Aj despaired.

  The Mon,

  its hope for aid

  in its terrible task,

  now sought vengeance

  not correction.

  Their terrible children

  capable in their numbers

  and murderous fury

  of even killing a god

  turned to massacring

  the creations

  of their once-kin.

  With nothing else to do,

  the Aj continued on.

  The All

  continued to bloat

  and the Real

  to shred.

  At first, Aida thought her dis-ease came simply from proximity and witness to the Vale transition. Only as the two men slouched towards her did she realize it was them not the Thorn. Though dozens of other people came through behind them, the pair stole her attention. Subconscious voices screamed wrongness in her head.

  Wrapped carelessly in bland robes and wearing wide-brimmed hats which cast their faces deep into shadow, the men seemed otherwise for all initial appearances to be normal. The way they moved, however, just felt... off. As desperately as her mind scrambled to place exactly why, she couldn't pick a single standout detail. Instead, a dozen small quirks and anomalies swung red flags deep in her brain.

  How they lifted their legs as they approached. Odd angles in their posture. Barely-perceptible asynchrony between each eye when they blinked. Something strange in the way their chests swelled as they breathed. The faintest of scraping sounds as they bowed to her.

  Aida slid one leg back and hummed the deep rumble she had found would set her strings thrumming faintly in resonance. Only Ghillie's calm presence at her side kept her from blasting them off the turtle skull on instinct.

  “Wel... ah... welcome to the One-Eighth.” She managed. “Are you refugees?”

  “Greetings, Dynast Aida. We come, not flee. Offers bring we.” The darker-skinned one spoke, voice rasping. Something about the way they never quite made eye contact set her on edge, but when their eyes finally met it was far worse. She'd met people with a lazy eye and felt the strangeness of that slightly-off gaze. These guys gave her the same feeling when they looked right at her.

  “Offers of...?”

  “We are Anticores of the Sect.”

  The name sounded vaguely familiar. A pang shook her as she missed Fallon for the hundredth time even if he had been a pompous, pretentious, know-it-all. “Okay. Offers of?”

  “Creatures of use. Functionalia. Things bred for purpose.” While the first one spoke, the other turned his head to take in turtle and Tangle, his body shuffling slightly to follow the head when it turned too far. They seemed to ignore which one she spoke to. When one took a turn talking, the other stared about at random things.

  Aida took a step back, wishing she could take ten more. “Right. Um, what purpose is that?”

  “Life. Growth. Expand. Cooperate.” This they said almost in sync.

  “And what do you want for whatever that means?”

  The second turned and both spoke in absolute unison. “Woman?”

  "You want a woman? Um, what?" She couldn't take being around the two anymore. “How about I take that under advisement, we table this, and you make yourselves at home. Don't shit in the waterholes, don't hurt anybody, don't steal anything, and we're all good. Oh, and don't go near any women.”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  They nodded in a way less head tilt and more bobble as if their skulls were coming lose. Standing as far away from them as she could without falling off the skull, she watched them slouch past to examine the rope mesh slung down to the ground as if figuring out what it was and how it worked.

  “Those guys made every hair on my body stand straight up,” she muttered. “My heebie-jeebies have heebie-jeebies.”

  Only when they figured out how to descend did she turn to see what else the Vale deposited. Woven baskets full of who-knew what. Small wooden cages containing a bizarre array of critters smeared around the intersections of insect, lizard, crustacean, and octopod. A vaguely-Oriental-looking, dashing, male supermodel in a blue sarong and an unbuttoned sunshine-yellow vest approached, eight-pack gleaming with sweat beside a smoking-hot brunette accenting her curves with a knee-length, black-trimmed silk dress otherwise red as blood.

  “Damn,” Aida said, her mouth drying as the man strolled over. The woman sashayed after him, her hips moving like a belly dancer's with each step.

  “By your magnificence and beauty, you could only be Dynast Aida,” the woman breathed as she sank deeply and took Aida's hand. The man grinned in an open, relaxed way as he took her.

  “By my overly-busy, impolite, straight-forwardness you must be...”

  They laughed together, the sound mingling like a song. Aida glanced at Ghillie. “Are they for real?”

  The Feral's eyebrow quirked as she shrugged.

  “I am Alerestro formerly of Azure and this is my luscious wife Viviana, born, bred, and fled from the meat markets of Berujat.”

  Viviana caressed Aida's shoulder as she walked around her, admiring her from top to bottom.

  “Nice to meet you, I suppose.” In her distraction, Aida barely noticed taking Alerestro's hand and shaking it. After the briefest of hesitations, he shook back as firmly as if he'd grown up in the Midwest. Viviana instantly reached out and shook her hand as well. “What can I do for you?”

  “Absolutely nothing.” Alerestro stepped back and crossed his arms as Viviana completed her circuit about Aida and stood beside him. “We are here to do for you.”

  “Do what?”

  “So many things the recounting is a thing in itself. For a start, my wife and I can help staff, manage, and even populate your harem if need be.”

  “Harem? I get a harem now?”

  Alerestro took Viviana's hand and spun her away like the final flourish of a tango, singing out in a stage voice half the shanty town could probably hear. Whenever Viviana took a breath, he'd step in, sometimes literally as they strutted, pranced, and danced about her like Aida'd hit her head and woken up in a Broadway musical.

  “Not only that, but we can, apart or in conjunction, make, judge, and evaluate art.”

  “Find out forgeries or make you better ones.”

  “Act as your council in the courthouse.”

  “Council your actors in the playhouse.”

  “Play music and sing for your pleasure.”

  "Pleasure you in sensation or thought."

  “Sing your praises and play your enemies against each other for your politics.”

  “Identify several score distinct Lineages.”

  “Tell the secrets of a dozen.”

  “Perform the secret arts of a one or two.”

  “Understand the workings of high to low, from Dynastic courts to Wretch Councils.”

  “Stand beside you against foes wielding words or weapons alike.”

  “Back you up in contests fair, rig fair contests in your favor, find back doors out if all else fails.”

  “Lay beside you at night singing lullabies or wielding the secrets learned on the pleasure barges of Swirl.”

  “Secrete people or items of need in or out of any verse.”

  “Verse you in the lore of a hundred Dynasts and their dominions.”

  Aida didn't realize how hard-up she'd been for any bit of entertainment or levity until these two launched themselves into this... whatever it was. As it rolled on, Aida fell temporarily out of her endless concerns and worries amid the delightful spectacle. For those blessed few moments, she forgot skepticism and wariness, proclamations of exile and outlaw, and the hundred stresses large and small bundled up in the package of being Mother of Exiles and Dynast of the One-Eighth.

  When Viviana and Alerestro whirled away from one another, kneeling with arms splayed wide, chests heaving and smiles beaming, she burst into applause. The small crowd they'd drawn joined in with whistles and cheers. The two took it with perfect modesty and grace, bowing several times to the laughing, chattering, impromptu gathering before approaching Aida with easy confidence.

  “Don't know what I can pay you or when, but if you're okay with an IOU, then you're hired,” Aida said, giving each a spontaneous hug. “God did I need that, did we all need that! Something to make us look up from our trough of daily toil and misery. Remember how to laugh again! Whatever else you say you do, great, do that too when it comes to it. For now, though, your job is to help scrub away the gloom and doom caked all over us. How long did you two rehearse all that?”

  “Rehearse?” Viviana asked, eyes wide.

  “You expect me to believe you just came up with that on the fly?”

  They gave each other a look so perfectly bewildered it could only be genuine or even more rehearsed than their performance.

  “Honestly, who cares? I don't know what stuff you have, but you're welcome to join my personal camp over there. See those canvas-tarped platforms below the curve of the shell and above the Tangle over there? That's supposedly where I live except I'm never there. Take up as much of it as you want.”

  “You're most gracious.” Alerestro bowed again and gestured to a pair of bulging leather packs and a pile of parcels. “We will take what little we possess and deposit it there with haste so that we may throw ourselves into your service.”

  As they gathered their things, Aida massaged her jaw and cheeks. “Haven't smiled so much in so long my face hurts. Hey, Alerestro, Viviana, one more quick thing before you go...”

  The two paused at the edge of the skull and looked back.

  Aida crushed her smile, memories of Broadaxe and Fallon hardening the edge in her voice. “I like you already, but if someone hired you to hurt me or my people, I will shred you into tiny pieces with a word and feed you to the hungry critters in the turtle shell that ate my fingers. We clear?”

  Viviana smiled and winked. “Worry not, Dynast. You have never met a pair who hold to their convictions and loyalty with such fervor or flexibility as we.”

  With a flashed grin from Alerestro, they slipped over the edge.

  Aida stared after them for a minute before turning to Ghillie. “What the hell did that mean?”

  Ghillie's eyes crinkled in what Aida now knew to be her smile. The Feral punched her lightly in the shoulder, winked, and began again to ascend the Neck again.

  Aida blinked. “Okay, what the hell did that mean?”

  Next chapter: Inro plans his next conquest in Origin

  Adonissian: a Phero who poses as a traveling musician. Died of the Wretch Plague in Heaven's Tread.

  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"

  Alerestro: a handsome, multi-talented man from Azure. Partner of Viviana

  Aliasara: servant at Ocyl's villa who befriends Aida

  Anticores: a pair of Sect representatives, off-putting and strange

  Arca: chief of the tribe that "adopted" Inro

  Avani: Hassani's daughter, an albino

  Baka: Dynast of Ziggurat. Huge, massively strong. Tertius.

  "Braid"; a thug who accosted Aida in Jadeye. His face gifted to Aida by Ocyl.

  Broadaxe: large, axe-and-shield-wielding Feral protecting Aida. Killed by Jaxe in Jadeye

  Cairin: Arca's sister, slinger

  Das: Rega's Immanent

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

  Denault: Hassani's husband. Shipwright, Kin.

  Eonora: a Legion officer in Ziggurat

  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", an Inviolate

  Goboro: a fat, amiable scribe friend of Hassani's in Libriam

  Fallon: Aida's Seneschal. Died killing the Inviolate Rasofi in Jadeye

  Fatma: slaver?

  Feral: a bone-masked woman of violence (Feral) in Aida's service. Knife wielder. Killed by Ghillie in Jadeye.

  Fetriene: Ocyl's soresearer

  Goldilocks: twitchy, spear-and-javelin carrying Feral guarding Aida. Died burning a Wicker Way in Jadeye.

  Hassani: Inviolate agent of the Black Court, sent by Fractious Fraction

  Hue: Vibrant accompanying Simon

  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.

  Johine: crude slave

  Kass/Kassenia: mercenary attached to Adonissian. Died of Wretch Plague?

  Maxem: High Parser from Ink, ambassador to Jadeye

  Ocyl: Dynast of Heaven's Tread, powerful and unpredictable

  Parathas: Aida's skinscribe. Also a mountaineer.

  "Professor, The": leader of Aida's Wretches

  Rasofi: Inviolate killed by Fallon 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.

  Rega: Inro's sister, Dynast of Monopolis. Septemius

  Riccaro: majordomo of Ocyl's estate. Hung by a looting mob in Heaven's Tread.

  Rustrovan/"Rusty": Eth's old, gap-toothed skinscribe

  Ryk: "the most beautiful man Aida had ever seen", a Paragon

  Sava: Dynast of Libriam

  Savalius: Grand Quartermaster of the Legions

  Semon "Goldtongue": white-haired, one-eyed master of cults. First Disciple of the Mother.

  Stiller: serving boy at Ocyl's estate. Rendered mute by psychological or head-trauma

  "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.

  Venner: Grandmaster of Optimimes in Jadeye, "best in the entire Book"

  Viviana: gorgeous, multi-talented ex-slave from Berujat. Partner of Alerestro.

  Wake: Dynast of Graves, marries even though they all die. Quintus. Isolate.

  White Spiral: an older Feral in Aida's service. Archer. Died protecting Aida in Jadeye

  Adventures of Bubo, The: popular kids story

  All, The: All the verses, even those beyond The Book.

  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

  Autumn: verse rich in gold?

  Aze: swordmaker?

  Azure: A verse?

  Berujat: "fleshmarkets"; primary seat of slave trade and home of most Lineage Masters, owned by Fraction.

  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

  Calms: periods when ever-blowing winds die down in Berujat

  Canyon of Cages: cliff where slaves are held in Berujat

  Cave Dwellers: tribes that live in the underground in Origin, keep others out until "the Return"

  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

  Commu: chewed drug/herb?

  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."

  Directory: "the Directory to Ink is like the Dynasty to the Book", dominating rulers of Ink

  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.

  Dynast's Tower: a massive tower at the peak of Ziggurat.

  Dynasty: the Dynasts who rule the Book

  Ebon: founder of the Dynasty and Black Court

  Ebon Saga: the tale of Ebon's foundation of The Book and Dynasty

  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: Inter-verse travel method created by Ebon. Opened with Limn

  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 advising Dynasts and shaping course of The Book

  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

  Jar: Name of a "gold" coin now made of brass. Once held currence within.

  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?

  Green People: tribes that live in the jungles of Origin

  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: a line of mancers taught by a Master

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

  Lizard Hunters: Arca's people, walkers of the wastes of Origin

  Logos: "the thought realm"

  Machine Curse: something that stops machines from working between verses?

  Mancers: "no mancers arc (could) affect it", people with abilities beyond human normal, usually trained/implanted by a Master.

  Master's Markets: primary slave market in the Book in Berujat

  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 Tribe, The: Arca's new tribe incorporating the Libwe and whomever else is conquered or enticed to join.

  One-Eighth Shithole: Aida's verse. Unfortunately. A desolate place home to volcanoes and a giant dead turtle

  Optomime: gadgeteer

  Origin: the First Verse, from which Ebon originated, containing the "Cities Below". The "first page of The Book"

  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

  Shore Striders: tribes that live along the oceans of Caves

  Shackle Pens: slave pens near Master's Market in Berujat?

  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". Put down by Baka

  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

  Stone Walkers: tribes that live in the cold of Origin

  Subterrane, The: inter-verse 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

  Swirl: A verse. "The pleasure barges of Swirl"

  Syphon: machine ConMach uses to "drain the very life" and color from a verse to "fuel... machinery"

  Tangle, The: the jungles of the One-Eighth

  Terminus: "Gates End", 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

  Tribunal: group of three Dynasts coming together to make ruling or pass judgment

  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/Dynast's Plague: the flu. A horrific disease spread by Wretches.

  Wyres: lines run through the Vale between verses that allow communication between. A giant Ziggurat