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."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"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.