(Listen, if Vervain thinks he's the sinner in the room, just wait and see.)

"I could have frozen because I let a bit of damp get into my stock of firewood," Tuo gently reminds him, and if there's a touch of reprimand in his tone, it's only to coax Vervain back from the brink of taking all of the world's suffering onto his shoulders. (Pot, kettle black--he'll deal with that thought later.) "You didn't bring a blizzard or a soldiering regiment into this village." More emphatically, he insists, "You are exactly the way the gods intended for you to be."