Sunspire Mountains he threw me on the needle bed, across my dress he laid

Orlaith painted enough of a picture of her past life that Riley could accurately guess she had never been a good fit for the court. How she had ended up there was a story for another timeline, if Riley was ever the type to ask -- but even now, he could see she was a phoenix among butterflies, and it was simply a matter of time before her fuse burned short.

He had limited empathy. It was not his nature, and she had not been entirely kind to him - but she was here now, so he did not disparage her or press his thumb deeper into any fresh wounds. He supposed that karma had a strange way of working; he had been brutally forced out of the fae's clade by this wolf, and now she found herself without a home.

A nicer wolf might have offered condolences. A smarter wolf would have sneered at the enticing irony. Riley simply accepted it as what it was: the way the world worked. One way you were riding to the top, and the next day you were at a new low.

"Aren't warriors bad?" Riley suddenly asked, realizing he had very little perspective on this matter. Every warrior he had met had been cruel or malicious. She had hated the Saints, and that was comprised almost solely of warriors (some sluts too, to use Orlaith's verbiage). "I have never met a kind one." Riley remarked, a bitterness in his mouth.