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10. Not Okay

  The critter whose bladed tail sliced Aida's fingers off died before it flew beyond arms-reach, spiraling back down to the muck with one of White Spiral's arrows punched through its chest.

  Everything phased to hyper-detailed slow motion as Aida staggered back clutching her maimed hand. The creature writhed about the arrow. Its slashing tail whipped a thin arc of Aida's blood. Her fingers tumbled into gloom. Feral yanked her backwards. Fallon shouted. Aida hit the ground. Feral's knives whipped free, the bodyguard-slave woman ready to fight a whole flock of the things that never materialized.

  Aida sat woozily, staring at the bloody stumps. "I just got good, fresh young fingers back and that bastard took them. Fallon, can I order it to give them back?"

  "Dynast, I think..." Fallon knelt beside her, the blood draining from his face as he glanced at her mangled hand.

  "You okay?" She giggled. "Funny me asking you that."

  Fallon toppled sideways. Aida reached towards him with her good hand. "I guess not."

  Ghillie caught him with one arm, the other clutching several foot-long, thick, red-tassled needles.

  Feral raced to Fallon's side and kicked him over the moment Ghillie laid him flat, presumably searching for an attacking lizard-beast. When she saw none, she kicked him again for good measure and returned to her vigilance.

  Aida giggled again, cold, tingly, and hot all at once. "I think I might be going into shock."

  Ghillie regarded her with concern. Such pretty blue eyes above such an ugly mask. She'd never noticed the tiny round, symmetrical white scars all over the girl's face before. Several dotted a path straight down from her eyes, more dotted her upper lip, while yet others followed her cheek bone and jaw or marked a few spots on her forehead. The consistent left/right placement told her they were on purpose, but the reason would probably be beyond her in a normal state much less now.

  "You make out with a porcupine?" she said, wondering if they even had those here. She bumped her hand on the ground... turtle shell and nearly fainted again. "Should probably wrap this in something. The super turtle needs its queen. And can't lose this blood. It's precious apparently. Special."

  Parathas appeared at her other side, carrying a giant leech floating in a milky glass jar.

  "Blech. I sure hope that isn't for me. I don't like bugs. Or flying lizard-bug-beasts now for that matter. Turtles falling rapidly down the list too."

  On that note, she fainted, dreaming of a nursing home wherein her wheelchair became chariot pulled by eight bronze turtles and all the residents wore Feral masks.

  Pain awaited when she awoke, different than childbirth, chemo, or broken bones, but just as intense. Squinting, she opened her eyes to brightness. Outside again. The bloated slug-leech thing latched over her finger nubs as they carried her laboriously along the turtle's neck.

  "Stop moving or they will drop you," Fallon commanded from somewhere above as Feral, grunting, lowered Aida down to Ghillie and White Spiral.

  "I thought I was done being carried around. Why is this giant flatworm-leech thing sucking on me?" She stared at it in revulsion. A sensation disturbingly similar to a baby nursing tugged at the base of her enwrapped fingers. Numbness engulfed the rest of her hand up to the wrist. "It has some kind of anesthetic venom or something?"

  "It is a letch that Ghillie brought, Sect-bred." Fallon said. "It is doing what it is supposed to do. Lie still so they can do the same without dropping you. If you wanted to die you should have done it before you became a Dynast."

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "Good advice, thanks. Okay, I can carry myself from here, thank you very much." Once they'd gotten her to the next vertebrae, she twisted free from her Ferals.

  "We were concerned for your welfare." Fallon stepped down from a rope ladder and leaned against a bone boulder. "They even more than I; I am inconvenienced if you kill yourself, they must join you."

  "Can't they sweat-bond or whatever to someone else?" Aida tried to hide her wooziness as she followed the guideline to the next rope ladder.

  "No. It bonds them for life to their charge. Much more motivating."

  Heights normally didn't bother her, but the loss of blood, shock, or both weren't helping. White Spiral gave her a dark look, the older Feral pushing past and descending the rope ladder first to wait for her. Aida resented their assumption of her incapability, but at least understood their motivation better now. "What if the person gets in an accident? Chokes or something?"

  Fallon stood beside her as Feral descended. "They would have been executed were they not damned to Ferals. Their extra time is a generous gift to those who do not deserve it."

  "Morality is a complex thing I guess." Aida glanced back at Ghillie, wondering what the girl did to deserve this oblique death sentence.

  Aida descended the next ladder, turned, and noticed the Thorn sprouting from skull's peak for the first time. "How'd it grow there?"

  "How do they grow anywhere?" Fallon pointed at it. "Ask him."

  Aida squinted, spotting the Valeer beside the Thorn. His clothes, such as they were, lay in a heap next to it.

  "What's he doing with... oh." Her face heated as she figured it out.

  "I envy how much he enjoys his work," Fallon said dryly as he made his way to the next ladder. "If I only enjoyed mine a tenth as much."

  "One-eighth would be better," Aida quipped.

  By the time they reached the skull, the Valeer had finished, his usual moan and mumble routine seeming dirtier. Fallon struggled to clothe the man, calling for assistance. White Spiral stood closest but turned to Feral, who offered an offensive gesture back and shook her head angrily. White Spiral stared hard until Feral snorted and took over from Fallon, albeit in a significantly rougher fashion.

  "Where are we going?" Aida glanced at the Thorn. Aside from location, angle, and perhaps a slight variance in dimensions, it looked exactly the same as the others.

  Fallon looked at her like she was an idiot. "The Vale."

  "The Vale? Really?" She rolled her eyes. "I'd figured that much out on my own, thanks. Where after the Vale? Getting new fingers? Back to the Black Court to demand a verse that isn't garbage? Or did they overhear me and give me something so screwed up I couldn't make it worse?“

  "Valeer, take us to Heaven's Tread." At Fallon's urging, the Valeer began to stroke the Thorn again. Aida looked away uncomfortably as the Thorn swelled and shifted at the Valeer's touch.

  "You are a Dynast, the fingers will regrow on their own," Fallon said in that way he had that made spontaneous bodily regeneration sound trivial and obvious. "And this is your verse now and forever. One Dynast for one verse."

  "My fingers grow back?" She brushed her fingers on the slug-leech thing's glistening skin, then looked away in disgust. Her eyes alighted on the Valeer sensuously rubbing the Thorn. Even worse. She cast her gaze towards a distant, rumbling volcano for some relief. "Hold the phone a sec. I'm in charge here now, right?"

  "Yes." Fallon couldn't have said the word more grudgingly.

  She placed her hands on her hips, shuddering at the letch's weight and feel. "Well, I'm tired of being dragged around, told what to do and where to go like a kid. I got enough of that at the nursing home, thank you very much."

  "We will be in the Vale any time now so make your temper tantrum quick." In the face of her hard stare, Fallon added a mocking bow. "Dynast."

  The Thorn expanded towards them.

  "So where are we going exactly?"

  "Heaven's Tread."

  "I got that before. I think I should be the one to make the decision."

  He sighed and gestured to the rumbling desolation about them. "Very well, Dynast. Would you like to stay here and watch everyone who follows you die from hunger and thirst or would you travel to a verse wherein we might procure everything necessary to live here? Perhaps a verse similar to that which I already selected?"

  "This Heaven's Verse, what all can we get there?"

  "In Heaven's Tread," Fallon corrected, "one can purchase anything imaginable."

  "Fine. Heaven's Tread it is then. I order it." She sounded like a petulant, bossy child even to herself. Fallon and the Ferals exchanged none-too-subtle eye rolls. Already screwing things up and she'd only been in charge a few hours. Typical. So much for doing everything better on her do-over. To be fair, this wasn't exactly what she'd fantasized back at the home. Or anything like it in any way, really.

  Fallon rolled his eyes as the Thorn enveloped them.

  She braced herself for the discomfort and disorientation, annoyed at her petty stubbornness even as she spoke. "Next time we go somewhere, I decide. Also an order."

  "Your every wish is my command." Fallon bowed absurdly deep. "My only pleasure is to serve."

  She flipped him off as the Vale swooped in to take them away to her first steps on the road to becoming a 'real' Dynast.

  Next chapter: Training with Hassani's sword-master

  Characters and terms

  Characters (in order of appearance)

  Aida: MC.

  Fallon: Aida's Seneschal

  Feral: a bone-masked woman of violence in Aida's service. Knife wielder.

  Aj: ?

  White Spiral: another older bone-masked warrior woman in Aida's service. Archer.

  Ghillie: a 3rd bone-masked warrior wearing a primitive Ghillie suit. Carries cross between kunai and acupuncture needles

  Valeer: a mentally challenged, unkempt individual able to manipulate Thorns

  Hassani: Inviolate agent of the Black Court

  Avani: her daughter, an albino

  Parathas: Aida's skinscribe. Also a mountaineer.

  Jaxe: dynast, owner of Stacks

  Terms

  Seneschal: chief servant of a Dynast

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

  Ink: home verse of the Skeinry and Keens

  Striders: ?

  Mancers: ?

  Lineage: ?

  Valeer: people capable of activating Thorns (see below), barely functional of anything else

  Thorn: a huge curling thorn that Valeers can use as gateways to the Vale

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

  Vale: "The Place Between". A realm of high-contrast black and white full of thorns and Thorns.

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

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

  The Kiss: ?

  Book of Verses: collection of verses ruled by the Dynasty

  The All: ?

  Verse: a pocket universe or world

  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"

  Dynast: individual given rule of a verse if they survive Partaking. Ageless and hard to kill. Regenerative.

  Dynasty: the Dynasts who rule the Book

  Ebon: founder of the Dynasty and Black Court

  The Subterrane: ?

  The Pale: ?

  The Gates: ?

  The Ascen: ?

  Menial: common folk

  Thrum: guide in the Black Court

  Partaking: the ritual that creates Dynasts (or kills those who try). Performed by some unknown, large creature in the Black Court.

  Echoseer shells: ?

  Valeer's 'nail: crystals containing wafers that allow travel within the Vale to specific verses without a Valeer

  Stacks: An ocean verse comprised of tall pillars jutting up from the seas. Trolleys run on long ropes between them.

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

  Skin/Hollow: animate skin of a molt

  Molt: person able to shed skins

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

  The Chant: some sort of law in the Dynasty

  Verser Lord/Lady: agents of an individual Dynast who rule at the whim of their Dynast

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

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

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

  Skinscribe: individuals brailled with lore, walking libraries

  Heaven's Tread: a verse

  Strings: devices that translate speech

  Assessor: census-taker

  One-Eighth Shithole: Aida's verse. Unfortunately.

  Broadcliff, Tallmarket: cities in Stacks

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

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

  Jaxeday: holiday in Stacks with boat carvings, feasts, games of Fishhead, dances, and storytelling

  Skeinry: iron-plated communcation centers where Skeiner's translate vibrations sent by wyre from other verses

  World Spear: an immense stack on Stacks

  Jaxestack: a whitewashed stack on Stacks home to Jaxekin

  Watter: ?

  The Sect: breeders of creatures

  'pillar: fuzzy Sect-bred giant caterpillar pet

  Nameday: when children are named

  Iode: substance that ignites when crushed

  Innoculist: doctors?

  Kin: descendants of a Dynast

  Libriam: a verse

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

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