Adonissian knelt, body frozen and mind racing.

  Never in his innumerable operations had his abilities failed him. Disbelief at Hassani's rejection shifted to annoyance. Who cared if this woman trained under the legendary Deai? Kass and her team would fill the Inviolate with arrows or puncture her with spears before she even got that battered old sword halfway from her scabbard if she tried anything.

  "I am Inviolate, remember," Hassani said as if reading his thoughts. "Shall I play schoolmarm and repeat the Chant?"

  "That would be a delight. I've all but forgotten it." He rose slowly. "A bunch of 'Thou Shalt Nots' ending with something about preserving the Dynasty?"

  If she wanted to hold a recital, he could use the time to think. That she'd spotted Kass's men made no real difference, but his employers wanted her dead only if she couldn't be turned. With his near-perfect record thus far, even partial success would look a failure.

  "Something like that," she said, stepped back to conveniently place tumbled masonry between her and a few of Kass's men. A collapsed beam now lay between her and another pair. "How about you tell me who you really are and what you want so we can get this over with one way or the other?"

  Seduction had failed taking any chance at further deception with it. He sighed and shook his hair from his face, genuinely hurt by her rejection. Disappointment too at losing all hope of seeing the clearly-fit body hiding beneath that Inviolate uniform. "Very well, I'll lay it straight."

  "As long as laying straight doesn't lay thick as well," she said dryly. "Unless you need to worship me more with your breath."

  Out here, the main complex's unnatural cool faded and the swamp's hot mugginess saturated the air. A quick internal debate ended with leaving his extra layers on. His scent clearly failed to sway her but it might still distract and befuddle. He strummed a soothing tune and took a casual step closer.

  Her eyes seemed unfixed and drifting. Was she drunk? Trying to trick him into complacency?

  "It would've gone easier for both of us if you went along with it. Easier and more pleasurable both. Still not too late..."

  "The delights of marriage armored me thoroughly against such things, I'm afraid. Just thinking about relations with men thus strikes me as neither easy nor pleasurable." She surprised him with her candor. He fought hard against liking her. "Hard and unpleasant seems to be my destiny."

  He gambled on matching her candor. "When they assigned me, they did worry you'd be as incorruptible as your reputation promises. I replied that no one born couldn't be corrupted, yet here we are. Perhaps you've never experienced enough of the good life to value it."

  "You say 'incorruptible' like a bad word. How do you think I came so far so fast?"

  "Competence clearly played a factor. Competence, loyalty even to a husband you clearly hold in no high regard. 'Independent and fair minded' they said, smart, a good judge of character and a nose for sniffing out scandals and dirt... also Pheros it would appear." He smiled ruefully.

  "Sorry if my virtues embarrass you," she said, her words belied by a hint of smile. "I think I preferred your thick, romantic nothings to your praise."

  He chuckled and composed himself, staying carefully outside sword-reach. Or, at least, what he guessed was sword-reach. "You might think the Stacks are somewhere, but ruffle through the Book's pages and you'd be hard pressed to even notice it. Strength and independence may have served you out near the covers, but when you move towards the spine a rod-straight backbone just makes you a compelling target for anyone looking to break something."

  "If that's straight talk, I'm glad we're not reciting poetry over pillows."

  He misplucked a string. the discordant note hung in the air. "Fine. My employers are the same as yours: Dynasts, hence the Black Court. Just my part of the Black Court wants you to stop this useless investigation you've been sent on by another part and get some meaningful work done."

  "Real work like digging up scandals and corruption among their opponents?"

  "If you don't know who you're working for, how do you know you're not already doing the same? At least with my employers you'd actually know who you represented."

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  "I represent the Dynasty," she repeated stubbornly. "To preserve The Book's stability and uphold the Chant that holds it all together. That, I say, is the Book's spine, not some immortal cabal clutching desperately at their few pages while staring resentfully at all the others they can't leaf through at will."

  "You may think you're pure, noble, and courageous," he spat. "But the line weaves fine between innocence, ignorance, and idiocy."

  "I know my path, thank you." She walked calmly towards an archway where a pair of Kass's men lurked. "This is it, correct?"

  His mouth fell open at her brazen call of his bluff. "Don't make me kill you."

  "I won't make you try." She walked on.

  Kass's men were hired locals; who knew what would happen if she reached the pair skulking in the shadows? He hated losing, but he hated losing control more. Once battle erupted he became useless.

  Their spear points moved.

  "Kassenia, call them off!"

  A sharp whistle split the air. Hired thugs melted from Hassani's path. She slipped between them with a polite nod.

  With Hassani gone, Kass sauntered up, the mercenary a lean bundle of scars and weapons topped with bandanna-wrapped close-shorn brown hair. A short recurve bow dangled negligently in her hand while red-fletched arrows swung in her hip quiver.

  "I'm not the only one immune to your charms after all?" she said, her smile vicious. "Maybe she's into women. Next time why don't I approach her while you wait in the cobwebs with the gap-toothed, inbred muck dwellers?"

  Said inbred muck dwellers gathered in a sullen group, muttering to themselves at her words and awkwardly handling their loaned weapons.

  He eyed them skeptically. "Given the extent of Hassani's supposed training with a sword, I'm not sure they'd have been sufficient to do the job."

  "I didn't hire them to do the job, just keep her busy and distracted long enough for me to do it." She unstrung her bow, placed stave in quiver and string in a belt pouch. "Besides, the more she'd have done for during, the less we'd have had to pay after."

  "Say that a bit louder and you may have a fight anyway." He shook his head and glanced at the archway Hassani departed through.

  "Would be doing this place a favor by stuffing the the whole lot in the bog. Honestly was hoping I'd get to watch you stuff something in an Inviolate instead."

  "I'm not in the mood, Kass."

  "Neither was she, that's what I'm saying. Loosing the old musky glory?" Her nose wrinkled. "Don't know how or why whatever they did to you works. You smell like an ox in rut to me."

  "While you look like you lost a hundred duels to first blood," he countered. "And talk the talk that would earn them."

  "Pah, I earned these learning the hard way how not to earn any more. Now the only blood I taste's when I ask for the brothel's red wine discount, if you know what I mean." She held her fingers apart and lapped between them.

  He walked away shaking his head. "How did I get partnered up with you again?"

  "Because everyone else got so bound up they'd try to rape you every time you went to sleep? You were the one who told me about that last fellow they partnered you with who kept waking you up to..." She tilted her head to mime sleep, then flopped her limp hand against her face repeatedly.

  "I don't understand it. I've seduced dozens of married women, and men even, yet she..." He waved his hands. "Enough. Doesn't matter now."

  "Agreed. Besides, why's it always about you?" She thrust a finger at him. "You're the one who couldn't fight off a pack of three-legged kittens. And who smells like a goat. A wet goat. A wet goat in heat. A wet goat in heat soaked in-"

  "Okay, okay, I get it. Enough, I said. Back to the Inviolate."

  Kass grinned wickedly, but dropped it. "Yeah? Back to you screwing up the screwing bit? What now?"

  "Now we try a different approach. One I hoped we wouldn't have to recourse to." He began walking away, stripping off his damp outer layer. Everything underneath plastered to him.

  "Approach from behind?"

  He ignored her.

  "You see that braille on her wrist? She rubbed it as she drew away."

  Kass followed, their gang of what-passed-for-muscle tagging uncertainly behind. "Husband's name?"

  He pursed his lips. "I doubt it. From my read, if we took him out she'd probably track us down just to thank us. No, someone else she actually cares about."

  "A kid." Kass nodded and grinned. "We nab her kid."

  "Nab her kid," Adonissian echoed, frowning. He hated to resort to such measures. If she simply gave in to him the way everyone else had they could've walked a different path. "We'll have to stop by the Vale Walkers. Get a 'nail for the Stacks."

  "Can't you commandeer us a Valeer?"

  Adonissian laughed at the absurdity. "That's way, way outside my authority and budget both. Would make things much easier though."

  "Easy doesn't pay as well in work as it does in women." Kass grinned, slouched off to deal with their restless, sullen hires.

  While Kass disarmed, paid, and dispersed the locals, Adonissian sagged against the wall, rubbing his temples and reflecting darkly on his situation. The man who could seduce anyone rejected for the first time on the most critical assignment ever entrusted to him and his only companion the only person in The All who found him repulsive.

  "All done." Kass wandered back, tying a cord around the bundle of crude spears and long, sheathed knives she'd scrounged up for the job. "After you, oh Irresistible One."

  She launched into her usual obnoxious, foul-mouthed stories as they made their way back to the main Annalis compound. Pretending to listen, Adonissian fought back the despair and loneliness always looming just out-of-mind.

  When he'd volunteered to become a Phero, the bitter irony would never have crossed his mind: the gift that allowed him access to anyone's body meant he could never truly gain anyone's heart. Those in his thrall might not know the difference, but he couldn't not.

  "Take care how big you wish," he muttered. "Lest what you gain replace something of far greater value you never knew you wanted."

  Kass paused mid-gesture. "What was that?"

  "Nothing, continue. Can't wait to hear what happened after you punched him in the cock."

  As she launched back in he fell inward, his thoughts spiraling down and down and down.

  Next chapter: Let the sexiness begin?

  Characters and terms

  Characters (alphabetical)

  Adonissian: a Phero who poses as a travelling musician

  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

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

  Fallon: Aida's Seneschal

  Hassani: Inviolate agent of the Black Court

  Inro: Dynast formerly ruling Sunset

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

  Kass/Kassenia: mercenary attached to Adonissian

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

  Parathas: Aida's skinscribe. Also a mountaineer.

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

  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. Arrivals 'Dirt' home to new dispatches, Archives 'Dust' storage for old material. Paths and Ways storage for 'nails.

  Arborian: gardeners from Groves?

  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: the 1,000 verses ruled by the Dynasty. "Kiloverse"

  Broadcliff, Tallmarket: cities in Stacks

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

  Cerebrist: creator of slavants

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

  Chant of Innoculation: chant supposed to protect against disease

  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?

  ConMach: convoy?

  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"?

  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.

  Dynasty: the Dynasts who rule the Book

  Ebon: founder of the Dynasty and Black Court

  Ebonese: the language of the Book

  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: ?

  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

  Gonist: organ dealers and traders

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

  High Parser: officials from Ink

  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

  Jutland Reach: a verse with guns?

  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

  Limn: "infused clay" bearing some sort of internal power, used by Ebon to found the Dynasty

  Lineage: ?

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

  Logos: ?

  Machine Curse: ?

  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"

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

  Optomime: gadgeteer?

  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.

  Phero: individuals whose scent creates overwhelming attraction

  'pillar: fuzzy Sect-bred giant caterpillar pet

  Porcelain Guard: Ocyl's white-masked Ferals

  Pure Priest of the Ascen: priests?

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

  Reconquest: time 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

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

  Sixth Tier Rebellion: last major uprising, in Ziggurat a century ago

  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: ?

  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: travel route accessed by Ebon via Limn?

  Sunset: the verse where Aj was 'contained', formerly protected by Dynast Inro. The "Prison of Prisons"

  Sunset Legions/Vault 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

  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.

  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

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

  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"

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

  Ziggurat: the verse basing the Legions