sorely.

  Though Aj attempted reason,

  offer,

  plea,

  they forced it

  to kill them all

  until only one remained.

  A creature of cunning

  not might or terror.

  One that could listen.

  The Path of Thorns

  was death to all who had not a key

  so Aj gave to the demon

  the one person it had saved.

  A Valeer.

  And released the demon to share

  the Valeer's secrets

  with its creators.

  The Mon at long last

  holding the key

  to the Vale.

  The demon slithered away

  with a parting obscurity.

  “I was created to be captured

  millennia ago

  to tell you:

  You do not have enough time.”

  The linemen shouted as Hassani leapt from the carriage rail and landed precariously on the linehouse's rain-slick, whitewashed stone, the momentum from the trolley sending her skidding and rolling. Stairs flew beneath her feet before the trolley even came to rest. Jaxestack's tunnels passed in blur, the heaving in Hassani's chest part fear, part exertion from her sprint, part rage.

  Adonissian. She still longed for him, maybe always would, but she would kill him when she saw him. Ancients be damned. Rega be damned.

  The front door of their apartment yawned open and her heart skipped a beat. Someone came back to finish Denault? Someone found Avani and returned he rhome? Ambush?

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  She loosened her grease-packed sword in its scabbard, dumped her pack, crept in.

  Inside, someone sobbed.

  Though the shattered model of Denault's dipper ship spoke of violence, after stalking like a panther around the periphery of the apartment, Hassani snugged her sword into its sheath. Denault slumped against the balcony wall beyond the flung-open double balcony doors, soaked and shivering in the thundering downpour.

  "Denault?" she whispered, approaching slowly.

  He raised bloodshot eyes. "Hassani."

  A crude bandage wrapped his bare torso, rain-diluted blood soaking through it. Bumps covered his skin, his lips bore a blue hue, and he shivered violently. The damage she'd inflicted still writ large across him in swelling and bruise.

  "Hassani," he repeated, his voice tired beyond measure. "They took our child, Hassani."

  "I know. That was all your damned message said." Hassani wanted to scream at him, but instead knelt and put a tentative hand on his knee.

  Denault's reaction belied his exhaustion. He surged to his feet, flinging her hand away so violently she fell backwards. She rolled to her feet but he'd already collapsed against the balcony rail as though the burst of anger wore out whatever held him together until she arrived.

  For several minutes he hung there, wracked with sobs while she stood in the chill rain, desperate for information yet aware of her husband's precarious state. She'd never seen him cry before.

  His gaze lifted to find her.

  "They came for you. You weren't here since you're never here." Accusation thick with exhaustion.

  He staggered towards her as if drunk and maybe he was. Hassani backed away slowly.

  "They came for me in Libriam first," Hassani said softly, trying to soothe even though she felt like shaking him, dragging where they'd taken Avani out of him through sheer force. "I turned them down but it seems they don't accept 'no'. We talked about the potential for something like this happening before I became an Inviolate. We agreed I should stand my-"

  "We agreed?" He found a bitter laugh as he slumped against the archway. "You mean you decided and I followed along, like everything else in this sham of a marriage."

  "That's not fair. We-"

  "Nothing about this life is fair, Hassani, but you refuse to accept that." He shook his head.

  She tried to speak in her defense but he continued relentlessly on, talking over anything she tried to say.

  "The Dynasts own everything, everyone. When I was young I thought being Kin would make me an exception, but no. Kin are slaves to the Dynasty, every one of us doing whatever it takes to prolong our lives in desperate hope of reaching a century and our fabled Partaking even though not one in a hundred of us manages to live so long. We're paralyzed, Hassani, frozen in fear. No one takes risks, does anything that might disrupt the order, not with immortality and rule dangled always before us if we but follow the rules, play it safe, somehow struggle on through to old age and infirmity in hopes of maybe-"

  "They have Avani, Denault!" Hassani shouted over him. "I don't care about any of this. Where did they take our child? Every passing heartbeat adds to the chance we never see her again!"

  His laugh punched deep; a blade ripping in her guts. "See her? When do you ever see her? Do you even know our daughter?"

  "How can you laugh, Denault?" Tears streamed down her cheeks. "How can you use that against me, use her against me now? It's not too late, I can find her. I will find her. Just tell me!"

  "Use her against you?" He swayed towards her again. "You have no idea. I told her to eavesdrop on us whenever you came, to see how you abuse me. When you left last she asked me if you hated her like you hate me. Did you know that?"

  Hassani clutched at her heart as she retreated. "By the Ascen, Denault, you didn't-"

  "Oh, I did, Hassani." A vicious, pained smile contorted his features. "I told her you left because you hated this verse, hated this life, hated our home, hated us, hated her."

  Hassani sobbed, her vision blurring as she stumbled into some piece of furniture and clung to it. "No, no, no. Denault, I did it all for-"

  "You! You did it all for you!" Denault screamed then gasped in pain, continuing in a ragged whisper. "Always with your noble ideals, your incorruptibility, your fixing the Dynasty. As if one pale, up-jumped menial could fix a thousand years of entrenched corruption and decay across a thousand verses. Your life is about fixing the unfixable while we rot here."

  He sighed, his voice weary. "Admit it, Hassani, admit it this once."

  "I wanted to fix it for us! For her! So that... so..." she trailed off, wiping her eyes and finding Denault only a few steps away, staring down at her, water streaming down his face.

  "So you could prove you weren't just a little fair-skinned, fair-haired menial girl playing with sticks," Denault spat. "How hard would it've been to take a bribe here and there, currency we could have used? How hard would it would have been to say yes to Adonissian when he-"

  "Say yes? Sleep with him, cheat on you, become a slave to the Ancients?" She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "It was our marriage that saved me!"

  "Cheat on this?" he said with equal disbelief. "This saved you? I fucked him, Hassani! I've never once been attracted to a man in the slightest, yet here I am..."

  His voice cracked and it took a moment before he found words again. "...in love with him even after what he did."

  "You can't help it. He's a Phero, Denault, he did the same to me. They do that to everyone they want. Their Masters design them that way."

  "Whatever he is, how I felt... how I feel about him made me realize how little I feel for you." She barely heard his tired whisper. "Not even anger or hate anymore; that only lasted so long. I feel less about you than I do the Broadcliff whores I fuck while you're gone when I get tired of the stupid gons."

  "Why are you saying this?" Hassani fell back as he lurched towards her again. Her back hit the wall and she scrabbled at it for a hand-hold, her world reeling as sobs wracked her. "Is hurting me more important than Avani? I can still save her if you tell me where they took her."

  "Save her, save the Dynasty, save our marriage, pah." Denault shambled close and hocked spit on her. "Everything's doomed. That big storm the night you left destroyed the new dipper, half our fleet. Our future sank with those ships. Word's fresh from Heaven's Tread of the White Kiss come again, this time spread by Wretches and some barbarian Dynast bent on overthrowing the Blind Priests. Mobs roam the Stacks, hurling Wretches into the sea whenever they catch them. Half the trolleys shut down to stop them from spreading it, but people are already getting sick and dying in droves, Inoculists included. So much for their chants. And you must know about Inro going rogue with the Sunset Legions, aiming to overthrow the Black Court and declare himself Emperor. War is coming and my little girl's lost out in all that. Because of you."

  "Denault, stop, please," Hassani gasped, driven against the door by his relentless approach, the hammer blows of his words. "Just tell me where and I'll go. I'll find her, bring her back."

  "She's probably already dead." Denault turned and stumbled back towards the sheets of rain tearing at the balcony. "I couldn't stop them and you won't be able to bring her back."

  "I can try." Hassani fought waves of fear and pain. "Tell me Denault, please. Where did they take her?"

  He reached the archway and paused to catch his breath, staring into the storm. "If I die, are you still Kin? Will they revoke your Inviolate status, take away your precious swords, strip you back down to the menial you really are?"

  "My daughter is Kin, so I must be." Hassani walked towards him, shaking hands reaching. "Please. Even if you don't love me, even if you hate me, if you love Avani tell me."

  He pushed out into the storm, almost toppled over the balcony wall before catching himself. Hassani raced towards him but stopped as she caught his words over the rain.

  "Ado took her to the heart of the storm, where the Wretch Plague was born. Heaven's Tread. It's too late now, though; by the time you get there they'll all be dead."

  Her racing steps carried her to the door but she paused. Turned.

  "Denault..."

  Rain lashed an empty balcony.

  Hassani's heart lurched. She took an involuntary step forward, but images flashed through her mind: Avani in the clutches of the Ancients. Lying stricken with Wretch Plague in some unknown verse. Gazing at Adonissian with adoration. Set at the feet of Rega's gilded throne in Monopolis. Crying, wailing alone in a street heaped with corpses.

  She sprinted back into the tunnels, leaving her empty home behind.

  Next Chapter: Aida faces down an huge, angry mob with only a few Ferals, servants, and a Paragon. What could go wrong?

  Characters and terms

  Characters (alphabetical)

  Adonissian: a Phero who poses as a traveling musician

  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

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

  Cairin: Arca's sister

  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"

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

  Goldilocks: twitchy, spear-and-javelin carrying Feral guarding Aida

  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

  Maxem: High Parser from Ink, ambassador to

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

  Parathas: Aida's skinscribe. Also a mountaineer.

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

  Rega: Inro's sister, Dynast of Monopolis

  Riccaro: majordomo of Ocyl's estate

  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

  Stiller: serving boy at Ocyl's estate

  Vanyen: crippled young woman striving to create a cult

  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

  "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.

  "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".

  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: ?

  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?

  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

  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

  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: ?

  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?

  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?

  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: ?

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

  Logos: "the thought realm"

  Machine Curse: ?

  Mancers: "no mancers arc (could) affect it"

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

  Optomime: gadgeteer

  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

  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

  Subterrane, The: 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.

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

  Ziggurat: the verse basing the Legions