"Do you know who I am?" Aida shouted, raising her arms as the mob surged to encircle them. "I am the Mother of Exiles. You killed all those Wretches in my name!"

  The energy of the angry people surrounding them slowed, congealed, hovering on a phase change boundary between crowd and mob. Though her internal analogy would have made her second husband proud, it mostly just distracted her. A shout from the crowd brought her back.

  "We'd a hell of a time chasin' 'em," the voice called. "Thanks fer gettin' 'em in one place."

  Rough laughter flared. All eyes turned to the ragged cluster of Wretches ringed by Aida's followers.

  Aida projected her best stage voice. "The killing is done. These people are under my protection."

  "What people?” someone called, “I jus' see Wretches."

  Angry echoes and stirring in the crowd.

  Aida raised her hands to calm them, but attention shifted towards the villa, the people muttering and making warding signs as a distinctive trio approached. A path cleared to allow the Imminents through. Beyond, Jaxe, Wake, and Reck still stuck around in their royal striders to enjoy the spectacle.

  Eth unceremoniously pulled Broadaxe off the bench and stepped up beside Aida.

  "What're you doing?" Aida whispered.

  "What I'm supposed to do, even though it won't work." Eth sounded petulant.

  "Because at least that way we don't all die." The girl spoke at exactly the same time Aida asked, "Why do it then?"

  "That's so annoy-" Aida started. Eth put her hand over Aida's mouth.

  After a melodramatic hair flip, Eth raised her hands to the crowd and spoke at a conversational volume, forcing the crowd to silence to hear.

  "People of Heaven's Tread, you know that I'm an Imminent, one of the diminishing few yet existent. You know we see the future and looking at the days to come, I swear this: should you continue this course, most of you will be dead within the month."

  Worried looks, prayers, and more warding signs rippled out.

  "Most dead in a month no matter what they do here. Not technically a lie," Eth muttered, before speaking aloud again. "If you wish to kill these Wretches, you must first slay the Mother of Exiles, the only hope for many of you in the dark times looming on the horizon. Not only that, but you must slay a Paragon."

  Ryk stepped forward, clothed in Imminent pale-blue. Steel gleamed at forearm, shin, and the long head of the long spear he carried. An indentation formed in their encirclement as those closest scrambled back.

  Eth cleared her throat repeatedly. Aida nudged her as the moment became awkward, strained. The Imminent coughed several times and winced as she spoke.

  "If you dare face him, know that many of you shall die."

  Her voice cracked, warbling the 'shall.'

  Eth sighed, muttering "drank extra water and everything to avoid that" as laughter erupted from those close enough to hear. In an instant, the spell of awe and superstition shattered.

  "Be a legend if you kill a Paragon," said a attractive, cleanly-dressed man said, brushing his long black hair from his as he pushed forward and drew a bright, silver knife. "Like that Swordmaster retired to the beaches of Stacks who killed one."

  A dozen-odd rough-looking types pried their way from the mob carrying a motley array of weapons. Ryk stood calmly at the center of the arc they formed, feet braced wide, spear butt extended low and to the side.

  "Should my Ferals help?" Aida whispered anxiously to Eth as the tension in the closely-packed, straining crowd multiplied.

  Eth rolled her eyes in that particularly-annoying teen way. "No need, I know how it ends."

  "This is not the way I die," Ryk said, so softly that Aida barely caught it even though he could reach back and touch her with his long spear.

  "I've seen a dozen Shakespearean plays but I still enjoy them," Aida countered.

  "Humph." Eth turned her back on the immanent violence as if to prove a point. She held four fingers up, counting down every second. At one, she turned and pointed at the to first man to die.

  Without even looking, Ryk thrust his spear towards the man furthest around his right flank, spear point finding a foot before flicking up to catch the man in the throat. The blunt end of Ryk's spear thrust the opposite direction, the haft sliding through his hands to stop just below the spear point. The sudden length of spear shot out the other way to slam into another ruffian's knee.

  The rest charged, only to be checked by a massive, sweeping swing of the spear. Several slipped and fell in the sandy walkway. Ryk retreated several steps then lunged in again, slicing the hand of the long-haired man with the silver knife who'd started it. He clutched his mangled hand to his mouth and fled.

  "Four dragged away, four limp away, the rest back away. One of the limpers is trouble later but nothing we can do about that now," Eth mumbled, picking at her nails.

  Another died to a thrust between the ribs as he rushed from the side. The spear whipped around. Teeth flew as solid haft collided with another's jaw.

  Ryk sidestepped a hurled hatchet without looking. Aida flinched as it whirled her direction and clanged off the bronze rim of Broadaxe's interposed shield.

  "Thanks. That could have been bad." Aida earned a grunt and an elbow jab in reply as Broadaxe returned to watching the fight.

  In the second Aida'd looked away, another man lay face-down in the sand while yet another slumped away clutching a bloody shoulder.

  With half their number down, the rest halted, wide-eyed and panting. A huge brute with a cleaver stood back and raised his arms to the watching multitude. "Cowards! We outnumber him a hundred to-"

  Words ended in coughing gurgle. The cleaver tumbled from his hands. He clutched at the thrown spear lodged haft-deep in his sternum. Ryk approached casually, staring into the man's eyes before grabbing his spear right as the man toppled backwards. The giant fell smoothly off the tip.

  Those few seconds of bloodshed stunned Aida as much as the crowd. Silence reigned. Ryk flicked blood from his spearhead and strolled back, his breathing barely elevated. He stopped before Aida, pale blue eyes meeting hers. A surge of emotion Aida couldn't identify flickered across his face.

  Heat swelled in Aida's chest and a catch in her throat prevented any word, Eros taking center stage in Thanatos' wake.

  He breathed his words so softly, Aida almost fell off the bench in leaning forward to catch them. "When I die, I die for love."

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Aida's question drowned in the mob's roar, the display of easy violence stoking anger rather than smothering their rage. Aida's defenders braced themselves as the mob closed on all sides, only to halt after a few steps amid a confused welter of shouts.

  Listening hard, Aida finally resolved a confused babble of "Ink!" "Keens!" "The Directory!" Aida whirled as a dozen tank knights loped through rapidly-formed channel in the crowd as they scrambled to get out of their way. Maxem trailed behind.

  The tank knights formed a loose second ring about the servants' first. Brutal, heavy polearms rested across armored shoulders. With slitted, welding-mask visors lowered, they looked more like robots than people.

  Maxem walked to Aida, her look smug. "The Directory protects its own."

  "The Directory doesn't own me," Aida snapped back, the woman's tone grating at her even as relief allowed her to breathe again.

  "I did not mean to insinuate-"

  "Didn't you?" Aida suddenly regretted her hasty deal. "One Syphon was the agreement."

  "I apologize if I misread your situation. You'd like us to leave then?" Maxem glanced at the hesitant-yet-still-angry crowd shifting and muttering about them.

  Aida looked between their desperate faces, then to the ragged Wretches huddled in a prayer circle. Her gaze drifted to the tank knights so still and solid with their heavy armor and man-hewing poleaxes. On to the terrified, resolute faces of the villa servants. To her three Ferals, Ghillie's eyes calm, Broadaxe's eager, Goldilocks' afraid. Lastly to Aliasara, clutching her bench rail in trembling hands as she offered Aida a wan smile of encouragement.

  "I don't deserve it," Aida mumbled as she turned back to Maxem and pulled herself up to full height. "Tell me the truth by your actions. If this intervention comes out of friendship I welcome it and you gratefully. If it's just leverage to manipulate our deal, get lost."

  Maxem looked at her flatly, calculating. Aida's heart pounded in her chest.

  With a tired sigh, Maxem walked away. She raised an open hand then closed it. The tank knights strode off to a swell of shouts and catcalls. Watching them march away, Aida instantly understood how starving refugees must feel watching UN peacekeepers pull out.

  Broadaxe tugged at Aida to pull her down from the bench as the scared-but-resolute band of the Wretches' defenders braced themselves. Aida glanced at Eth, now lounging on the bench, chewing her fingernails. If smartphones existed here, the girl would be texting.

  Aida shrugged Broadaxe off, raising her hands and shouting to get the mob's attention. Aida's mind darted as quickly as her gaze, searching for any idea on how to defuse the mob. Nothing came to her until the second time her eyes swept the royal striders. A poetic course of action sprang from mind to lips.

  "Menials!" Aida shouted, the strings thrumming at her throat amplifying her words. "Menials, scum of the earth. You're less than people, barely better than animals!"

  The mob went still, jaws slack and eyes wide.

  Aida pointed an accusing finger at the royal striders. "They call you such: mere livestock to be herded around, used, or butchered at their leisure."

  Angry cries of affirmation.

  "You don't have worth to them, not even names. To them you're just numbers, little different than a goatherd boasting about the size of his flock."

  Calls. Shouts. Raised fists.

  "They rule because you fear them, because they watch from on high-" a gesture at the Jadeye "-and because not one of their squabbling, preening thousand stand for you. But what would they be without you? Who would tend to field and flock, herd and garden? Who would repair their roads and build their palaces? Who would serve them hand and foot, prick and pussy?"

  The last shocked the crowd to silence again. Nodding knowingly, she pointed again at the Jadeye. "I've been inside that all-seeing eye, know what goes on there. You may think a Legion lurks within, watching every move you make but the reality is far more and far less than you think."

  That feeling of a mass of thousands clinging to every word filled her with elation as she let her words hang.

  "They do not watch you for they believe you unworthy of even the slightest glance. No, they take your young men and women there to sate their rapacious lusts: with them, on them, in them, only to discard them when they're done. Ocyl told me himself: whatever he uses he throws away when he's done."

  Guilt flooded beneath the excitement as she threw Ocyl under the bus, but the feeling washed away in the energy of the crowd focusing on her, feeding her. Remembering his useless gun clicking in her hand didn't hurt either.

  "And there they wait and watch: three of the most powerful Dynasts in all the Book gloating as we turn our anger against each other-" she swept an arm to encompass the Wretches "-that we blame them for our problems while the true source of poverty and suffering watches there from their beasts of luxury, luxuriating in our weakness, our division. Those wolves take as they like from the goats while we bleat and butt at one another!"

  She felt the mob like an extension of herself, an external well of emotion swelling to the brink of overflowing.

  "We are many, they are few. Even if one of us in a thousand stood up against them, we'd still outnumber them a thousand-fold! On this day, let the wolves take flight for it ends today that we consent to be prey!"

  A deafening, inchoate roar raised from innumerable throats as the mob launched into motion, sudden and unstoppable as an avalanche. So hot did their anger burn that every statue, fountain, shrub, and tree felt their wrath as they washed over and around them. They estate grounds lay ripped, shattered, and torn in a wide swath of desolation as the mob passed.

  Jaxe's driver proved the most astute: his strider already stepped beyond the walls before the crowd even began to move. Not bred for speed, the striders moved slowly and, while Wake's gray-and-gold also stepped over the wall to safety, the weight of the armored plates slung across its sides slowed Reck's. The poor beast let out a bellowing groan as the mob rushed around its stilt-like legs, hammering and chopping. From the carriage and a howdah atop the strider, Ferals rained arrows, javelins, spears. For every man or woman they felled, two more leapt in twice as furious.

  "I wanted to scare them off, not get people killed!" Aida put a hand over her mouth, horrified.

  Eth watched dispassionately. "A mob is a maul, not a knife. If you can control the swing at all, you still can't control the damage when and where it lands."

  Reck's strider tried to flee, but caught a leg on the wall and toppled sideways, those unfortunates beneath it screaming as the huge beast crashed down upon them. The under-slung carriage splintered on impact and the horde swarmed over it.

  Aida leaned heavily against Broadaxe. "Oh my God."

  "It is a great and terrible thing." Aliasara took Aida's hand. "You give the Dynasty a first taste of the fate they'll earn across the Book with you leading us, inspiring us, giving us hope."

  Aida shook her head. "Let's just hope I make out better than Martin Luther King, Jr. or Ghandi. Or Jesus for that matter. Iconic leaders inspiring the masses to rise up against systematic oppression never seem to last long where I'm from."

  "Rarely here also, but never before has a Dynast stood with us."

  As Reck's few surviving Ferals drowned in a sea of fists and stones, Reck himself struggled out of the wreckage, bleeding everywhere. One leg jutted out twisted and bent. One arm ended at the elbow. Despite those heinous wounds he seized a length of brass railing in his remaining hand. The snarling Dynast killed at least a dozen assailants with terrifying speed and crushing strength before they overwhelmed him.

  "Chalk needs a new Dynast," Eth muttered. "Not enough pieces left of this one to give Wake his business."

  The teenager regarded Aida with a look that shifted from disgust to anger to resignation in the span of seconds. "I already knew and feared it, but this is like a nightmare oft-dreamt finally playing out at last in the flesh. You're truly the spark that sets the Book aflame as we've known, feared, and promised for an age."

  Aida blinked, unable to speak. Thrill and excitement faded rapidly, leaving a sick feeling. "It seems to me the Book wears a pretty cover, but the pages rot. Sometimes the old must burn so the new can grow, never mind the mixed metaphor."

  A man from the circle of Wretches padded towards her on all fours, prostrating at her feet.

  Aida dropped down from the bench and bent to help him up. "Rise, you have no need to crawl before me."

  He scurried back, settling into a hunched squat, the disfigurement of his face becoming clear. This close, his reek nearly knocked Aida off her feet.

  "It's the only way I know," he said simply. "I doubt I could stand as you do even if I wanted to so I will stand in our way."

  "I'm Aida, the Mother of Exiles." Aida dropped to a squat to match his. Even the seemingly-open-minded Aliasara gasped as she did so. When Aida looked up, she saw only shocked faces. Her temper flared. "Better get used to it, people. If you want real equality then it applies to everyone equally. No exceptions. Period."

  She turned to find him staring at her with almost equal shock before his face broke open into a beatific smile.

  "Wretches are not allowed names, but this one is grateful for your sanctuary. No one in our memory ever spoke for us, much less risked their lives for us." His tears poured down his face as he crawled on his belly to lay prostrate again and touch her sandaled feet. "We are yours, now, Mother. Yours now and forever."

  She stood to step back, but found herself surrounded by his fellows. All lay around her in a ring, reaching out, weeping, and echoing the first's refrain. "Yours, now and forever."

  Overwhelmed, Aida felt part of her melt. She wept at their deplorable condition even as she struggled not to gag at their rot-and-feces stench.

  Before she could find words to address them, a crash from the villa snapped her attention. The mob tore the front doors off and surged in. Empowered, emboldened, and blood-soaked from the butchery, their attention turned to the villas. Bloodlust bled to looting in an instant.

  "Riccaro!" Aliasara gasped, covering her mouth. "He's in there!"

  Aida swore, Ferals falling into step about her as she sprinted across the ravaged grounds, her gut clenched.

  "Fallon!"

  Next Chapter: Vanyen realizes the sharp price of starting a religion.

  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 Jadeye

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

  Parathas: Aida's skinscribe. Also a mountaineer.

  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.

  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.

  "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