Aj knelt in the ruins.

  Deep in sorrow

  and sorely taxed.

  They'd been far more prepared

  this time,

  and came within a breath

  of killing this awakening.

  Necessity

  required it push on.

  So it rose.

  Turning away

  from the sad carnage

  they had forced it to create,

  Aj sought out

  the end of the verse.

  Inro sweated in a rocky waste, he and his lone Feral surrounded by half-a-dozen naked tribals armed with flint spears. Layers of chalky paint plastered in swirls over their coal-black skin. Helmet-sized lizard or snake skulls covered their heads, the creatures' tattered hides hanging down their backs like barbaric capes. Beyond their twine necklaces studded with bones or shells and their rope belts from which gourds, roots, and crude obsidian knives hung, they stood naked.

  "In the name of the 100th Dynasty, I order you to take me to the nearest city," he tried again, frustration mounting. "Do you understand me?"

  Their scrunched faces and perplexed looks gave him all the answer he needed. Menials were menials, whether packing a city's squalid underbelly or roaming a blasted wasteland in the furthest verse of the Book. That these proved darker-skinned than most Dynasts he knew disconcerted him somewhat, but he shook it off.

  Raising hands to show he meant no harm, Inro leaned towards his Feral and whispered, "when I go."

  The Feral nodded slightly and stepped away from him with a bow. A step that just happened to take him a bit closer to the nearest tribal.

  With one hand still raised, Inro slowly slipped the longer, shark-skin-hilted sword from his girdle. The wooden scabbard scraped faintly on his armor's precious, still blood-spattered steel. Encased in interlocking metal plate and chain, he had to look half the Ascendant to these naked primitives.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Inro stepped carefully towards the largest and most riotously patterned tribal who he figured for the leader. Knelt. Extended his sword in both hands as if a gift. Everything emptied from him in a long breath as he shifted into the calm, intentional, focused state he'd spent centuries cultivating.

  A brief exchange in some base tongue. Inro understood not a word, but followed what transpired close enough: the leader's main challenger in the group warned him. Taking it as an attack on his authority and overcome by greed for this magical stranger's gift, the leader overrode his challenger's arguments. He stepped forward, reached for said 'gift,' and died.

  Sharpened steel sliced through paint and flesh with minimal resistance. The Feral tackled the spearman closest to him and went down in a tangle. Inro shoved the dying leader into his nearest man while he wheeled and rushed the closest foe on his other flank. This tribal possessed the wits to thrust his spear forward but Inro deflected it and hurtled himself towards the now-backpedaling primitive.

  Spooked by Inro's ferocious assault, the menial dropped his spear and bolted. Inro let him, turning to meet the onrush of two more. His Feral faced down two others with a stolen spear. Inro waited, then sidestepped suddenly, aligning his two assailants so the nearer blocked the farther for a moment. He stepped straight into his attacker's thrust, the tip of the flint spear scraping harmlessly off Inro's breastplate as he cut the man down.

  On pure instinct, he flicked his blade up. A spear aimed at his unarmored head scraped across his blade. Cursing the loss of his helm in the scrambled flight from Sunset and wary of giving the older, more canny warrior he now faced time to think, Inro charged forward. The man, whom he recognized as the now-dead leader's challenger, sprang away, staying well out of reach of Inro's blade. The warrior waved his hands and shook his head, signaling for Inro to stop.

  Warily, Inro complied, searching quickly for his Feral only to find him bleeding out in the red dirt. To his credit, the Feral took out one tribal and wounded the other before they got him. The injured survivor slumped against a boulder, hands pressed down to staunch the dark blood welling between his fingers. With a soresearer or skilled surgon, the wound might not be fatal. In this desolate verse, the young warrior was doomed.

  When Inro turned back to the man he'd faced, the fellow bowed, gestured at his wounded companion, and showed his empty hands again. Inro nodded and stepped back.

  The Feral reached clawed hands towards Inro as Inro looked the pale Damned over. The Feral's eyes brimmed with pain. Inro bent over the man to loot a few worn coins and a several-day supply of tiny, gold watter flasks from a pouch on the Feral's belt. Batting the man's reaching arms away and ignoring his grunts of pain, Inro walked away to clean his sword and armor. A Feral could be replaced easily enough once Inro found his way back into the heart of the Book but his steel was irreplaceable.

  The two tribals sang some warrior death-song, tears streaming. The older warrior spoke reassuring words, assuaging the younger savage's dying fears. All in the tribe would hear of his bravery, of the strange, bone-faced warrior he'd slain. His valor would fill his family with pride, he would live on in their tales, and all the other heroic nonsense that led young soldiers to die for their commanders. Inro couldn't understand a word of their language, but knew such rituals with unfortunate intimacy.

  When the dying man's sobs finally ceased, the last surviving tribal sat his dead fellows' backs against boulders so they could face the sunset. Inro followed his example with the now-dead Feral not out of any sense of feeling for the already-stiffening corpse, but hoping this savage would see his own version of 'civilized' writ in Inro's actions. He propped the Feral up with feigned reverence. As he did so, he silently cursed the man for failing him and leaving him alone in this unknown verse.

  After gathering necklaces from the fallen and tying them about his forearm, the last savage began to bundle the unbroken spears.

  A plaintive voice called from the gathering shadows and Inro stood to see what the barbarians would do. The survivor tucked the spear bundle under his arm, turning as the tribal who'd fled crept back. Shame writ large across his features.

  Tall and proud, the savage upbraided his cowardly fellow and banished him into the wastes. The coward's pitiful rejoinder met hard silence. When his tentative approach provoked a brandished spear, the outcast young coward turned, hunched down, and slunk into the gathering dark.

  The older savage turned to Inro and sketched another bow. Inro bowed back, stood tall, and approached. He had to trust this man to lead him forward for lack of any alternative. The propped bodies stirred thoughts of his own Legions lying butchered in the fields and streets of Sunset, killed even more swiftly and mercilessly than these men by a foe even more dominant and inhuman than Inro.

  Though normally an excellent judge of character, Inro couldn't be sure this man wouldn't leading him into an ambush. Inro hoped not. He already liked this tribal and didn't want to have to kill him too. Inro's other choice meant wandering the unknown wastes alone so best to follow and find some other way free from this verse. Somehow, he would prevail.

  He had to.

  The Aj had almost destroyed the Dynasty single-handedly six-and-some centuries ago and quite possibly no one else alive knew it had reawakened. Inro would be damned if he'd let it finish what it started.

  Next chapter: Aida learns a new language in an hour thanks to "technology?" and finally gets some answers from Fallon.

  Characters and terms

  Characters (alphabetical)

  Aida: MC.

  Aj: a long-slumbering, powerful being which annihilated Inro's Sunset Legions. Also "almost destroyed the Dynasty single-handedly six-and-some centuries ago"

  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.

  Annalis compound: sprawling complex in Libriam, heart of The Book's bureaucracy

  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."

  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

  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 swampy verse home to the Annalis, heart of The Book's bureaucracy

  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.

  Royal Strider: giant striders which carry carriages of the wealthy slung underneath them

  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

  Soresearer: ?

  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: ?

  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: an energetic liquid

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

  World Spear: an immense stack on Stacks

  Wretch: ?

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