White Spiral took two down with rapid shots before others collided with her. Ghillie's needles dropped another couple then she stood against the wall, needles held like daggers. She danced and feinted amid swinging knives and cudgels, plunging the points into knees and forearms while somehow avoiding every thrust and swing.

  Feral's lunge for Braid missed as the man dragged the Valeer backwards. Feral stalked Braid. The man used the Valeer as a shield, looping a bronze wire tight about the poor slavant's neck.

  A wordless cry of dismay spilled from Aida's lips.

  She turned and ran with astonishing speed. Unfortunately, she was even more astonished than her thuggish pursuer. She collided with an alley wall and he tackled her. "Flight" having failed, "fight" kicked in. She tried to make up in ferocity and Dynast strength what she lacked in skill. Clothing ripped. The man's hair tore out in clumps. Bloody scratch marks quickly covered his face and arms.

  A dirty, chipped bronze knife blade pressed against her throat. He growled a warning. She froze.

  Her attacker graced her with a snarl of broken, browning teeth. He hauled Aida to her feet by her hair, her scream half-rage, half-pain.

  Then White Spiral came from nowhere, crashing into him and driving a broken arrow into his neck. They went down in a thrashing tangle. Aida staggered into the wall.

  As quickly and brutally as it started it was over.

  Half-a-dozen attackers sprawled motionless. Others writhed, groaned, or screamed in the alley's filth. White Spiral lay unmoving, covered with discolored cudgel impacts and bloody knife wounds. Fallon had vanished. Ghillie chased down a few survivors. Blood-spattered Feral busied herself slitting the fallens' throats.

  It all reeked like an outhouse in a slaughterhouse.

  "Feral. Feral! FERAL!" Aida staggered towards the woman, shaking uncontrollably as everything sank in.

  She grabbed Feral's shoulder to pull the woman up from her grisly work, but Feral slapped Aida's hand away. Fury, shock, surprise, and adrenaline made Aida reckless. She stepped up to the point of Feral's raised knife. "Where is the Valeer? Where is he?"

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  Feral jerked her head toward the shadows deeper in the alley.

  Aida found his body sprawled atop a refuse heap. The copper wire about the Valeer's neck had cut to the bone. Dark blood surged through the fingers clutched to his neck. His eyes stared sightlessly back at her.

  Sobs wracked her. Her knees gave out. The release became a cathartic flow, an emotional tide crashing through in waves.

  How long she spent screaming, moaning, and dry heaving she'd never know. When she became aware again, the Valeer's head lay in her lap. Blood soaked her dress, at least some her own from cuts she didn't remember taking but most from the letch. Its bloated body had ruptured sometime during the fighting, soaking her in her own blood.

  Peeling it away nearly made her gag. Whatever muscular action held the critter's needle-like teeth slowly released in death. She carefully picked them from her flesh. She ripped a strip from the hem of her dress, wrapped her mangled hand, looked about.

  Feral knelt nearby wiping her knife on a corpse, her half-lidded eyes barely visible in the shadows.

  "This is on you! You did this!" Aida marched towards Feral, shaking and white-knuckled. "Him, White Spiral, maybe Ghillie and Fallon too! They were my responsibility and you got them all killed just when I was starting to think maybe I'd manage to do something right for once in my life! You will never, ever, do anything like that again. You will do nothing without my orders, ever, or I'll abandon you to starve. You hear me?"

  Feral rose slowly as Aida approached, clearly unhappy with Aida's tone. She grabbed Aida's collar and slammed her against the wall, her knife pressing against Aida's throat. Feral thrust a finger in Aida's face, then pointed at a body. The Feral repeated the motion pointing at herself and the body again. A repetition in slightly different order conveyed a crude message.

  You die, I die. I die, you die too.

  When she saw Aida's shocked comprehension, Feral stepped back with her long knife pointed at Aida's chest. Feral snorted, waved the knife, shook her head, turned away, and toppled over backwards.

  A long, red-tasseled needle jutted from Feral's chest. Up close, it resembled an extra-long acupuncture needle crossed with a throwing knife. Feral lay perfectly still. From that single, tiny wound?

  Ghillie glided from the shadows as Aida stumbled stiff-legged towards Feral. They both reached her at the same time and dropped to either side. No pulse at Feral's neck or wrist. No breath at her nostrils.

  Aida looked up into Ghillie's pale blue eyes. Nodded. "Thank you. I think."

  Ghillie mimed Feral's message with a modification.

  You die, I die. So she died.

  The girl plucked her needle and stepped back as the clatter of galloping hooves echoed in the narrow space. Aida stood wearily and turned, feeling drained and hollow.

  "My hero, riding to my rescue," Aida said dryly as Fallon showed up with the cavalry, two Ferals and a Valeer too late.

  Next chapter: Hassani heads to the library (world) to meet an old friend and maybe a new "friend"?

  Characters and terms

  Characters (alphabetical)

  Aida: MC.

  Aj: a long-slumbering, powerful being which annihilated Inro's Sunset Legions

  Avani: Hassani's daughter, an albino

  "Braid"; a thug who accosted Aida in Jadeye

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

  Denault: Hassani's husband. Shipwright, Kin.

  Ghillie: a 3rd Feral who wears a primitive Ghillie suit. Carries cross between kunai and acupuncture needles

  Fallon: Aida's Seneschal

  Hassani: Inviolate agent of the Black Court

  Inro: Dynast formerly ruling Sunset

  Jaxe: Dynast, owner of Stacks. "Young", wealthy. Also has "the Pale" (an Albino)

  Parathas: Aida's skinscribe. Also a mountaineer.

  Rega: Inro's sister

  The Fallen

  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)

  All, The: ?

  Anchorites: individuals capable of creating anchor points affixed to nothing.

  Ascen, The/The Ascendant: divinities "watching over every verse"?

  Assessor: census-taker

  Aze: swordmaker?

  Black Court: a realm of pure darkness. Also, those who rule there. Where Partaking happens.

  Blood, The: imbibed at Partaking, transforms one into a Dynast if they survive

  Book of Verses, The: collection of verses ruled by the Dynasty

  Broadcliff, Tallmarket: cities in Stacks

  Century Thread: additional threads appearing elsewhere on the body every century a Dynast lives

  Chant, The: some sort of law in the Dynasty?

  Chant of Innoculation: chant supposed to protect against disease

  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?

  Current: some form of energy that powers "artifices"?

  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

  Echoseer shells: devices to allow one to "see" in the Black Court

  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"

  First Thread/Primus: a fresh Dynast/the first luminescent silver thread etched into their foreheads.

  Gates, The: ?

  Gonist: organ dealers and traders

  Heaven's Tread: a verse "inside a hollow rolling pin", host to Jadeye, the largest city in the Book

  Ink: home verse of the Skeinry and Keens

  Innoculist: doctors?

  Inviolate: agents of the Black Court who "serve the Black Court, protect the Dynasty, uphold the Chant, root out corruption."

  Iode: substance that ignites when crushed

  Iris: the giant portals leading between one cylinder of Heaven's Tread to the next

  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

  Keen: Ink warriors wearing impossibly-heavy iron armor whose power source drains color from the area about it.

  Kin: descendants of a Dynast

  Kiss, The: ?

  Letch: sect bred leech-like creature designed to stop bleeding on wounds

  Libriam: a verse

  Lineage: ?

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

  Logos: ?

  Mancers: ?

  Menial: common folk

  Molt: person able to shed skins (see skins)

  Mon, The: ?

  Mourne, The: something dangerous that lurks in the Vale, "the why we do not tarry"

  Nameday: when children are named

  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

  Pale, The: light-skinned people, conquered by Ebon during the founding of the Dynasty

  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.

  'pillar: fuzzy Sect-bred giant caterpillar pet

  Reachers: massive, Sect-bred creatures that direct traffic and rescue unfortunates in the Sighted Path in Jadeye

  Rotters: sack-clothed, crudely-masked 'zombies' uses as pack-beasts and simple laborers. Created/sold by Crowmen.

  Sect, The: breeders of useful insectoid- and/or sauroid-like creatures

  Seneschal: chief servant of a Dynast, bear permanent strings allowing them to speak and understand any language

  Sighted Path: the zero-g road down the center of Heaven's Tread

  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

  Skinscribe: individuals brailled with lore, walking libraries

  Slavant: an individual who "loses much" to be implanted with an ability

  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: ?

  Strings: worn or implanted wire devices that translate speech

  Subterrane, The: ?

  Sunset: the verse where Aj was 'contained', formerly protected by Dynast Inro

  Sunset Legions: Inro's Legions, wiped out by Aj in Sunset

  Surgon: person able to remove organs

  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

  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.

  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

  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

  Watter: energetic liquid similar to water

  Wicker Way: towers of stone, wood, and rope that connect opposite far sides of Jadeye

  World Spear: an immense stack on Stacks

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