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Your mother told you that you'd always loved the rain.
You remember staring out the window in awe during thunderstorms, and you remember your sister dragging you away from the door; you wanted to be closer to the boom, closer to the energy that fizzed and crackled between dirt and sky.
Sometimes the whole house trembled from the force of the noise, rousing your father from his notes and books to tell stories about bored gods playing a game, bouncing planets into each other just for fun. You remember thinking that maybe your world would tilt and roll over, that maybe you'd go to sleep on the ceiling and eat your meals upside down.
You were a boisterous child, loud and gregarious, loving the sound of your own voice shouting, loving the thump of your feet on the ground. Rain calmed you, fascinated you, and you'd stop to watch it, sitting outside in the safety of thick, leafy kalah fronds and listening to its rhythms. Once a prickle-armored toad as big as your head surprised you there, and you froze, heart pounding, but it didn't hiss or ready for attack, just rested in the dry space for long minutes, mouth open and panting, then disappeared into the grass.
During training, your task master led you on hikes into the mountains, where hard, sharp rain stung your cheeks, and then down into the stretch of desert between cities, where it was oppressively hot and you wanted to shout with delight when the wind picked up and a sweet, clean rain kissed your face, though it lasted only minutes.
You loved rain because it was always different: a light patter, the ting! as it struck the metal roof; a heavier drizzle that forced everyone indoors, while you crept into the garden; an angry, lashing rainfall that left destruction in its wake; the whip of wind that preceded a cold, cleansing storm.
Your mother died in the rainy season. Sitting on the front window-bench in your childhood home, you watched water streaking down the panes, blurring everything outside; you remember how your sister wrapped you in furs and pressed glass after glass of hot apple jarsa into your hands. You drank it all down, and you did not cry, not until four moons after your mother's leaving-day, when water misted down so softly against your skin that it felt like the caress of her hand.
It rained on what was supposed to be your wedding day, a hard, punishing rain that beat against your naked back as you knelt in the mud by the altar. You were on duty that night and you didn't go, didn't care what happened, had no fear of the consequences. You only knew grief.
Kell should have ordered your execution, and right now, you wish that he had.
The cave you found is nothing more than a depression in the rock face of a steep cliff. You've fitted yourself in it by rounding your shoulders uncomfortably, legs folded up, with your chin on your knees. The overhang doesn't extend past your brow, and water drips onto your head. You can't start a fire; even if you could keep a flame alive, the smoke would give you away. You've seen Wraith crawl and skitter up walls like insects.
It's been raining for days, the same rain, at the same rate of downfall, and at the same temperature. This rain is not a caress. It is not clean or pure, but instead a brackish spray that leeches under your outer wrap, finding the one tear of fabric and pushing inside, a cold trickle that's worked its way down your spine. Moisture lays heavy in your hair, it soaks your clothes, and your jaw aches from clenching against the shivers.
It's been dark for days, too, the thick cloud cover lending a dusky, shadowed feel to the woods, to the wall of rock you've been clinging to, and the rain splashes steadily onto your face and you're tired and it's hard to tell if the wind is what's moving that tree over there, or if it's one of your pursuers reaching back, aiming his knife for your throat.
The gate is guarded. You lost a weapon escaping the last planet. Water drips from your eyelashes. You're not sure that your knees will unbend in time should you have to move quickly.
Your mother was wrong. You hate the rain.