"Great, finally," Aida panted. She looked at Eth. "How many people can this thing wrap up and take... Gr. You're never going to stop doing that, are you?"

The Imminent rolled her eyes by way of answer. "Enough means as many as this space will allow."

"How many is en-" Aida stopped herself and looked around the wide spot in the canyon from which the Thorn sprouted. "They're going to have to still pack pretty tight or make several trips to fit everyone."

"No time for that," Ryk snapped. "The Legion trackers are watching us and are probably reporting to Sava as we speak. Advance units of the Legion will arrive in under ten minutes. Would have been here already if the main force of the Mother's Militant hadn't launched an attack on their base camp at the primary Berujat Thorn a while back."

She raised her hands to him and mouthed what's your deal? Regaining her composure took great difficulty. "Who exactly are these Mother's Militant? All I know is what I heard and saw when a dozen dudes shouted it then charged in to fight three times their number and let the rest of us escape."

"Allies." Whipping his eyes away, he stormed off back through the refugees beginning to pool up around the Thorn. "I'll go do what I can to buy a couple more minutes with whatever's left of them."

"Allies. Great, thanks, perfect. Why don't you go do that?"

After he pushed through them, only Ghillie's body language that anyone could read as dangerous and her gleaming needles kept the free people from mobbing Aida. A group of those who had followed her from the One-Eighth pushed forward to encircle her and keep the others at bay so she could talk with what was left of her ragtag leadership cadre. They'd dwindled now down to Wake, Parathas, and Eth. And Parathas was busy needling dots into his leg.

"Sava. Isn't she the one who rules that Libriam place I heard about?" Aida said, her mind drifting back to the orgy in the Jadeye. She vaguely recalled Ocyl pointing her out as the woman sailed aloft trailing silk and two redheaded servants.

"We burned the Annalis to the ground," Wake said, rising tall. "She likely has nothing else to do but command a Vale Legion now. Speaking of nothing else to do, where are we going?"

She gestured at the slowly-unfolding Thorn. "If we head to the Black Court, all of my people there who captured it have echoseers. The Legions wouldn't dare try to fight us if we holed up there."

"I'm sure our hair-string arrangement where you work with us now would totally hold strong if we did that too," Aida said dryly. "I just blasted a few of your friends apart back in the arena, ruined whatever was left of your plans to fight the Ancients in the process, then took you captive. We'll go to the Black Court and while we're blind in the dark we'll just hold out our arms and await the snuggles and kisses I'm sure."

Wake's expression managed to mix disdain, annoyance, and an insulting hint of respect. Aida rolled her eyes. Did the woman think her such an incompetent boob that she couldn't predict what would happen?

"We can head to the One-Eighth then. I don't think these people can make it much farther." She forced herself to remain detached with difficulty as she regarded the ex-slaves' flu-wracked, emaciated, beaten, battle-wounded, mostly-naked forms. Looking at the kids crying at their parent's knees - or worse, huddled up on their own with no one to shelter them - stirred a cold fury inside Aida that she tamped down to a tight simmer.

She wheeled on Wake and thrust a finger at one of the children. "How can you look yourself in the mirror knowing this has been going on the whole time you've been alive? Does that little girl's suffering mean nothing to you?"

A warning thrum began in her strings. "And if you say a Pale slave is little different from a Pale menial or some other degrading thing to that effect I'm going to blast you halfway down the ravine and leave whatever's left of you for Sava."

Whatever Wake had been about to say ended before it started in a clack of teeth.

"Figured," Aida said, turning to Eth.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"Nope," Eth said as Aida began to speak.

"Can't you just tell me where we go to save..." Aida closed her eyes and took three deep breaths. Considering the brutal, endless battle that had been their exodus from the arena, Viviana's sudden death that Alerestro arbitrarily blamed on her, Ryk's sudden hostility, Wake's snobbish calousness, and Eth's... Ethness, she wasn't sure how she was holding herself together at all. She felt like crying, breaking something, or bursting out laughing at how ridiculous it was that she of all people was at the heart of all of this.

"Okay, so we take these people to the One-Eighth-"

"-followed immediately by Sava's Vale Legion which slaughters everyone in the One-Eighth." Eth finished for her. "Try again."

"Graves," Wake said reasonably. "Between the ash-haze from the crematoriums, the mausoleum cities, and the burial labyrinths, even the Legion's Scentsors won't be able to find us."

"Scentsors?" Aida said, turning back to Wake. "I'm assuming they're some sort of bloodhound? Can they track through the Vale?"

"Yes. Pretty much the only thing we know that can do so aside from an Imminent."

"I'm surprised Imminents can be that useful," Aida said, flicking a glance at Eth. The Imminent already had her tongue stuck out when Aida looked her way. "I'm sure said Imminent already has a reason why Graves won't work?"

"It works," Eth said. A long silence followed while Aida waited for the punchline. Aida used the moment to glance at the Thorn's progress, impressed by its' ability to expand. Nearly half their remnant already stood within its curling reach but its expansion seemed to slow to a painful creep as it grew larger.

Just when Aida opened her mouth to speak, Eth finished her thought. "Graves works. If you don't mind them blockading the Thorns and trapping you there. You sit among the dead while the people who followed you there starve, trapped until Graves is the only verse the Ancients don't control. Then they come for you."

"You could have just said 'it doesn't work'," Aida grumped before turning back to Wake. "So where would you go, Wake? What's the stronghold for the Rags? Where are your forces concentrated?"

"Here," Wake said, gesturing at her shredded dress. "This was going to be it."

"Heh, oops," Aida said, managing an embarrassed smile. "So, was everyone there at the arena?"

Wake shrugged. "Everyone but Fixed Feli. It's really his verse, but he's been holed up in a remote fortress since the Kiss. Only people he invites can visit him and only then led blindfolded inside an enclosed sedan chair. He's essentially rented Berujat out for the last few hundred years."

"So can he help us?"

"If he wanted to, he would have already."

"Why don't we try going to him?"

Wake sighed. "Blindfolded in a sedan chair, remember? No one has any idea where his fortress is. They say anyone who finds it any other way can never leave or is killed on the spot."

"Great, guess we'll just wander through the Vale with a few hundred starving, wounded slaves then!" Aida said, turning and kicking at a random chunk of driftwood lodged against a nearby boulder. She slipped on the wet rock and splashed down to the broad, trickling stream coating the canyon's bottom.

She laughed as she stood up and wiped at the red silt now coating her ripped and blood-stained pants. "Perfect. Figures. Last pair of pants and... pants!"

The shouts, clanks, and cries of combat echoed down the canyon. With it, the tired slaves lurched forward, packing in against the Thorn so tightly, Aida, Wake, Eth, and Parathas shifted to the edge of the Thorn's reach to avoid being trampled.

"Pants?" Wake asked as she stood on tiptoe, seeking to spot the combat over the heads of the terrified masses huddled about the Thorn.

"Ink," Aida said. "They're neutral, right?"

"Always," Wake said, but shook her head. "And certainly they want to stay that way not have us show up in one of their verses with a starving horde of slaves in tow."

"We won't," Aida said, seeing Ryk and a handful of what had to be Mother's Militant fighting a running rearguard action against the brightly-painted shield wall and forest of advancing spears that was a Legion phalanx. "I have a couple of those Valeer's 'nail thingies. Send the slaves to the One-Eighth with one of them while we head to Ink."

"They'll follow us," Wake said. "And Ink will hand us over rather than fight."

"What if we offer them something worth enough to fight on our side?" Aida said, mind racing.

Wake laughed bitterly. "Like what?"

"Well... I imagine you lost some Dynasts when the platform blew up."

"When you blew up the platform. Of course we did. And?"

"And you've lost others fighting the Ancients I'd imagine."

Wake blinked repeatedly, clearly trying and failing to predict the course of Aida's train of thought. "Yes?"

"So you probably have a dozen or two verses without owners you could trade. We'll just throw verses at them until they decide we're worth fighting for."

Wake started to say something in reply, but the world began to shift and blur. Aida saw Ryk turn and sprint, diving under the Thorn's arcing reach just as Berujat shrunk to nothing and the Vale expanded to replace it.