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

Riley followed the woman's gaze outside.

A cheerless, ugly scene. Rain, pissing down from the heavens.

Riley preferred being dry and wondered if it rained like this back at the red keep.

He hoped so. He hoped it rained and flooded and carved them all out of their stupid red desert.

His attention shifted back to Orlaith; it was not often he subjected himself to deep thought, but now he did. "What is it you deserve?" Riley wondered. Such a strange expression -- yet it was pervasive in the thoughts and words of many. As if they were owed anything in this life -- as if someone measured the balance of give and take all these years -- as if there were some Higher Judgment, who decreed what was just and unjust, who deserved or didn't..

Riley thought it was all bullshit. You got what you took, and that was it.