Chapter 2
Tax and Trade
The weather turned against Rain when she left the ruined gates of Fallfell. Her brief time with the Sisters of Eternal Light placed hope in her mind that the once-bustling city would bounce back from the current devastation. But deep inside her heart, she felt Fallfell, like most cities and the people in them, was doomed to limp along until evil clapped its icy hand over the town.
The drizzle increased, and a biting wind blew in from the mountains to the south. “An omen,” her father would say.
When Rain was a young girl, she thought her father was full of superstition. He was always watching the weather and the animals. When something he saw wasn’t right, at least in his eyes, he would spout off about some curse or a tale of foreboding misery. At first, the way
