"Roses are red,

  Violets are blue,

  My verse is One-Eighth Shithole

  and seven-eighths what squeezed through."

  Fallon sighed. "Be serious, just for a moment. With all its strange crafts did your former verse not contain poets? Even your prisoners and menials were fat, well-clothed, and many carried glowing slates of some unknown capacity, yet your poetry climaxed in nursery-rhyme and limerick?"

  The Valeer skipped through the Vale as they plodded along behind him. Aida wondered again at how the Valeer chose so casually as they took another branching path. The slavant certainly felt happier here, his hum-and-mumble like her kids when they were soaking in the bath to contrast his usual anxious Rain Man. As always, thoughts of Sarra and Mal stirred sad, happy memories.

  "You have limericks too?"

  "That word from your language means something similar, I think," Fallon shook his head and threw his hands up. "I never learned this language, they simply hollowed out a space and rammed it into me that I might converse with you. Ofttimes I do not even know what exactly the words mean when I speak them."

  "Strange. Okay, here's one just for you, Fallon:

  Roses are red,

  Violets are blue,

  My verse is worthless

  and its Dynast is too."

  "However I may agree with your sentiment, the verse of your verse serves as the rallying cry to encourage others to come and make something of it." Fallon gesticulated when he got worked up. "You have merely a century to mold your verse into useful shape and you twiddle with children's poems!"

  "What happens in a hundred years? You said I was ageless, does that mean I get a century then they replace me?"

  "My forebearers could only hope. No, it is yours until it dies or you do."

  "How does a verse die? And aren't I immortal?" When her hand bumped her side, the letch clinging to the remnants of her hand squirmed. A wave of revulsion swept through her. Resisting the temptation to rip the disgusting thing off took full concentration for a moment. Ghillie nudged her, rescuing her from wandering into a wall of foot-long thorns as they took a turn.

  "Thanks, Ghillie," Aida said, but Ghillie had already faded back to her usual place behind White Spiral.

  "It is bad luck to name a Feral. As if you would ever listen to anything I say." Fallon switched to his I'm-talking-to-a-preschooler tone. "But yes, Dynasts are ageless and regenerative. Very hardy and hard to kill, but it still happens. Whatever it is they do makes you more than human, but not something else entirely."

  "Ferals are people so they deserve names. Period. End of discussion. And speaking of what they gave me, what... Oh my god!" A sudden realization stunned her. Everyone halted with her. Her Ferals reached for weapons as they looked up from an intense, signed conversation.

  "Whatever that monster vomited in my mouth tasted like blood mixed with engine oil. Am I a vampire now?"

  Fallon frowned. "A what?"

  "Do I have to drink blood? Will I hunger for arched necks?" She thumbed her canines. "Is it my imagination or are these bigger?"

  "As far as I know, Dynasts need no food nor drink but for pleasure. Your Blood sustains you." His intonation implied capitalization. Fallon motioned to the Ferals and pointed at the Valeer still meandering on ahead of them. Ghillie ran to fetch him, leading him back like the world's biggest toddler.

  "So I don't turn into a bat, drink blood, turn invisible or anything?" Her mind slowly pulled back from the teetering edge of overwhelm it brinked almost constantly.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  "I am not sure to what you refer, but you are not some Mon-spawned horror. Can we continue? No one waits in the Vale."

  "What's a Mon? Hold on, where's my skinscribe guy?" Guilt sank a brick in her gut. "I can't believe I didn't notice until now."

  "Parathas remains behind, learning what he can of your verse while doing what tasks he can to better it until we populate it. When he can take time from offering body parts for local consumption, that is." Fallon mimed waving his arms and shouting then clutching at his hand and fainting.

  "Har, har." Aida motioned for the Valeer to continue. His childlike, happy smile reminded her vaguely of Mal's when he was small. Another barb tugged at her heart and she sniffed back sudden tears.

  They walked in the Vale's unnatural silence and dark, the Ferals deep in their silent conversation, Fallon lost in some chain of thought punctuated by head shakes and sighs, Aida struggling to keep a delicate thread of sanity stable amid the universes' constant upendings as conceptual flash floods threatened to wash her away.

  Sheer joy at her youth, flexibility, strength, and the vanished aches and pains kept her buoyed up when her mind teetered at breakdown's edge. She was down a few fingers, sure, but she'd have traded a whole arm back on Earth if the rest could feel this good.

  They came to another Thorn at last, growing in a clearing of sorts.

  "Valeer, this is Jadeye, yes?" Fallon pointed as the Valeer bounded forward to enter his bizarre relations with it.

  The man nodded enthusiastically as he performed his rituals, the nod becoming locked in as though a switch flipped then stuck on in his excitement.

  A poem Aida memorized as a schoolgirl came to her unbidden:

  "Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

  With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

  Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

  A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

  Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

  Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

  Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

  The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

  'Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!' cries she

  With silent lips. 'Give me your tired, your poor,

  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'"

  It took a moment to read Fallon after. Respect?

  "Did that just come to you?" he said, his voice soft as the Thorn expanded around them.

  Statue of Liberty. Emma Lazarus, composed November of 18-something-something. Amazing it was still in there after all these years. Renewed guilt flushed through her, but with Fallon looking at her like a real person for the first time...

  "Yes."

  "Mother of Exiles. Terrible portent, but carries a certain ring." He tilted his head, staring into the distance as the Thorn wrapped about them. "Your verse holds no city much less twin, but we can entice with the suggestion of new beginnings. The Book holds no lack of 'huddled masses yearning to be free'. Is this how you want to play it?"

  Until that moment, she'd fixated on what her verse lacked, moping and bemoaning her fate with no thought to what she might do or create. She shook, overcome with feeling as she remembered visiting Ellis Island. Remembered a brief stint teaching immigrants English and US history as they worked to become citizens, their eyes full of desperate hope and fierce determination. Remembered the parties after the Civil Rights Act finally passed after years of struggle, hardship, and suffering even if she could have done so much more to help back then.

  "It's not a play, it's what I really want. Does something like it already exist?"

  "It shall be a novelty among the entire Book of Verses, I promise."

  Tears streamed down the Valeers cheeks as he bowed to her. "Mother of Exiles."

  "Mother of Exiles," she repeated, looking into the clear depths of the man's eyes. "Wait, how could you know? Was that why last time you called me-"

  Heaven's Tread hurled itself at them before she could finish and sensory overload swept the interaction from her mind.

  Next chapter: an ugly dive into Hassani's marriage.

  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. "Young", wealthy.

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

  Terms (alphabetical)

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

  Ascen, The: ?

  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

  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

  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: ?

  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: ?

  Heaven's Tread: a verse

  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

  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

  Mancers: ?

  Menial: common folk

  Molt: person able to shed skins

  Mon, The: ?

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

  Nameday: when children are named

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

  Pale, The: ?

  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

  Sect, The: breeders of creatures

  Seneschal: chief servant of a Dynast

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

  Skin/Hollow: animate skin of a 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.

  Striders: ?

  Strings: devices that translate speech

  Subterrane, The: ?

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

  Thrum: guide in the Black Court

  Unkillable Swordsman: a Paragon killed by Deia

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

  Valeer: people capable of activating Thorns (see below), 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 at the whim of their Dynast

  Watter: ?

  World Spear: an immense stack on Stacks

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