Vanyen collapsed back into her cot, shaking and sweating. She licked her dry, cracked lips. A splitting headache pounded. At long last choked down a few morsels only to lose it vomiting. The violence of the heaving left her ribs aching.

  Through it all, Semon sat serenely. When not relaying her prayers to well-wishers, directing his disciples, or accepting severed Wretch heads to pile on the grisly pyramid in the corner of his mud-brick apartment, he dribbled water into her mouth and comforting words into her ears.

  "Semon," she whispered. "What's happening, Semon?"

  "You have the Wretch Plague it seems."

  "I can't! Am I going to die? I don't want to die!"

  "Few do. Want to die, I mean. How deadly this illness proves remains to be seen. The Chants of Inoculation appear powerless against it. Our fates rest in the hands of the Ascen. I should say they lie in the hands of the Mother now." He stroked her head.

  "I just wanted people to listen." She clutched at his hand. "I wanted to be heard. To matter."

  "The Mother will guide you, I'm sure. It would be better if she went away and stopped contradicting us, however." Semon shook his head. "Protecting the Wretches after all that? Fortunately, our faithful are preoccupied looting estates, raping servants, and fighting over valuables to question. Yet."

  "I don't care about any of that!" Vanyen rasped, clutching at his arm as he tried to pull away. "I'm dying!"

  "Have some dignity," Semon snapped, jerking his hand away with a glance at the hovering disciples. "You want to lead the faith you've started, don't you?"

  "I don't care. I just want to live, Ascen help me."

  "You mean Mother help you." Semon dipped the rag into the water again and dribbled blessed moisture onto her lips. "If we slip up among ourselves, we'll slip amid the faithful. How can we expect anyone to believe us then, hmm?"

  She sucked at the water greedily. "I'm so hungry, but it all comes up again."

  "I know." He shook his head. "You've wasted decent bread and ruined my best blanket."

  "Semon." She clasped his hand again, pinning it to her chest. "Do you think the Mother has powers? Could she heal me?"

  "They say she can destroy with a word. Killed another Dynast by shouting a spell that made his strider explode or some rubbish." He wiped the towel on her forehead. "Perhaps she bears some barbarian Lineage, but even if such were the case you know they all specialize."

  "What're you saying?"

  "It means spearmen make wounds, not mend them. Even if our Mother kills with her voice, I doubt she heals with it."

  Vanyen broke down sobbing.

  "Be strong, Vanyen," Semon said, kindly at first, firmer with each repetition. "Be strong. You must be strong to get through this. Our disciples here hold the faith regardless, but if you're going to lead you need to present a consistent image. What would your people think if they saw you this way?"

  "I have no people, just lies and dead Wretches heaped around me," she croaked. "They did me only kindnesses and now they're dying for it."

  Semon dipped the towel again. "You did well choosing them. And don't worry too much. Wretches survive as insects do when such things happen. They scurry into cracks and crevices, hiding until no one wants to haul their own shit to the fields or deliver bodies to the Crowmen again."

  "Look!" Vanyen rasped, thrusting a finger towards the heaped pile of blood-soaked heads. "They aren't surviving! How can you say such things with their dead stacked before us?"

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  He stood, his one good eye regarding her at length. "If you could read the Book, you'd find two types of creatures. Two only: those who eat and meat. Hunters and hunted. Users and used. Takers and taken. You hear me girl? If you're not strong enough to become the first, you will be the second."

  "Not like this." Dragging herself out of bed, Vanyen crawled to the heads despite the pain in her leg. Semon scoffed. She forced herself to look over every Wretch killed at her word, dying inside a little more with each pair of vacant eyes. "They had nothing to take."

  Semon knelt beside her, looking over the pile dispassionately. "On the contrary. They gave their lives to prove the strength of the faith you started. We'll have to manage things carefully when Ocyl's troops finally come down on the mob and they trickle back here with their tails tucked, but we'll not let their sacrifice be wasted."

  "I don't want to." Vanyen rolled away and closed her eyes, unable to look at them any more. "This isn't what I wanted."

  "Hush now. Don't say that." Semon gently stroked her hair. "Do you want their deaths to be in vain, to go to waste?"

  "They already have!" Vanyen curled into the fetal position. "If this is what you have to do to be a prophet, then I don't want it. I can't do it."

  "Don't say that. Come now, you just need to-"

  She shoved his hands away, snarling. The sudden motion heaved her guts and she choked back bile. "I won't do it, Semon. If I live through this I'll tell them I lied, made it up. I'll beg the Wretches for forgiveness. Live among them as their slave if need be."

  "Wretches can't own slaves." Semon turned to his disciples, scrutinizing them each in turn.

  "I don't care." She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. A resolution struck a chord down into the fiber of her being, guilt fading as purpose lit a flame deep inside. "Was it a fever dream when I heard someone say the Mother sheltered the Wretches from the fury I loosed on them?"

  A pause. "No. Another thing I'll have to finesse."

  "Has there ever been a Dynast to do such a thing?” Vanyen opened her eyes to see Semon directing several followers off on some task. “They say she treats menials as equals and fights other Dynasts to protect us. I thought it rumor, but if she even protects Wretches it must be true."

  "If she's smart, she'll play that down in the future." Semon paused to whisper something to a disciple. "If being equals with Dynasts means also having to be equals with Wretches, I doubt she'll find nearly so many followers as she thinks."

  "I'm going to live, Semon," Vanyen whispered, crawling to the cot. "I didn't lie when I said I heard the Imminents talk about her. They said she's going to rewrite the Book. I'll help her. I'll never make right what I've done, but I'll die doing what I can to level my balance before the Ascen."

  Semon helped her back to bed. "I've seen you trying to follow in my footsteps, you know. I mocked you and slighted you at every opportunity. Yet for all your ignorance and youth you managed to do what I in all my years of trying never could."

  "It's all right." Vanyen smiled, clasping Semon's hand. "I forgive you."

  "Here we are, you the Prophet of the Mother's Will, holding the reins to a movement that, properly steered, might spread across the entire Book and our names with it. Me her First Disciple, knowing exactly how to handle the reins. But now you want to sunder them, throw them into the sewage channels like they are nothing."

  "Who needs a Prophet when they have the Mother herself?" Vanyen pulled the covers up, shivering. "I thought I wanted to be like you and lead people. Help them find hope and faith again. I know now I'm no prophet. I held the reins long enough to know I never should've been given them."

  "Indeed." Semon kissed her hand before laying it down and carefully tucking the blankets snug. "I see that now too."

  "You've been so kind." She closed her eyes. Sleep pulled at her, the pain and discomfort somehow less scary, less immediate, less unendurable. "Thank you."

  "I am your First Disciple, Vanyen." He stroked her hair for a moment. She begin to drift off as he spoke. "And that I will always be, my Prophet. I was so much like you when I started out: striving, starving, ignored, ignorant, but now I know how it all works."

  He kissed her forehead. "Don't worry, dear. I won't let what you created die with you. I will do the great good you could've done had you lived. The Dynasty will pay for what they did."

  She barely heard his words. Murmured a sleepy reply. "I'm going to live, Semon, I'm not going to let this Plague beat me."

  "Everyone will remember you, Vanyen, Prophet of the Mother. You won't suffer any more. For so long as people talk of this time your name will fall from their lips: the Martyred Prophet."

  The pain in his tone startled her and she fought against the sleepiness. When she opened her eyes, she saw him carefully and methodically cutting his arms with a knife. His disciples lunged forward towards her bed.

  "What are you doing?" She struggled weakly against them as they held her blankets tight, pinning her to the cot. "Semon!"

  "I tried to defend you against the Dynast's assassin, but to no avail." He smeared his face and robe with blood before kneeling beside her. "Your sacrifice here will never be forgotten."

  “Semon? What? I don't-”

  He slit her throat in a smooth motion.

  "There there now, it's all right. Shh shh. It's all right." He gently brushed her hair from her face, stroking her forehead as she died.

  Next chapter: Aida learns the death count after the mob sacks the villa

  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. 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

  "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".

  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: ?

  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. A horrific disease spread by Wretches.

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

  Ziggurat: the verse basing the Legions