The Age Lace Wears Silver

The Age Lace Wears Silver

From the end of The Eye of the World:

"I'm going away, Egwene.

"Where?"

"Somewhere. I don't know."

He did not want to meet her eyes but could not stop looking at her. She wore red wildroses twined in her hair, flowing about her shoulders. She held her cloak close, dark blue and embroidered along the edge with a thin line of white flowers in the Shienaran fashion, and the blossoms made a straight line up to her face. They were no paler than her cheeks; her eyes seemed so large and dark.

"Away."

Rand was stalling. A full week had passed since he had proclaimed his intention to leave Fal Dara. As Rand saw it, he had a responsibility to leave and find some isolated place to go mad in, from which he could harm no one. Rand flinched each time he thought of his fate, but there was no avoiding what had awaited every man who could channel since the Breaking of the World.

Shifting in the darkness of the men's quarters, he wrapped himself more tightly in his blankets. It was so cold in the Borderlands.

Too cold to leave now. I’ll go in the morning, he thought vaguely.

A woman’s scream woke him abruptly. Rand sat up with his heart violently racing. He looked around, ready to jump from bed and run to the aid of a lady in distress. Yet the men continued sleeping, and there was no unrest in the hallways.

There had been no scream, but he had heard it. He had heard it as he had thought of the danger he posed to his friends and everyone who knew him. There had been no screaming woman in Fal Dara, Rand thought, but there would be if he stayed.

He would not, could not, wait until the morning. If he decided on the morning, then he would find a reason to stay. He was wary of himself, and he was wary of Moiraine. Although she seemed to be ignoring him, he felt, instinctively, that she wasn't as oblivious to his movements as he might like.  She knew what he was, and Rand worried that she would come to her senses and at last call upon her fellow Aes Sedai to gentle him.

He thought of Logain, throwing back his head and laughing as he vanished from the world. Rand drew his knees up to his chest, clutching them as if to hold himself in place.

Finally, he thought of his Mat and Perrin, the boys he had grown up with. He didn't want them to know what he was, didn't want to see the awful wariness and hidden fear that so often flashed in the eyes of Nynaeve and Egwene. Mat and Perrin must not know, and neither could anyone else.

He would leave. Now.

He felt certainty click into place like a key into a lock. Unwrapping himself from his blankets, Rand carefully began to pack, stuffing clothing and possessions into a sack, dressing quickly and strapping on the belt for the sword he barely knew the use of. At last he opened to the door to the men’s quarters and slipped into the Borderland night.

The city guards were reluctant to open the gates for him. They claimed that it was forbidden; only Shadowspawn walked the night.

Rand told them that he was on Aes Sedai business.

“You’re certain that Moiraine Sedai said to leave by night?” the guard on the right side repeated. He had already asked twice.

“Yes, very certain,” Rand insisted. “If you like, I can go wake her. Bring her down here…”

“No, no, that won’t be necessary,” the guard on the left said. His voice was caught somewhere between a grumble and a gasp.

Together the two guards reluctantly eased open the north gate. Rand crossed out of the city limits immediately, before they could change their minds.

“Moiraine Sedai knows that I’m leaving, but no one else needs to know,” Rand said once he was on the other side.

He thought of what Mat or Thom or Moiraine might do and slipped the men each one of the coins in his purse. The guards made appreciative noises, assuring him that they would tell no one. The coins were only poor steel, not silver, but it was all that Rand had. The men would at least keep quiet until someone asked after him directly.

He was on foot, but he had the whole night to move, and by sunrise, Rand had put a dozen miles between himself and the fortress gates.

He did not look back.

Moiraine Demodred was awoken by a rough knocking on her door. Dawn light was just beginning to creep through the heavy drapes on her window, and she yawned as she stood, slowly pulling on a blue silk kimono embroidered with cranes and lilies.

Halfway to the door, the knock came again, louder. It was Lan; it could be no one else. No only could she sense her Warder, but no other man would dare to wake her so early without a battle raging close by.

“This had better be good,” she warned as she pulled open the door.

Lan met her with an expression fundamentally grimmer than his usual stoic mien, and Moiraine tensed. She knew at once that something terrible had happened.

“The shepherd is gone.”

“What?” Moiraine whispered.

“He is gone.”

The Aes Sedai clutched the doorframe, leaning all of her weight against it as she felt the strength drain from her body. Lan’s arm shot out to catch her before she could fall.

Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, potentially the most dangerous man alive, had slipped out from under her thumb. She had thought herself clever, making him malleable by ignoring him. Al’Thor was young, still barely more than a boy, young enough to look for approval from his elders and flounder without guidance.

So she had thought.

“I’ve underestimated him, Lan,” she said, shaking her head. She felt the whisper of her hair on the fine back of her dressing gown, and heard it like the whisper of the Black Wind, condemning her. “I thought…the old blood is strong. But his was never the blood of Manetheren. His was something far more ancient. That was what the Prophecies said. Born of the ancient blood, raised by the old blood.”

She looked at her Warder and, for the first time in twenty years, felt helpless.

"We will find him, Moiraine.”

Moiraine closed her eyes and nodded. Slowly, her heartbeat returned to normal, and her head began to make new plans.

She was Aes Sedai. She had access to the most perfect method of hunting one such as Rand. The Red Ajah. Immediately, she discarded the notion. Even knowing who the boy was, Lews Therin Telamon reborn to flesh, Moiraine was certain the Reds would gentle him and destroy their only weapon against the Dark One.There were such fools among the Reds. Not all of them, but enough.

So Moiraine would send soldiers instead, bounty hunters. She would weaponize her spy network, do whatever it took, make every sacrifice.

Yes, she would do those things. She had to.

The future of the world lay balanced on the Dragon’s back.

Yet months passed and Moiraine found nothing. The boy could not have been more than half a day ahead of her, but the trail he left was like a man years gone. The ta'veren effect had turned against the Aes Sedai, and no matter what she did al'Thor eluded her.

The Wheel continued to turn.

Mat Cauthon was healed on his attachment of the Shadar Logoth dagger. Yet having lost the Dragon, Moiraine’s hold on the other two boys unravelled, as Balefire unravelled the Age Lace. Aybara and Cauthon refused to support Moiraine, claiming that she only wanted to 'put Rand back on an Aes Sedai leash.' She spoke honeyed words in their ears, words that had always been enough to obtain what she needed.

Now, it was as if they were just that—words. Only words. The boys walked away, while Moiraine stood with her mouth open and watched them go.

The two young women at least Moiraine persuaded to go to the White Tower and train as Aes Sedai. They would need them for the coming fight, she knew. 

Only a day later, Darkfriends broke into the Fal Dara and just barely failed to take the Horn of Valere. Suian Sanche relocated both the girls and the Horn to the Tower, but not before flying into a rage at Moiraine, furious at the far greater loss of Rand. Moiraine, knowing that Suian was right, volleyed bitter words at the woman who had been her dearest friend. A wall went up between them, and Moiraine despaired of ever crossing it.

The Horn of Valere sat in the White Tower. Darkfriends and Trollocs appeared with increasing frequency, and on the coasts, armies of terrible people who called themselves Seanchan began to make landfall.

7 years after The Eye of the World

Darkness advanced upon the world, but some things never did change. The Two Rivers was the same remote and close-knit community that it had always been, situated so far to the west of Andor that most residents were unaware they fell under Queen Morgase's mandate. The Two Rivers’ people often waited a year or more between bouts of news from the outside. Nestled next under phaunting silhouettes of the Mountains of Mist, they celebrated Bel Tine and Sunday, marriages and births, deaths, happiness and sorrow.

In the cool autumn breezes that swept over Emond's Field was carried those same tears and laughter. The smell of the changing leaves and the fleeting birdsong from larks and robins migrated inexorably to the Winespring Inn, in which Bran and Marin al'Vere sat in the otherwise empty dining room, talking with Tam al'Thor over a lunch of thick stew and fresh bread.

"Getting the farm ready for the breeding season?" asked the Mayor.

"Aye, looks like it’ll be a good one. I should have about three dozen ewes ready and four rams.”

“There’ll be plenty of tender young lambs come next Bel Tine from the sound of it.”

“If all goes well.”

His plate finished, Tam loaded his pipe and lit it, staring into the distance as Bran shot him a sad look from the corner of his eye. Tam hadn't been the same these last years, not since Egwene had sent a letter from the White Tower saying that Rand had disappeared, and remained lost despite the best efforts of the Aes Sedai. Everyone knew that Tam had cared deeply for Rand, who had been his only child, to one on whom he had lavished all of his care and experience.

Though no body had been found, Tam had more than once expressed his certainty that Rand would have contacted him if he were still alive. Marin and Bran were inclined to agree. The other boys, Mat and Perrin, had visited their families once or twice, and Egwene sent letters, but there was no one to visit Tam. They shared in their friend's sorrow, both al'Veres having been fond of Rand themselves. The tall, red-haired boy had been their first pick for Egwene’s husband, and Marin still complained bitterly that she had not been careful enough with her daughter. If Rand and Egwene had married as soon as they were able, none of this would have happened, she insisted. Bran wasn’t sure about that, but the events of Winternight those seven years ago still left a sour taste in his mouth.

Tam puffed onward, casting his eyes to the walls and nodding again to himself as he contemplated something that he didn’t care to share. Eventually Marin stood and began to gather plates from the table, removing the evidence of their lunch.

She stopped and looked up as the inn's main door opened, letting in a crisp breeze, and Bran followed her gaze to the man who stood in the opening. His face was obscured by the bright sunlight streaming in with him. In a way he seemed to absorb the light, so that the slim form of the woman behind and to the side of him almost disappeared. The man himself was very tall, broad shouldered, radiating power and control.

"Hello, Father." That deep voice, filled with the same power, rang through the room as Rand al'Thor strode inside.

        Tam stood on wobbling legs, releasing his pipe to gape outright. That this was Rand he had no doubt, but the man before him had changed so entirely that he was not certain he would have recognized his own son if they had passed in the streets of Cairhien or Caemlyn. Rand would be twenty-seven now, but he could easily have passed for thirty. He was hard faced and hard bodied, dressed in fine black garments embroidered with silver thread, with a rich green cloak around his shoulders. He looked a king, Tam thought, strong willed and self-assured, no one to be trifled with.

"Rand?" he whispered, "Lad? Is it really you?"

"It's me," Rand’s voice hardly changed, despite the slight smile that snaked across his face. The flesh seemed to resist that smile. Tam, though a war veteran, held back a flinch with effort as those blue-grey eyes pinned him. For the first time, he thought that Rand looked Aiel, and he forgot his son and saw only a dangerous predator. Then Rand advanced, those cold grey eyes softening just enough, and engulfed him in a warm embrace.

This was his son! Alive! The image of the Aiel vanished, and Tam clutched Rand to him furiously, pouring all of his longing for his lost child into the embrace. A few tears escaped Tam’s eyes, but he was not ashamed. His son had come home.

“Father,” Rand whispered.

Tam pushed back at last, wiping at his eyes. “Rand, lad,” he said, shaking his head.

And then Bran was pulling Rand into a rough embrace, saying how much he’d been missed, bursting into a flood of tears even greater than Tam’s.

"We thought you were dead," Marin said, more sturdily. But she repeatedly wiped her hands on her apron, and Tam could see that they were shaking.

A light clearing of the throat drew their attention to the woman that Rand had walked in with.

"Many have believed it so. He is not so easily destroyed as that.”

Tam turned his eyes to the woman and felt his mouth fall open. Although he soon regained control over himself, he remained astonished. The woman was the more lovely than any he had seen in his life. Even the high ladies of the Queen of Andor’s court could not compare to this person, who was almost inhumanly attractive. She was very tall and had long, glossy black hair that dramatically contrasted with her flawless, pale skin. Her eyes were almost as dark as her hair, her lips rich red, and her hands, hanging at her sides, were as long-fingered and slender as her figure. She wore a white gown, and a silver belt. Like the decorative trim on Rand's coat, delicate silver embroidery lined her skirt and the bodice of her dress, and a simple silver band with a small stone, blacker than a starless night, adorned her right ring finger.

Tam thought that she must be a queen, except that he had seen queens, and even they failed to compare.

"Are you going to introduce us to your lady companion, lad?”

"Of course," he said simply. "This is. . .Selene.”

"I am his wife." Selene smiled at Tam, and he saw steel that smile. "And you must be my father-in-law. I've heard so much about you."

Tam's fumbled for his pipe again and he lit it to occupy his hands while he struggled to process her words.

"Well," he said after a moment, "I haven't heard anything about you, but I'd like to hear it now. Sit down," he gestured to a chair at the table.

"Thank you." Selene spoke with a cool dignity as she took her seat, while Rand glanced questioningly at the al'Veres.

"Sit down, Rand." Bran nodded at the man, gesturing with an open palm as if to say that, while this was not the boy they had known, the al’Thors were always welcome at their table.

Rand nodded graciously, but his momentary warmth drained away, and he seemed grim and distant once more.

Marin was the first to recover. "Where have you been all this time while you let your poor father sit here and think you were resting in an early grave."

She pinned Rand with a glare that might have shaken a Wisdom, but it seemed to slide from Rand like water off a duck.

"Andor. Caemlyn. The Bordlerlands. Even the Aiel Waste,” he said, levelling a significant look at Tam, who sighed and nodded his head, acknowledging what was implied.

So. His son knew.

“All over, really,” Rand said, shifting his regard back to Marin.

"Well, when were you were married then?” she pressed, floundering when he failed to react to her indignation.

Rand leaned back, looking up at the ceiling as if he had to think about it, while Selene pinned a cross look to the side of his head. He glanced at her and grinned, tugging on his earlobe.

"Three years ago this past summer,” Selene said primly.

Marin scowled. "You've been married for three years, and you didn't even come home to let your father know before now? Have you taken leave of your senses, Rand? Maybe people outside of the Two Rivers hold with that sort of conduct, but we’ve always been more civilized here.”

Tam felt the chill from Rand before he saw his son’s expression close up again, turn unyielding.

"I could not risk coming back. I have powerful enemies, the same enemies who attacked Emond’s Field that night I left. They have pursued me across the continent and even beyond it. Do not harangue me what for what you do not understand.”

Marin turned pale and uncertain, and Tam could see her caught between the indignation of being chastised like a young girl in her own house, and a fear that she could not dismiss. This was not the boy that she had known.

“Lad,” Tam chided softly.

Rand’s shoulders slumped, and some of the steel went out of his spine. He waved a tired hand through the air.

“My apologies Mistress al’Vere. I’m very tired.”

“No need for apologies,” Bran blustered. Marin shot him a little look from the corner of one eye but nodded and dared to reach out and pat Rand on the hand.

“That’s why I never came back,” Tam’s son explained. “I dared not bring eyes down on Emond’s Field again. Mat and Perrin were caught up in the matter, but I suspect they threw off the mantle of pursuit years ago. Have they returned to Emond's Field at all?"

"Sometimes, they visit,” Tam said slowly “They're still out exploring the world, but they do visit. Now, what enemies are you talking about, lad? You could hardly have been making outlander enemies as a mere lad in Emond's Field, so how did it come about "

"It was to do with the Dark One," Rand said.

Marin and even Bran gasped, making the sign to ward off evil, while Selene frowned at her husband. He patted her hand, but she tugged irritably away from his touch.

"We were all ta'veren, you see, all three of us. But if they have returned even once, then what I suspected is true and Mat and Perrin are no longer ta'veren. The Pattern no longer Weaves itself about them.”

"What about Egwene and the Wisdom? Ah, Nynaeve,” Tam corrected him. Even years after she had left, he still called her the Wisdom. “You could have sent notice through them."

Rand released a sardonic bark of laughter. "That would involve contact with the White Tower. And I want nothing to do with these "Aes Sedai.”

There was something peculiarly insincere about how he referred to the White Tower women, as though he disbelieved that they were Aes Sedai.

Selene too scoffed. "They're nothing but children playing with fire."

"Of course, my love." Rand glanced at Selene through the shimmering veil of his eyes, now gray, now blue. She frowned at him once more, and a silent debate took place between them, ending with her reluctant nod.

“Well,” Bran cleared his throat awkwardly. “I can understand about not wanting to get involved with Aes Sedai again, but Egwene and Nynaeve are Emond's Fielders. They would pass on the message, you know that."

"Do you think that the White Tower does not open every letter that passes through the hands of its students?" Selene said. Her voice was soft, but not gentle.

“Be that as it may," Tam said, glancing away from his new daughter-in-law, "Do you intend to stay home now?"

"Home,” Rand echoed. “No, Father. I cannot. I have secured a few days for us, but I cannot remain here. There are things that I must do, and I cannot do them here. As much as I would like to come. . .home."

Tam observed, unsettled, as Rand’s eyes gleamed with sudden fire. The black pupils expanded to devour the blue irises while Rand’s mouth drew into a straight, set line and his hands, spread out on the table, clenched into fists. Rand’s jaw twisted and then he abruptly relaxed, slumping bonelessly into the chair.

Marin stood abruptly, wiping her hands again on her apron. "Well, I’ll fetch you some tea, then. And how about some stew and bread after your journey?”

"No, thank you," Selene said, once more the picture of calm.

For the first time, Tam noticed that there was no dust on her gown, hands or face, such as there should be after a long journey, no rumbled garments or even large packs with them. He thought they must have left their bags with their horses, but their exceptional cleanliness was peculiar. There wasn’t even so much as a stream very close to the inn where they might have washed.

"I do not intend to be rude, Mistress," Rand said. "But we are exhausted. It would be--"

"Say no more,” Marin rushed to respond. “I shall prepare a bed for you. Talk can wait." She bustled out of the dining room at an unusual clip, and Tam thought that he’d rarely seen her so relieved to leave.

"Well,” Tam said, trying to fill the silence. “This is a real surprise. I never expected to see you again, son."

"Your life meant more to me than your peace of mind.” This Rand said without a flinch, his hands still on the table.

Next to Tam, Bran al’Vere coughed, radiating palpable discomfort.

"Fair enough,” Tam said steadily, “You did what you had to do. But," he added, mock-stern. "I want to hear about your travels later."

"That is your right.”

Marin returned just then, saving Tam from answering Rand’s peculiar statement.

"Well, your room is ready. I've set up a wash basin. Let us know if you'll need the bath filled, though. There's time now to nap for a few hours before dinner is served at the Inn. What of your bags?"

"They're with the horses," Rand said.

"I'll have them brought in. Now, come along."

Rand stood. "Thank you.”

Selene rose in one long motion, following them out of the room and up the stairs as her white gown fluttered around her with liquid grace, and the silver embroidery glittered in those snatches of golden autumn light that beamed through the windows. Yet the room seemed easier to Tam once they had departed, as though some darkness had been lifted. Tam frowned at the thought, puffing contemplatively on his pipe.

"Well, she's certainly pretty," Bran offered.  

"She is that. Doesn't say much, but she seems to know where she’s at.”

"Your boy is looking well.”

Tam shook his head. “I don't think I can call him a boy anymore, Bran, but I worry he stumbled across more harm than help, out there in the world. He's different now, and it can’t all be explained by growing up.”

The eyes of the two men met across the table, and an unseen agreement to keep an eye on the situation passed between them. Tam resisted the urge to talk further; he was struck by a peculiar sense of danger, as if speaking of his concerns out loud might draw unseen eyes and ears.

Marin’s feet creaked on the stairs before she arrived, and Tam lifted an eyebrow in her direction.

"They’re settled in now. But I'll tell you this, Tam: there's something more to this than—” she broke off as Tam lifted a finger to his lips, pleading for quiet and throwing a look up the stairs.

Marin grimaced and hushed her voice.  "I tell you I don't like it. He isn't my son, but this needs a woman to figure it out."

"If there is something, it's Rand's business.”

"If the boy is in some trouble, Tam al'Thor, he isn't going to share it without you pulling it out of him. He let you think him dead for seven years, and if that isn't as muley stubborn a man as I’ve ever seen, then nothing is.”

"Oh, Marin, don’t be silly," Bran said, ignoring his wife’s dangerous look. "Rand was travel weary, that's all. He'll be in fine form once he gets a bit of rest."

Marin turned her attention entirely on Bran, missing Tam’s urgent gesture for silence.  “Don’t you tell me what he’ll be doing, Bran al’Vere! I don't like the way that girl Selene acted, and I don't like the looks they were giving each other. It's like she wanted to say something that he didn't want her to. They're involved in more than the usual kind of trouble. It's Aes Sedai trouble, I'll bet," she nodded, seeming to have made up her mind.

"If he has something to say, Marin, then I'll give him the chance to say it in his own time," Tam said, at last giving up on diverting Marin. "I won't spy on my own son, and I won't have another do it, either.”

The Mayor's wife sat down heavily, all the hot air leaving her at once. "Oh, very well, Tam. I just hope that he takes that chance.”

"So do I," Tam grunted.

He was saved from hearing more when, for the second time that day, the front door opened. Two women filed inside. One, wrapped up in a green silk travelling gown, had dark eyes, and equally dark brown hair hanging loose about her shoulders. The second woman had long black hair plaited into a single thick and intricate braid. Her travelling gown was dark blue silk, and her face was set and stubborn. Each woman wore a Great Serpent ring.

"Egwene!" Bran shouted, followed closely by Marin.

"Egwene, Wisdom,” Tam said, less exuberant but hardly less warm.

"Hello.” The newcomers spoke almost in the same breath; Nynaeve glared at the younger woman, who promptly closed her mouth.

"We decided to take a visit home,” the former Wisdom of Emond’s Field explained.

"I'm an Accepted now,” Egwene beamed.

She ignored Nynaeve's glare, stuck like an arrow in the back of her head as both young women moved to sit. But even Nynaeve could not contain her visible pleasure when Egwene next spoke. The words burst from Bran and Marin’s daughter in one delighted swoop, landing in the centre of the table like a vivid and astonishing bird.

"And Nynaeve has joined the Yellow Ajah. She's Aes Sedai!"

Aes Sedai. Three thousand years after the Breaking, it was still  a title to inspire fear and hatred, yet alongside that fear lived respect for those chosen few with the strength to channel and master the One Power. There were plenty enough who died in the quest that to succeed was awe-inspiring, and now here were two young women of Emond's Field who had studied at the White Tower: one who strove for that fearsome title, and another, who had achieved it.

"Congratulations, Nynaeve Sedai.” Tam hid the complexity of his feeling behind a warm smile.

"Thank you, Master al'Thor.," she answered.

The al'Veres said the same before turning to their daughter, beaming over her hard work, and the fact that she was closer than ever to her goal. They made no mention of the controversial nature of her ambition. It had all been said long ago.

"Accepted can leave the Tower sometimes, so I decided to come home and share the news in person. Nynaeve just wanted to get away from other Aes Sedai.” Egwene grinned with an impishness that would not have looked amiss on Mat Cauthon’s face.

Nynaeve scowled and tugged her braid once, hard. Tam hid his smile in his pipe. Whatever other changes place and time may have wrought, Nynaeve, it seemed, was still Nynaeve.

"Well, I take it you’ve left your bags with your horses too, hmm?”

"Too?” Egwene asked. “I knew there were outsiders here.”

“Why do you say that?” Marin asked.

“There are two horses in the stable that don’t look local. A black stallion and a white mare, with very fine saddles hung next to them, one in white leather.”

"White leather,” Nynaeve scoffed. “Honestly, of all the impractical airs.”

“So, is there someone here?” Egwene asked.

Tam exchanged a quick look with Bran, who shrugged helplessly.

“Yes,” Tam said at last. “It’s Rand. He's alive. And he's brought a wife home with him.”

Although he had expected some mixed reaction to the news of a wife, Tam was taken aback to see horror bloom upon the women’s faces. Egwene covered her mouth with one of her hands, her eyes widening, and Nynaeve seemed to freeze altogether.

"Rand is alive?" Egwene whispered.

"Is he. . .well?" Nynaeve asked.

"I am quite well," Rand said, stepping into the room.

"Rand, lad, I thought you were gone to rest,” Bran said. His voice sounded unnaturally hearty and full of cheer.

"I was, but Selene. . .heard something, and I decided to investigate. Hello, Egwene. Wisdom.” He smiled at them in a curiously false manner.

"Rand!" Egwene gasped again while Nynaeve looked sick.

"It’s been so long. We have much to catch up on. I've promised my father that I will tell him something of my travels. Perhaps you'd like to hear as well.”

"That would nice." Egwene looked very pale, almost dizzy. Tam’s eyes narrowed as he considered what manner of monster might be swimming beneath these still waters.

"Rand,” Nynaeve said, “I didn't expect you would marry. Consider the danger you’re in.”

"I assure you, Wisdom, my wife can look after herself." A faint smile snaked across Rand’s face, as though he knew something that no one else did, as though he were dreaming.

"Be that as it may, you take great chances," the Aes Sedai said.

"I do not take chances, Nynaeve. I . . .rationalize. Sometimes, it succeeds. Sometimes, it does not. But I do not take chances."

Nynaeve sniffed. "That's not what I remember."

"Many things change. Take yourself for example, Aes Sedai. I remember a time not so long ago when you scorned the ring and everyone who wore it.”

"How did you know she’s Aes Sedai?" Egwene's cheeks flushed with indignation.

"She has the manner, even if she doesn't want it."

Rand nodded at Nynaeve, and Tam followed his son’s eyes to the proud, cool stance that the former Wisdom maintained even in her irritation. It was different from her old way, less fierce and aggressive. It was a stance that did not have to demand obedience but instead commanded it effortlessly.

"You should be more respectful,” Egwene chided Rand. "Just what do you know about Aes Sedai?"

"Enough," Rand said.

"Enough for what?" Egwene frowned and crossed her arms.

"Just. . . enough.”

Tam watched the play between them and couldn’t help comparing it to something he had once seen in the forest. A wolf pup, only half-grown, confronting a bear. The fur had been up on its back and the gums drawn up over its teeth, but the bear… Just like Rand, the bear had been so calm.

Only a light rustle of clothing announced an intruder to the fierce tête-à-tête.  Selene slid into the space between them and linked her arm with Rand's. There was a cold look in her eye as she considered the new arrivals from Tar Valon.

"I am Selene.” She did not smile.

"I am Nynaeve Sedai."

"Egwene al’Vere.”  Egwene's teeth clenched together and she look fit to grind bones.

"Charmed. You never told me much about your old friends, my love.” Selene turned a fish-wife’s eye on her husband.

Rand shrugged, still unconcerned, although Tam thought now that he should be.

“I had no reason to speak of them.”

"We shall see.”  

"No, we shan't, because there is nothing to see, Selene.”

He spoke with a stress that set off bells in Tam’s head. Selene might not be the girl’s real name, or at least not all of it. He had seen enough of the royal courts in his youth to know that nobility and other highly placed people often travelled under false names.

"I will judge that for myself."

Selene shook off Rand's arm and turned to face him.

There was a crackle in the air like that feeling just before a storm, and Egwene shivered and clutched at her arms. She stumbled backwards as an immense golden field of saidar bloomed in the air. It began around the woman who claimed to be Rand’s wife but stretched on so far that it breached the walls of the dining room, spilling into the open air of the town. 

Then it was gone, vanished as abruptly as a pinched-out candle flame. Yet Egwene had seen it, and she knew that aura had been stronger than that of any Aes Sedai alive, stronger even than Nynaeve’s grasp on the Source. Nynaeve was reckoned to be the strongest sister in a thousand years, and yet this woman, who was at least twice as strong, had been effortlessly cut been cut off from the Source. By Rand. Light! How powerful was he?

"You have what you wanted," Rand said to Selene. His grey eyes regarded his wife clinically, as a scholar might regard a bug pinned to a board. "But you don't seem to like it so much. Are you finally having second thoughts, old friend?”

"I will always love you. But I doubt that that I have ever liked you."

Selene threw the words at Rand like a challenge, but she turned away at once to glare a warning at Egwene and Nynaeve before departing up the stairs in a cloud of fury hardly less potent than saidar.

Rand rubbed his face briskly. “I can't ask the time of another woman without her breaking out in hives."

"That's the married life, lad," Bran said, chuckling.

Marin shot him a dark look, and Nynaeve sniffed again.

"Speak for yourself,” Rand said, dry as dust.

“Yes, well,” Bran chuckled weakly.

Rand rubbed his neck. "I need to sleep.”

He slip away towards the door to the stairs, his tall figure in its fine clothes looking now like a threadbare scarecrow, desolate and alone. Egwene chewed on her lip, debating with herself, then ran after Rand before she could reconsider. She heard her mother call her name but ignored it in favour of catching her childhood friend by back of his coat as he put his boot on the third step.

"What do you mean by coming here?" she demanded, tugging him around to face her.

"I mean to visit my home.”

"Have you forgotten what you are? Have you completely lost your senses?"

He seemed to think about it, exasperating Egwene all the more.

“No,” he drawled. "Not quite yet.”

"And after walking out on us in the Borderlands all those years ago. You have no idea the stir that you have caused, Rand al'Thor! Moiraine has been in a panic for years!”

"Only Moiraine?” Rand looked mildly surprised.

“No, not only Moiraine! You know what I mean! Why did you leave? Where did you go?”

“Why do you think? I went away so that I would never harm you. I told you what I intended. Did you not believe me, Egwene al'Vere?"

He was as regal as the Amyrlin in that moment, and Egwene caught her breath at it. A fierce desire to have him as her own again rose up in her, and though she knew it was nothing real, she longed for it just the same. As if he could see her thoughts, Rand’s icy demeanour dissipated. One large hand rose up to cup Egwene’s cheek, and she cast her eyes down, reveling in the touch despite the danger.

"Egwene,” Rand whispered, brushing a strand of her dark hair from her face,  “Don't become close again, my friend. It is far too late, and another is given to me now. She is a jealous and dangerous woman, and I cannot always protect you."

She wanted to tell him that she did not need his protection, but she could not quite get the words past her lips.

Rand’s hand slipped from her face. When he went up the stairs this time, Egwene did not try to hold him back.

Lanfear would be waiting to confront him when he returned to their room. How tiresome her jealousy could be, Rand thought. Egwene was the girl everyone had thought he would marry, but it had been Lanfear he had said the words to, Lanfear he had wed in this life.

In this life.

He felt a smile tugging at his lips, something small and ironic. People habitually swore on the Light and their hope of rebirth. That they were born again and again, spun out as the Pattern required, most believed, but few remembered any detail of those lives. Occasionally, you might hear of a child who dreamed intensely of events before their birth, of snatches of the Old Tongue spoken in sleep, of secrets unearthed a hundred years later by a girl or boy who could not rationally explain how they knew what they knew. But such things usually faded with time, visions and dreams disappearing as children moved towards adulthood.

Aes Sedai were said to have greater control. They were rumoured to use forbidden techniques in the One Power to access their own past lives, or even to possess devices that might mechanically aid anyone in the recovery of such memories. But if the Aes Sedai had once had access to such a device, Rand did not believed they did now. Moiraine would have sacrificed a great deal to lay her hands on a ter’angreal that would make immediately clear the Dragon’s identity.  

Rand believed that it was saidin that had done for him what Moiraine could not. With each use of the Power, the border between this life and the last had thinned. The Age of Legends was alive in his mind in a way it could only be for one who had lived it.

But he had not recovered his memories soon enough to avoid the aristocratic young woman in white who had intercepted his route through the wilderness. Worried for her safety, he had made efforts to discourage the girl from following him, but she had ignored him, pursued him, rode beside him until he stopped asking her to leave.

Now he thought that he hadn’t tried hard enough. It had been a relief to have someone with him, even if she had at times been strange, temperamental, too old for her apparent age. She had said she was out to see the world while she still had the chance, alluding to some heavy responsibilities, and Rand had been drawn to her vulnerability as well as to her beauty.

And she had been so very beautiful. Beautiful, and strong enough to fight by his side when they were attacked by Fades and Trollocs and all manner of creatures that should not have been able to find him, but which regularly did. As transparent as it all seemed to Rand now, at the time he could not help but feel a growing bond between them, one which he had allowed to become tainted by passion. And how he had cursed himself when he realized it, knowing his fate of madness and death, but then Selene had said she loved him.

They had already been lovers, and Rand had done the only thing he thought right and asked her to marry him. He remembered her reaction very clearly, because even now it struck him as significant. She had been thrilled, triumphant as a hunter who had brought down her prey, but there had been a hesitation before she agreed, as if she hadn’t quite known how to feel. It was so uncharacteristic of the woman that she was now, but the uncertainty had conjured up a hint of memory, the first among thousands, of a woman who was so beautiful and talented and powerful, but who was always feeling slighted. This was a woman who had, despite her myriad accomplishments, never been awarded the coveted third name of honour because she had insulted the review committee. A woman who had pushed away her lover with anger and jealousy because she believed that he was already planning to leave her.

Rand stopped in front of the door to his room. His feet had carried him there while his mind was somewhere very far away.

Gone time travelling again, he thought, and released a long, slow breath, letting go of the memories before stepping through the door.

His wife was there, standing in front of the mirror of the washbasin, brushing her hair, with her hand wrapped around the handle of a brush made of hammered silver and boar’s hair. She had discarded the youthful disguise of “Selene” to reveal her true appearance, the lush blossom of a dark haired, moon-skinned woman in white, looking about Nyaeve’s present age, with full lips and velvet eyes bewitching enough to stop a heart.

Well, she'd stopped enough of them in her time.

"Lews Therin." Lanfear eyed him with icy malice.

"Yes?" Rand leaned up against the back of the door and crossed his arms across the front of his coat. He lifted his eyebrows and smiled, knowing that it would drive her mad. He was mildly gratified when he saw her lips thin out and her cheeks flush dark red.

"What a charming place you’ve brought me to. Very…rustic.”

"Yes, I thought you'd like it.”

"Oh, don't act the fool!” she erupted, unable to hold back. “Why didn't you tell me about those women?”

"I wanted to forget everything about the Two Rivers. But Nynaeve was the Wisdom here, a distant and authoritative figure. As for Egwene, while she was my childhood sweetheart, she is but a friend now. You shouldn't worry so.”  It was better not to lie when she could so easily discover the truth for herself.

"Your sweetheart?" Lanfear spoke with deceptive softness.

"Are you so insecure as to fear that every woman will steal me away from you?"

Her eyes flared coldly, and she sneered. On any other woman, it would have looked ugly. Rand was seized by a desire to kiss her but knew from long experience that it was the wrong time.

"I fear no woman.” Lanfear insisted. “And no man!”

Rand laughed softly. “Yes, you were never afraid enough, even when you should have been.”

“We shared that, Lews Therin,” she said, reminding him with his old name just what his fearlessness had wrought.

Rand pushed himself from the door and crossed the room to take his wife into his arms. He felt her resist and clutched her harder, until she went limp against him.

How little she had changed.

“Mierin,” he murmured.

So often she erupted in fury when he whispered her ancient name, but not always. For just a moment, he was able to imagine that she had never sold herself to the devil and received so little in return.

As if she sensed the direction of his thoughts, she retreated, tilting her head back to stare at him. She was only a few inches shorter, and her eyes were close enough that he saw the uneasy spark in them, the demand that might have been madness, or just a wounded heart.

“Will you not accept the Great Lord's offer?" she asked.

He released her, pushing her away before he considered that she was deliberately provoking him.

“I will never give myself to the Dark One.”

“He has offered to make you Nae’blis,” Lanfear insisted. “There is no greater honour and no greater power, and it will protect you from the taint and the rot of madness that threatens to destroy you. We can live together, forever!”

A wave of exhaustion and disgust rolled over Rand. The same old argument. How tired he was of hearing it.

“Never,” he repeated. It was all he could bring himself to say.

"You are a fool!" she shouted at him. "You will die!"

“Then you will simply have to find me again.” He kept his voice light, teasing. Once upon a time, Mierin had possessed a sense of humour, although she had since misplaced it somewhere in Shayol Ghul.  “Wouldn't that be something? You'll live forever, and we can keep meeting up.”

“I would know you anywhere,” she said. “I would know you in your cradle.”

“Yes,” Rand sighed. “I imagine you would.”

Lanfear abruptly held up a finger and tilted her head like a hound on the trail of a fox.

"Wait," she whispered. “There’s someone listening at the door.”

Rand crossed the floor in three swift steps. He hoped very much hoped that Egwene hadn’t followed him, but when he yanked the door open he found Nynaeve. The former Wisdom’s eyes bulged, and she made an undignified dash for the stairs, only to be caught in a net of saidin and dragged inside the room. The door shut behind them with an ominous click, and Rand knew that Lanfear had cast a weave of silence over the room when he felt goosebumps race along his skin.

"Did you hear something interesting, Wisdom?" Rand asked, deceptively mild.

Nynaeve didn’t disappoint him, crossing her arms and assuming a haughty stance. "I heard things that would condemn you in any court, in any nation.”

"And you would do well to forget all of it.”

"Why did Moiraine and Suian Sanche want you so much?" Nynaeve demanded.

Another one who was too brave to be wise.

"Is it something to do with this offer you were discussing? Are you Darkfriends?” She stuttered over the accusation.

"Hardly anything so common, " Lanfear said, sliding into place next to Rand. Her wide smile exposed her teeth. "My name is Lanfear."

The blood drained from Nynaeve’s cheeks. “We have heard that the Forsaken were free—”

"Oh, we are.” Lanfear leaned in closer, visibly relishing the woman’s unease.

But Nynaeve was still braver than she ought to be. "Why did she call you that name?” she asked Rand.

Rand studied her. She had already put two and two together, but saying it would make it real.

"I am the Dragon Reborn.”

She recoiled from the raw simplicity of what he was telling her.

"They wanted you because—"

"They wanted to use me. But I will not be used.”

There was granite in his voice, and he thought that she must at last yield to fear, but he saw her face soften instead.

“Oh, Rand,” Nynaeve sighed. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry?” Lanfear was incensed. “He is the most powerful channeller of any age, to be envied, even worshipped. The Great Lord himself yearns to claim him. The Dragon is not to pitied, certainly not by the likes of you.”

Rand was alarmed to see Nynaeve turn that same pitying eye on Lanfear.

"And now, Nynaeve,” he interjected before his wife could see it, “I cannot have you speaking of this to anyone. You will forget this conversation, and everything you heard through the door.”

Rand seized the Power, seeking to access the forbidden arts of Compulsion, but he knew immediately that his control was poor. He was alarmed to feel saidin sweep over him like a molten tide. He fell to his knees screaming, and the Compulsion weave unravelled in the air. Madness and pain pressed on Rand as tainted saidin sought to crush him.

He could still hear his own screams like a distant, out-of-body experience, when boots came pounding up the stairs. Nynaeve was babbling something, and then Rand’s father was yelling. Rand clutched his side and felt something wet and warm soak through his coat. Bleeding, he thought, he was bleeding again. That was where the rot had begun, and under his coat there was layers of bandages, covering the necrotic, stinking mess of his skin.

“Don’t let them see it.” He tried to tell Lanfear, but he wasn’t sure if she heard him.

Rand released the Power, and his mind was scoured clean.

When Rand woke the bleeding had stopped, and he was alone with his father. Tam sat by the bed, staring towards the room’s single window with a heavy expression on his worn, kind face. Rand remembered a similar scene, eight years previous. Tam, exhausted from his battle with a Trolloc’s poisoned blade.  Rand, dreaming, dreaming old memories and new. Eventually they had awoken to speak of the Aes Sedai, and her warnings.

In those days, Rand recalled, Moiraine had been fascinating and terrible, a creature out of legend.

Now I am the creature of legend.

“Rand?” Tam asked.

He squinted at his son, assessing him, and Rand felt an unexpected wash of shame. He met his father’s eyes diffidently, almost defiantly. The last time he had felt this way with Tam, Rand had been fourteen years old, and he had kissed Egwene for the first time. His timing had been poor; his father had walked right in on them, tentatively clutched together in the stable.  

"You’re looking better, lad.” Tam's voice was even hoarser than Rand's, and he felt the shy reticence leave him as he recognized the look in his father’s eye. It was fear. Tam was afraid of him. His own father.

"Well, I didn't expect to wake up in fresh sheets,” Rand said, venturing a touch of humour.

Tam nodded, slow and careful. "Marin was very frightened, and so was Bran. But Emond's Fielders take care of their own."

Despite his best efforts, a harsh bark of laughter escaped Rand. “Am I one of your own, though? You know I wasn’t born here.”

“I know.”

“It’s funny, everywhere I went, people would treat me strangely. Some would threaten me, some would back away as if I had threatened them. I had been called Aiel up and down the length of the continent before I encountered Aiel myself. Some part of the story became clear then. Enough to explain much of what you said in your delirium on Winternight, although not all.”

Tam appeared unsurprised. "You may not be my blood, but you will always be my son."

Rand couldn’t answer that. "And the memories of the man I was in another lifetime. I remember my death like a violent sleep. Born on Dragonmount. Where you found me, Father.” He pinned Tam with his eyes. “Has Nynaeve spoken to you of this? Has my wife?”

Tam’s eyes flickered back to the window. "I can't say I approve.” He was taciturn as always, and it was impossible to determine more of what he was thinking.

When Rand laughed, he could hear the wild note in his own voice. "I can't say I approve either. But I courted her without knowing who she was. By her design, of course… By the time I knew, it was too late.”

He looked closed his eyes and let his head fall back on his pillow. “It was always too late.”

"We all have our sharp turns, lad." Tam sounded nervous in a way Rand had never heard.

"I believe I've had a few more than most. Father—”

Rand hesitated. A memory bloomed in his head, wavering and light, like a coin glittering at the bottom of a pond. A tall man, caramel skinned and black haired. Blue eyes, and not quite as tall as Lews Therin grew to be. His height had come from his mother's side then.

He put his hands over his ears and shook his head in short, rapid bursts, trying to force the recollection from his body. He was determined to talk to Tam, not to a man dead so many centuries that he had probably been reborn at least as many times.

Tam misunderstood and rushed once more to assure Rand that he would always be his father, that he need never doubt it.

"How much did she tell you?" Rand interrupted.

"Only who she is, who you are.” Tam grimaced; toyed with the pipe tucked in his shirt pocket. “It's strange day when a man needs to be told who his own son is."

"I just wanted to see my home. I wanted to see those who have no true knowledge of the Shadow. I wanted to see you. I wanted to introduce my wife to you, as a son should!” Rand realized how absurd it was only after he had said it. Bringing Lanfear, one of the Forsaken, home.

Tam’s silence was echoing, and Rand rushed to fill it.

“I wanted--oh, Light, what a fool I am. If there's one thing that I should have learned, it is that I am not like others, that I am ta'veren, and a curse on everyone I love! Damn the Pattern!"

Rand’s right hand slammed down on the mattress. Silver fire erupted beneath his fingers, singeing the sheets and leaving the aroma of burnt fabric in the air.

"Marin will throw you out if you keep lighting her sheets on fire.”

Rand laughed again, weak and strained. "I suppose I had better keep a leash on my temper, then."

He didn’t mention that that it became harder every day.

"Do you want to tell me why you were so anxious to come back after seven years away?"

Rand stared at the ceiling. He did not want to look at his father and see that Tam might have preferred him to stay lost.

"I am the Dragon. It is my destiny to confront the Dark One. I must defeat him, or he will consume the world.”

He paused and considered whether it was relevant to mention that the Dark One was not a he at all, but an entropic force that existed outside of space and time. Lews Therin and his peers had wasted considerable time debating whether that force possessed conscious agency, or if it were something like a storm that wiped out everything in its path and could be neither punished nor blamed.

“Insurance providers, when we had such things, used to call it an Act of God,” Latra Posae proclaimed in the Hall. “But I say the name of the Dark is Satan, and it is the Devil!”

 “It is the Devil,” Rand whispered.

He looked up when he felt Tam’s hand on his shoulder, shaking him from a reverie that might have been seconds or minutes.

“My choice seemed simple, Father. There were some who disagreed, but I had to take action,” Rand said. He could hear the urgency in his voice, begging Tam to understand. “What else could I do? Sit back and wait until the evil consumed the world? We knew where the source of the Dark was to be found. I took my closest companions and soldiers with me. My lieutenants. My sons…” He stopped again. It was too much to remember, and he felt a migraine starting like the slow beat of a drum under his skull.

Next to him, he heard Tam’s breath catch.

“I took them all to where the Forsaken had gathered. So many of them had been my friends and colleagues before they had made that fatal choice. If they had asked me for mercy, I might have given it. But they did not ask, and I sealed them in what you now call the Bore, which was something like a pocket in another…time.”

He stumbled, not only because Tam did not know what a dimension was, but because Rand could not explain it either. Lews Therin had been a social researcher and a politician, later a soldier, but not a scientist. He had no more than a layman’s understanding of physics. Perhaps, with a better, more clinical, comprehension of the universe, he might have made fewer errors. And now, the knowledge had been lost, and there was no one left to teach him. Not even a book.

“And then?” Tam prompted him.

“Something happened when we sealed them away. A flash like dark lightning. Even now, I have no memory of what occurred. I was utterly consumed by madness but, most unfortunately, some part of me still knew the way home, as your feet know the way to your bedroom no matter how drunk you are.”

“Yes,” Tam said.

Rand blinked away ancient recollections of a blasted corridor, distant but still terrible, the walls of a fortress melted like hot candle wax. And the bodies, everywhere.

He cleared his throat. "And now there are a thousand prophecies with my name on them, and I am tempted on all sides by offers of ultimate power. The only thing I need give to claim it is my soul. And Lanfear…”

Rand took a deep breath, and saw again that blasted corridor, and a small body with a tuft of long, curly brown hair. There had been a doll on the floor not far from the tiny hand.  

"She is with child."

With startling clarity, Rand heard the breath burst from his father.

"How is it possible with—"

"The Forsaken? They're human. Some were imprisoned near the surface, close to the movement of normal time, and there the Wheel grinds exceedingly fine. But she slept deeply, close to the source of her power, and lost nothing of her youth.”

“But to have a child with such a creature,” Tam insisted. "Worse than any Darkfriend."

“I know. I know. That child, whether male or female, would be so powerful as to surpass us both, to rival the Dark One. To challenge the Creator,” Rand breathed.

He heard Tam whisper a prayer.

“Yet it is my child. My redemption.” He squeezed his eyes shut against the tears that threatened to spill from them, and his headache intensified.

"Rand." Tam started, and stopped, incapable of continuing.

Rand held up a sharp hand. "Don't say anything, Father. It is my burden to carry.”

He found that some boyish of part of him still wished for Tam to ignore his command and profer whatever crucial wisdom that had eluded Rand. Tam had always known what to say.

But now his father said nothing, and the silence grew ever deeper. Their breaths echoed in the space between them, while a white light throbbed behind Rand's eyes.

After some time, Tam rose and departed.

Three women sat huddled around a table in the kitchen of the Winespring Inn, debating the ailing man upstairs in hushed voices.

"We should call for the Reds." Nynaeve was shocked to hear Egwene declare to her mother.

"Egwene!" the former Wisdom chastised. "This is Aes Sedai business. You shouldn't be talking about it to your mother. And what's more, seven years ago you would have taken your own heart out of your breast rather than let the Reds know about Rand."

"You saw what happened. The screaming. The blood from the rot that attacks his body. Who knows what madness has descended upon him.”

"You're only saying this because you're jealous of Selene.” Nynaeve was satisfied to see Egwene flinch.

"Selene! She's Lanfear! And even if that woman weren’t here, the Tower must know about Rand, if he truly is the Dragon Reborn."

Nynaeve's stomach performed several flips, but she responded with aplomb. "He's an Emond's Fielder, and you would sell him to the Tower. To women who'd jump on him like scarlet adder in a nursery.”

"I can't help that," Egwene said. Nynaeve saw her start to tear up, only to blink furiously, banishing the weeping. "But the world must be made safe. It must be!"

Egwene’s mother found her voice. "Egwene al'Vere, you straighten up right this instant and stop making excuses. I may not know Aes Sedai business, and I may not like the idea of men channeling, but you either do this for the right reasons or not at all. Do it out of jealousy and heartache and you'll never forgive yourself. You might as well be given to the Dark One!"

Egwene flushed a very dark red. That was as good as saying she was a Darkfriend, which for an Aes Sedai was an accusation of being Black Ajah, the ultimate insult. Even an Aes Sedai’s own mother should hesitate before letting the words cross her lips, but Marin glared down her nose at Egwene fearlessly.

"Mother!"

"Don't you 'Mother' me! That man upstairs is nearly dead from something he can't help, and you're talking about calling for someone to finish the job. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

Nynaeve was already tensing in anticipation of a real row when the woman in white swept into the kitchen.

"He should be fine," Lanfear announced, "For the moment. However, if even his formidable control was not enough to keep the Power's scourge in check this time, then he must be weakening in body and mind.”

“How long has this been happening?” Nynaeve asked.

Lanfear assessed her with cool, dark eyes. “You’re one of these Yellow sisters, with an interest in healing. But you can do nothing for him. Semhirage would be equal to the task, perhaps, but no one from this Age.”

Nyaeve swallowed down angry words with effort. She had learned through the most trying of circumstances to control the temper that she had once been proud of. “Perhaps. But my skills are superior to most now. Tell me of the progression of his illness.”

She was surprised to see a faint weariness touch the flawless beauty of the Forsaken’s face. Even knowing what she knew, it was difficult to believe that this truly was Lanfear, the Daughter of Night.

“Perhaps you may be of some use,” Rand’s wife said at last, “It has been years. I am not truly familiar with the progression of this disease; it came after my time, but from what I have heard it is variable, some men withstanding the Taint for years, some only for months. But this you know. As for him… he began to see the effects years ago. He has controlled the madness thus far, but I fear that it shall take ever increasing effort, effort that even he may not be able to give. However…” she hesitated.

“Yes?” Egwene demanded, jumping on this apparent display of weakness.

Nynaeve was surprised when Lanfear gave in at once. As impossible as it seemed, the wicked creature was truly concerned.

"I have been informed that the fifth seal upon the Great Lord's prison has broken. Lews Therin must have accessed saidin at that exact moment of the breaking.”

“His name is Rand al’Thor,” Egwene said, her mouth drawing into a long, thin line.

Lanfear scoffed. “Irrelevant. The male half of the Source,” she lectured, disregarding furious, helpless glares from the other women, “having been Tainted by the Great Lord, is in tune with his movements. Lews Therin is the Dark One's earthly counterpoint, and he is infected with the Taint, which provides him with an indirect connection to the Great Lord.”

“The Dark One,” Egwene insisted, apparently intent on courting disaster.

Lanfear regarded her with the same cool disgust of a goodwife about to step on a cockroach.

“Egwene,” Marin hissed. “Mind your manners.”

Egwene fell into a hushed argument with her mother while Lanfear continued her explanation, talking in the distant way of a teacher addressing a packed room of students.

“He must have felt the seal breaking, and it shook him completely. We are lucky that he was not destroyed by saidin in that moment." She trailed off and absently placed a hand upon her slender middle, rubbing. A moment later she seemed to realize what she had done. Lanfear shot a hostile look all around the room before turning on her heel and pushing back through the kitchen door.

Nynaeve felt herself sway in place. She'd seen a great many expectant young mothers in her time, and that motion, that half worried, half enchanted caress of the stomach, was unmistakable. The Aes Sedai closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, she met Marin’s eyes and saw in them the same sick recognition. The Dark One was breaking free and Rand was the Dragon Reborn, dying, and married to a Forsaken who was having his child.

Only Egwene seemed confused. She shot an uneasy glance between them.

“What is it?”

Nynaeve shook her head, unwilling or unable to speak.

“What?” the younger woman insisted.

Nynaeve was spared delivering the news when the air abruptly split open. All three women stumbled backwards. Egwene screamed and Marin looked pale enough to faint. The thing in the air was like a window, and Nynaeve glimpsed some other place entirely, an arid desert on the other side.

From the impossible gap in the fabric of the world, a tall, dark haired, hawk-nosed man appeared. His arms came through first and then his legs. When he had landed entirely inside the Inn's kitchen, the split in the air disappeared, and the man surveyed them with lordly disdain, wiping his  hands on the black fabric of his coat.  

"I am here to deliver an message to my good friend the Dragon. Although I never expected to find him in such charming provincial surroundings. Perhaps, Madam," he turned a twisted smile on Marin, "You would be so good as to lead the way?"

The appearance of a strange man in the kitchen of the Winespring Inn would have been alarming at any time, but a man stepping from a hole in the air made all three women jump from their seats. Nynaeve and Egwene immediately aligned themselves in front of Marin in a defensive formation, and Nynaeve grasped the Source. She felt goosebumps on her skin and knew that Egwene had done the same.

"Who are you?" Nynaeve instinctively grasped onto her braid, giving it a sizeable tug.  

He smiled at her, almost charming but not quite, like an old habit he hadn't entirely given up.

"And here I thought backwater communities were famous for their quaint hospitality and politeness."

"Not to rude strangers,” Egwene snapped, tilting up her chin.

"I wasn't aware of the rules. Now Madam,” his eyes trained on Marin, standing behind the two younger women, “Are you to lead me to the Dragon, or shall I carve my own path?"

"I don’t know what you’re talking about. You're mad to think we would associate with any False Dragon.”

Marin sounded indignant, but not surprised enough, and Nynaeve knew that she hadn’t fooled this man.

The newcomer smiled thinly. "You may not harbour a False Dragon, but this one is the true, and well you know it. I see that you are not going to cooperate. Then you’ll help me in another way.”

Without warning, Nynaeve found herself shielded tightly, unable to access the Source, and immobilized. Only her eyes were able to move, and she saw that Egwere and Marin were bound just as tightly. Nynaeve felt sick. She had never felt the Power channelled through saidin before, and wondered if the quiver in her stomach came from fear or from the Taint.

She saw the strange man look around, and he seemed to fall inside himself in the same way that Aes Sedai did when they focused on a weave. His hand twitched once at his side, and then he spoke. Where an ordinary human voice had been now emerged the voice of a giant. Cups on the table shook, jiggling until they toppled from edge, smashing onto the floor. Nynaeve longed to cover her ears with her hands. The inside of her head felt like it was relentlessly expanding.

“LEWS THERIN! I HAVE YOUR WOMEN. COME TO ME!”

Another hole in the Pattern opened in front of Nynaeve, yet it was not Rand who emerged from it, but Lanfear. She regarded the strange man in the kitchen with haughty familiarly. Even her sneer looked lovely, Nynaeve thought, with a deep irritation that distracted her from her fear.

"Hello, Demandred. What are you waiting for? Hand and foot service? If so, you seem to have tied up your only source of help.” She nodded to the three bound women.

Demandred! Nyaeneve would have recoiled it she were able. Another Forsaken! Yet her fear was not as deep as it might have been, and she thought that she must have seen too many new terrors in too short a time. She had been numbed to the true immensity of Demandred the Forsaken appearing in the mayor’s kitchen.

"I am waiting for Lews Therin, Lanfear.” The man sighed and looked at his arm, then sighed again and looked away.

“Forgot your wristwatch back in the Bore?” Lanfear laughed.

Nynaeve frowned and wondered what a “wristwatch”. Some kind of weapon?

Demandred sneered. “How do these people even live in such primitive circumstances?”

Lanfear smoothed her flawless white gown over her equally flawless figure. “One makes due.”

“It’s true, then,” Demandred scoffed. “You did get your little claws back in Lews Therin. You wouldn’t be so damned smug if you hadn’t.”

“And you’re here to challenge him? Poor thing. You won’t win. You’ve never been good enough.”

Demandred’s pale skin turned red with fury. “That remains to be seen. And even if he knew a few tricks in the past, well, he’s nothing but a luckless farmer now, isn’t he? This will be all too easy.”

“A luckless farmer with more luck than you,” she laughed.

Demandred snarled, and Nynaeve could feel more goosebumps when Lanfear embraced the Source in preparation for an attack. She mentally braced herself to become kindling in the middle of a battle between two Forsaken, and was immensely relieved to see the air split open once more, distracting Demandred and Lanfear. She was even more relieved to find the newcomer was Rand. He looked cool-headed and healthy, with nothing to betray the decay of his body.

"Challenge accepted." Rand's voice was a cold rumble, "I will play at your rivalry no longer. Now, we will end it."

Demandred smiled thinly. "There need be no challenge. The Great Lord has asked me to deliver a message to you, Lews Therin. Your time is up. Either join the Great Lord or watch your life and your loved ones turn again to ash all around you.”

“Hardly a new ultimatum. And not one I will accept from you, in any case.”

“Then be destroyed!”

A beam of fire leap from Demandred’s hands. Rand swept it away as if it were an errant fly.

“If you want me, Barid Bel, come get me!"

A new hole in the air opened, leaving Nynaeve even dizzier. Rand leapt through the opening and tossed a cold glance over his shoulder. He seemed to land somewhere else, and Nynaeve saw him standing inside the hole in space, looking much like a man’s portrait in a picture frame.

Demandred gave a wordless shout and dashed after him. Immediately, the hole closed, and Demandred’s weave left with him. All three Emond’s Field women feel to their knees, released from their bonds of Power.

"Where did they go?" Egwene shouted hysterically at Lanfear.

"To a place where they will combat to the death.”

"And you just let him go?"

"Lews Therin is more skilled than Demandred ever was. Demandred was ever jealous of Lews Therin. I have no doubt who will win this battle."

"Rand is sick now! Whatever might “usually” happen could turn out differently this time.”

The door to the kitchen opened at that moment, and Tam stepped inside looking pale and drawn.

“Rand’s gone, then?”

Lanfear pressed her lips together firmly. “A challenge must be accepted. If he does nothing, the consequences to this village are obvious.”

She looked pensively at the place where the two men had vanished

“Yet I do believe I know where they went. It would be just like Lews Therin to remind himself of the consequences of failure.”

The vast stone ridge was a landmark that had stood for an Age, evolving,  growing, crumbling, subject to the forces of entropy and time. Rand, staring at it, thought he could see the ridges of the palace it had consumed, the marvellous palace of marble and granite and the Power’s own making.

Even after all this time, the stone was still black in places, scorched.

"You are my memory, even beyond recollection," Rand murmured.

He had lived in this place a lifetime ago. A lifetime and an Age. Here he had seen his family grow. And here he had slaughtered his wife and children, his retainers and friends. All those who loved him, all those whom he loved.

Kinslayer.

The agony of his error still lived inside of him, yet it was not grief that had drawn him to this place, but forbearance. There was much to be learned here.

Barid Bel Madar had been his dear friend, those thousands of years ago, but that friendship had been twisted by hatred. Even now, Demandred hated the man he had been. Lews Therin had hesitated to slay him, out of respect for the friendship that had once been theirs, the memory of Barid Bel Madar’s greatness. Yet Rand would not, could not, do the same.

Today, Demandred would die.

A thrill of pain ran through Rand’s side, reminding him of how little time he had to sort out his affairs, and he closed his eyes for just a moment, taking a deep breath. 

Damn the taint!

A slight stir in the air announced Demandred’s arrival behind him. Rand held tightly to the Source, and felt Demandred do the same, yet the man remained silent, observing him from behind.

"I did not expect you to come here,” Demandred finally said.

"I believe I wanted to be discovered," Rand said slowly. "We did not ride our horses to Emond's Field. We took them through a gate. Someone would have noticed that they were as fresh and cool as show horses.”

"It was not hard to find you," Demandred agreed. His voice was mild. They might have been old friends again, making plans.

"My duty has always come first,” Rand said softly. “And though we shared many things in common, this you never understood.”

He turned around to meet the other man’s dark eyes. Demandred's shields were strong, but Rand knew that he must be preparing to end it. He also knew that no shield was strong enough to repel the bar of molten steel, as thick as a man’s thigh, that sprang from Rand's hands.

The Forsaken's eyes widened in shock and horror, and he sprang away from the balefire’s path, but not quickly enough. The death beam turned him to vapour. A vague image of Barid Bel Madar's face hung in the air for a moment, and then nothing.

This was one more thing that Demandred had not approached his rival in. The will to dare the forbidden, even knowing that balefire was as much a threat to its wielder as its victim.

I will do what I must. Duty is as light as a feather.

As heavy as a mountain.

Rand gazed at the mountain, and the mountain gazed back.

Barid Bel was gone, but he had not come alone. The Dark One’s demand had come with him. Again, he wondered if the thing they called Shai'tan was a living force, or the mere manifestation of darkness in the universe. If he were to go to Shayul Ghul now and kneel before it, would he see a man, a malevolent spirit, or the endless absence of life?

If he heard words, would they be the words of the Devil, or the bleak mouthings of his own heart?

Egwene stared at the place where Rand had disappeared. Chewing her bottom numbly, she considered all that had taken place. Considered her few options.

"I'm going to my room. I don't feel well," she muttered.

She did not wait for the response of her mother, or Nynaeve and Tam, but left the kitchen at a swift pace. The wooden walls of her childhood home were a blur in eyes that she blinked incessantly, holding back tears.

Rand elected to Skim rather than Travel. The space between dimensions was utterly dark and solitary. There was quite literally no other living thing present. He could advance in a straight line for the rest of his life without ever reaching a destination.

There in the darkness, he could think.

And although the void looked nothing like the balcony of the palace in Fal Dara, he felt much the same as he had there, seven years ago. And much as his decision then had hinged on the vision of a beautiful women, so did it now.

Egwene had been laughing, light of heart with flowers in her hair, and gorgeous enough to break Rand’s heart. He had left for her sake, had left to protect her light heart, as much as her life.

But Lanfear was not Egwene, although she was even lovelier to behold.

Egwene climbed up the ladder to the roof of the Winespring Inn. The roof was flat, broad and bathed in sunlight. There was a chicken coop up here, alive with clucking and cooing from hens. Every morning her mother would climb up to grab eggs. She would use them for pastries and egg breads, and usually make a couple of large frittatas that would be served up to customers over the course of the day.

Egwene looked around the chicken coop and saw everything was in order, then moved to the smaller pigeon coop. There weren’t nearly as many birds inside, and their resources weren’t taxed by using them for eggs. They looked young and strong.

Slowly, Egwene opened the cage. She caught a fluttering grey bird in her hand while she took a tiny scroll from her pocket. As she tied the message to the bird, she considered what she was doing, and wondered again if she could justify it.

Rand her was friend. More than a friend. He had been all but promised to her, and he had saved her life more than once on that awful journey seven years ago.

But there was the screaming. The rot of saidin. And Lanfear.

“Do it for the right reasons,” she whispered.

This wasn’t about revenge, or jealousy, or bitterness. Rand was dangerous. He had to be stopped.

Satisfied with her motive, Egwene checked that the message was secure, then released the carrier pigeon into the sky.

Rand emerged from the void and stepped onto a cracked and bitter plain. This place was not like the Blight where life, however malevolent, flourished. Shayol Ghul was eerily still. The air was hot and flaccid, and Rand wondered if even…what was it called again, he wondered. What were the tiny creatures so small you needed a glass to see them?

“Bacteria,” Rand whispered.

Right. Were there even bacteria alive here? He looked all around, if he might see them dwelling in the dry stones.

A rustle of sound drifted from the dark cavern leading into the fortress of Shayol Ghul. Wrapped in a black robe that did not flicker in the cold wind, the monstrous form of the titanic Myrrdraal, Shadar Haran, emerged from the abyss.

"Take me to your master," Rand commanded.

Haran studied him for a long moment, silent and evaluating, until at last it turned back to the darkness, leading the way down into hell.

Egwene climbed back down from the roof, watching the winging of the pigeon as she moved, feeling her heart break on the beating of its wings. She had the strangest feeling that she had done this before, or something like it.

The Dragon had to be stopped, before it was too late.

The Pit of Doom was not made of fire, nor of darkness. Looking upon the Bore was like looking at nothing at all. Rand repeatedly tried to focus his eyes, and was forced to look away each time. He could not clearly say what it was that made him look to the side or at his feet or hand or anywhere but at the place where the Collam Daan research facility had once stood. But there was indeed a voice there, or something like a voice, although he did not hear it in the usual way. It seemed to skip past his ears entirely, to rattle in his skull and shake his teeth in their settings.

DRAGON. YOU HAVE COME TO ME. AS IT WAS FORETOLD. ALL THINGS MUST COME TO AN END. ALL PATTERNS MUST UNRAVEL.

Rand wanted to say that he did not come to the Dark One for glory or immortality or personal ambition, as Lanfear and Demandred and Sammael and all the others had. This was different. This was a sacrifice.

He opened his mouth, and found his tongue and teeth trembled too severely to form the words. Still the Dark One heard. Or perhaps it was Rand's own heart that heard after all, and threw the words back at him in fury.

YOU COME FOR YOUR DUTY. FOR THE SAFETY OF YOUR CHILD. YOU COME TO CRADLE THE WORLD FROM INSIDE THE BOSOM OF HELL. YOU COME FOR REDEMPTION. TO SAVE WHAT YOU LOVE ALTHOUGH YOU CANNOT SAVE YOURSELF.

Yes, Rand thought, shaking. Yes.

NONE OF IT MATTERS. KNEEL TO ME, FOOL, AND MAKE YOUR PLEDGE.

He thought that he could hear Latra Posae’s voice somewhere in the far distance. Sitting in the nursery, telling him that nothing had been decided there, because Lews Therin had already made the damning choice.

Was he making the same mistake?

“Oh Light, forgive me,” he muttered, through trembling lips.

THERE IS NO ONE TO FORGIVE YOU HERE, DRAGON. THE LIGHT NEVER TOUCHED THIS PLACE. THIS PLACE IS MINE. AS ARE YOU.

In Emond’s Field, the time passed in a slow haze of anticipation, days bleeding into weeks, and still Rand did not appear. Though Lanfear assured them that Demandred was not Rand’s equal and could not have defeated him in any real contest of skill, Tam remained visibly worried. He did not return to the farm, but remained in the village, believing that Rand would come there first, if he came at all. Lanfear disappeared for a time herself, to investigate, she said, while Egwene sulked and lurched about, as moody as a teenager. As for Nynaeve, she consulted with her replacement in the village, a woman who had been called down from the eastern villages when no suitable replacement had been found in Emond’s Field proper. Though a skilled healer, the new girl was no Aes Sedai, and gladly welcomed the aid of a Yellow sister in the more troubling cases of injury or illness.

In this way they passed the time until, on a bright morning some four weeks after Rand’s disappearance, a peddler came to town. Not Padan Fain, who had vanished years ago, known by but a few as a foul Darkfriend, this peddler was a tight-faced woman whose purse strings were even tighter. Her dress was good, stout travelling wool, and her wagon, though loaded with the usual pots and pan and pins, was of a fine quality. Marin, Bran and Tam went out, the men separating from the innkeeper's wife to join the Village Council, who stood gathered close to the wagon.

"What's going on?" cried out a young man, who had just recently come of age and was eager for news of the world.

"Yes, what is happening out in the world?" enjoined a woman of middle age.

The paddler looked even more pinched than usual, even as she handed out a tin full of pins and took some coins in return.

She held up a tense hand. "Quiet!"

Silence fell slowly upon the villagers, and only once they were calm did the woman finally speak.

 "Well, it's no good, that's for sure. The people called the Seanchen, from over the Ocean, are Artur Hawkwing's children's children, so many generations on. They've come to conquer us, and they're doing a pretty good job at it, let me tell you. Already taken Tarabon and Arad Domain, settled the fighting there real good.”

Gasps echoed through the crowd, and the woman again gestured for silence.

"But it's worse than that. There are Darkfriends all across the land, I tell you. Why, even your neighbour or your best friend could be swearing allegiance under the Dragon's Fang," she scowled.

Chaos erupted, shouts and demands and anger, and the woman mutter to herself, wondering why she'd ever 'come to this backwater to begin with.'

"Mistress," Tam spoke firmly above the noise. "Please tell us what you know."

The woman huffed.  "Oh, very well. As far as I know, the Dark One's breaking free, and the Darkfriends as massing to serve their master. They'll be competing with the Seanchen, but trouble for Hawkwing's legacy is that there are Darkfriends in every place, in every nation, in every people, no doubt their own as well. The Dark One is coming, and there's no stopping it unless every nation of the world bands together, and they'll never do that. They think that their infighting is of more importance than the Last Battle, but how can the Last Battle happen when there's no Dragon Reborn?”

A dark cloud passed over Tam’s face. His son. She meant his son. The man who had broken the world and died an Age ago, reborn to flesh. The man who was destined to save the world or destroy it.

"The Dark One will devour us all!” a woman wailed.

A man cried out cynically, "The Dragon save us! The Dragon is the Dark One, if you ask me!"

Something snapped in Tam, some limit reached that he did not know he had, and he roared at the panicked villagers.

 "No one asked you! What do you know of the Dragon?  What do we know of events from the dawn of history? What do we know but rumours sown by Darkfriends! The Dragon went mad with the taint. He did not choose to kill his family! What right have you to scream out to the world that the Dragon is the Dark One when you know neither!”

"What are you goin’ on about, Tam al'Thor?" demanded one of the Coplins.

Tam could feel the many eyes upon him, particularly the eyes of Bran and Marin, knowing, compassionate, and worried.

"I'm talking about assumptions. We assume that the Dragon is the bane of us all, when he may be our only hope…”

He thought of Rand's eyes, filled with a desperation that bordered on madness, thought of his son, falling on the floor. Tam walked away then, leaving the merchant woman muttering to herself, and the villagers wondering what was coming of the world when one of their own would defend the Dragon.

Several of the Coplins and Congars quietly hinted that Tam was a Darkfriend. The other villagers, perhaps shocked, did not defend Tam so stridently as they might have.

Tam did not look back, and when he reached the Winespring Inn again, he found Lanfear waiting by the door.

Lanfear smiled as she gazed at Tam with intelligent dark eyes over their mugs of honey spiced tea.

"You are commendable in your defence of Lews Therin," she said. "He is indeed your only hope, although such hope as he offers has always been…”

She smiled and tapped her long nails against the mug. Tam gazed at the nails with fascination. Accustomed to farm wives, he had never seen such perfect nails. They were coloured somehow, shining with silver paint. He saw her dark eyes too, looking past him, at something far away, beyond reach.

Anyone who didn’t know her name, Tam thought, would believe she was far too young to look so old.

"What is it that you think about when you say such things?" he asked her.

"I think of when I was young. I have been thinking of it for some time now. When I awoke from my long sleep, when I met Lews Therin again. It evokes what I thought long dead. I remember my days in the Academy when I was learning to control the Power. I remember researching in the Sholam. There I thought that I had discovered a source from which both males and females could draw the Power, that we would no longer be separate in our might.”

She looked back at Tam and laughed. There was harshness in her dark eyes, but the laughter sounded like the ringing of a silver bell.

"That was how the Dark One's prison was breached. I thought that I would live through the Ages, heralded as a genius, a champion of humanity. Instead, I awoke an ancient thing, and I was granted immortality.

“But not as a hero,” she whispered.

A silence settled between them, one Tam was reluctant to break, but an irresistible curiosity drove him to ask the question that had plagued him for weeks. He didn’t think she would mind. Lanfear never had any trouble talking about Lews Therin Telamon.

"What was he like? The Dragon?”

She smiled. "He was talented. Immensely talented. He was the first taver'en in so long that we no longer had a name for it. Whatever he tried, he excelled at. He didn't want it, or so he said. He said that he wanted to be 'normal,' that he did not the want to the world to worship and envy him. It turned his best friend against him. Demandred turned to the Shadow because of the depth and strength of his envy for Lews Therin. He made enemies quicker than your sheep make lambs. But he could never have been ordinary.

“Yet he was a conservative man, reserved. He liked his privacy. He was the most powerful Aes Sedai of our time, save for Elan Morin, who claimed to be his equal.”

Seeing Tam’s confusion, Lanfear clarified, "Elan Morin was Ishamael's name, before he turned to the Shadow. He was a writer, a philosopher. Lews Therin was a politician. He was very skilled, always unironically devoted to his causes. A true humanitarian. But after the Bore, the War of Power began, and the arts of war were revived, and he found his true calling. War. Oh, yes, he would hate to hear anyone say it, but it was. He drove his enemies to the ends of the earth. He harried us and slashed at us, beat us back to the very gates of Hell.

“But in the end, he could not destroy us. His plan was opposed in the Hall of Servants, but he ignored the limitations imposed upon him by that fool woman, Latra Posae, who lead the Hall by the end of the war. Lews Therin gathered his closest and greatest soldiers and mounted an attack upon us. We did not know he was coming. We were gathered in the Pit of Doom itself. He sealed us in, and the Great Lord as well. But the Great Lord struck back and tainted the Source. The last thing I heard before my sleep of centuries was Lews Therin's scream as the madness took him. For he and the Companions both, it was instantaneous.

“When I woke, it seemed as though but a moment had gone by, yet my body and spirit knew that the Wheel had turned. I felt older. I felt heavier in soul. The world that I knew was gone. The cities of my youth had been devoured by new mountains, by the great oceans. And so, I searched for something that I knew.  I searched for him.

“I think that it was only then, when I saw the soul of the man I loved in an unfamiliar face, a young face of the Aiel race that had once been peaceful servants but were now harsh warriors…only then did the passage of time become real. He was as strong a taver'en as ever, and he had the same potential, the same talented mind, although it was untrained. It saddened me that his potential had gone so undiscovered, so wasted, in this Age. A man of such strength in the Power would have been discovered as a child in my Age. But one thing is the same. His duty, his dedication to honour, his determination. He does what he believes is right, and nothing, no one, can stop him. But it damns and saves. If he had not been so determined, the taint would not exist. But the Great Lord would rule the world, giving me power, and though I found the prospect pleasing, he did not."

Tam leaned back in his chair, eyed her critically, thinking of all she had just said.

"What do you really want?" he asked finally.

She threw back her head and laughed. "Power. What I've always wanted. Power and Lews Therin. That is all I have ever wanted. It is better this way. The Great Lord planned to break the Wheel and remake the world in his image. We would all die if he remade the universe. This way, we will live, he will live, and the world will, perhaps, be saved, if only a little.”

Tam sat up sharply. "What do you mean?"

"I am a Chosen, Tam al'Thor.” Lanfear smiled darkly, beatifically. "I spoke with the others some time ago. Lews Therin has gone over the Shadow, and they are all full of hate and envy. My husband is organizing the forces he is now commander of. He will fulfill his duty to the Great Lord that he may save as much as he is able.”

Tam felt faint, dizzy. When he spoke, he heard the hoarseness of his voice.

"Why are you still here, Lanfear?"

"I have no where else to be. I am waiting for it all to happen. I am waiting for him to act. And when he does, I shall join him. Until then, I am getting to know my father-in-law. As I wished to.”

She leaned back in her chair with a slow, satisfied smile that only grew when Tam felt the pain of betrayal bloom across his own face.

In a clearing in the woods just outside of Emond’s Field stood sixteen women dressed in red and a young woman in white. The leader of the red-clad women was grimly lovely, her face preserved against the ravages of time, ageless and serene. She faced the girl before her with a cool detachment that failed to conceal her anger.

"You have dared to bar our way, Accepted?"

"No, Aes Sedai," Egwene said with forced, strained meekness. "I just wanted to warn you. The man that can channel is no longer here. He has been gone now for a month."

The Aes Sedai's brow became stormy, and the Accepted hastened placate her.

"But he will be back. I'm sure of it! His wife is still here."

"And you truly believe that the woman is Lanfear?" The Red Sister's mouth twisted about the vile name contemptuously.

"I must believe it. Her strength is extraordinary and--"

"So you have said in your letter.”

 The Red glanced about the clearing, so near to their destination, where the Accepted had intercepted them.

"There is more to Forsaken than strength in the Power, Accepted."

She spoke in a patronizing tone that made Egwene long to slap some sense into the woman.

"You have much to learn." The Red looked down her nose at Egwene.

"Yes, Aes Sedai." Egwene answered with the meekness endemic to years of training. "I just mean that you should be careful."

"Of course, Egwene al'Vere.” The Red smiled with false gentleness. "I am always careful."

Egwene nodded and dropped a curtsey, trying not to grind her teeth.

"And the man…” The Aes Sedai glanced at her grim and silent Red companions, as if seeking reassurance against the mere thought of a man channeling.  "You truly believe that he is the Dragon?"

"I have no doubt of it." Egwene spoke with a complete knowing that seemed to give even the Red pause.

"Indeed, child. These are strange times, when the Dark One stirs in his prison. Tarmon Gai'don approaches, and perhaps, just perhaps, you may correct."

"Yes, Aes Sedai," Egwene murmured. She kept her eyes to the ground to conceal the fire of her anger.

"You've done well to alert us in any case, child. Any such man is a curse upon the Earth. In the meantime, we will go to this woman who calls herself Lanfear, and question her.”

Torn between awe and horror, Marin al’Vere watched as Lanfear used the One Power to weave strands of white wool into a large, fluffy blanket. Lanfear had not known how to knit, and Marin had taken it upon herself to teach the woman. It was absurd, horrifying, ridiculous. Marin still didn’t know why she had done such a thing, except that it might have been the only way she could live with the woman’s presence in her home. Telling Lanfear to leave would accomplish nothing. Putting her to work seemed the only choice left to Marin. She was only amazed that it had worked.

“Are you sure you won’t use the needles?” Marin asked.

"This is so much more efficient.” Lanfear displayed the blanket with what Marin knew must be weaves of Air, using a second weaving to knit the strands of wool.

Knit, purl, knit, purl. Marin watched, but it was so distracting to see the work happening and not hear the clack of the needles.

"This is intended to be a learning experience for you." Marin was exasperated. "You are supposed to take in the purpose of it through the very fingers. That’s how it’s done. How it’s always been done.”

"I'm not interested in tradition," Lanfear said serenely. "I'm interested in making this work for me."

"You're quite unmanageable,” Marin huffed.  

The Forsaken arched a cool brow at the village woman, and bared her perfect teeth a small grin. Marin couldn’t help staring at those teeth. She had never seen teeth that flawlessly straight and white.

"My mother used to say that as well,” Lanfear said. “She never had much luck making me do anything I didn’t want to.”

"I believe it."

In her heart, Marin breathed a tiny prayer for whatever poor woman had once lived to birth this creature. Still she watched the blanket as it constructed itself. She had to admit that it was quite fascinating watching the fabric come together like that, like a ghost in the air.

Lanfear yawned, covering her mouth with a slim, delicate hand. "This place, this Two Rivers of yours, has a most curious effect. It is so isolated from the world. One grows quite complacent and strange here. I do not feel quite myself here."

"We'd hardly call ourselves complacent," Marin grumbled. “But we do like our privacy. Enjoy your time here."

Lanfear nodded, barely listening, concentrating once more upon her knitting. Without warning, she paused, tilted her head as if listening to something. The white blanket dropped to the floor.

Marin snatched up the valuable wool and began to snap out a question when she found herself unable to speak, a gag of Air restricting her tongue.

Lanfear stood up and vanished. Marin blinked and drew back into her chair, watching in fear as a door opened, seemingly by itself, and then closed again.

The Red Sisters approached the Inn with confidence. Wrapped in invisibility, Lanfear trailed behind them, her weaves inverted from their eyes. She sneered at them, her perfect red lips curling up into a rosebud. They could detect nothing of her. They were children, these so-called Aes Sedai, their weavings as inept as--well, as inept as Lanfear's own first attempt at knitting had been, when Marin had begun to teach her. It was a fitting analogy, seeing as the weave, like needles to yarn, was integral to manipulating the Source. Still. Lanfear conceded there was a primative kind of power about these women. Even if their individual strengths could not hope to equal her own, together they were dangerous.

Lanfear waited until the Red sisters were only metres away from the Winespring Inn, and then she struck.

The Red Sister who lead the party heard the crack of flame and smelled the acrid taint of smoke in the air. She turned in time to see a curtain of red-gold flame sweeping towards her and her sisters. She had enough presence of mind to hold in her screams so that she would not breathe in the smoke, and she reached for the Source. The rosebud became a flower, that exercise learned as a young novice and never forgotten. The Power came as she surrendered herself to it, dousing the oncoming flames and allowing her walk through them, although burns covered her face and hands and blackened her gown.

She searched for the source of the attack. The village streets were deserted, all the locals having scattered at the first sign of Aes Sedai, but the weaves had come from somewhere close to the Inn. It was saidar that had created those flames, which meant that it was almost certainly the woman who called herself Lanfear, the heretic who thought herself one of the Forsaken.

She signalled the other sisters to link, but they did not move quickly enough. Unjoined, the stranger’s power was greater than all of them separately. Silver spears materialized in the air, spinning towards them like daggers, piercing two sisters who could not divert the missiles quickly enough.

One grabbed her shoulder, clutching a wound, while the other fell to the ground. More missiles rained on the group, and more of the women fell to the cloaked and shielded force.

Slowly, the Red leader began to believe that their enemy may indeed be the Daughter of the Night herself.

Lanfear smashed the tendrils of Power reaching out to locate her, deftly unravelling the weaves. With another quick weave of her own, she aimed a lance of Power at the mind of the lead Red sister. There was no equivalent to this weave in the new Age, and these so-called Aes Sedai would have no defence against it. She was satisfied to see the red-cloaked woman fall to her knees, senselessly gibbering, drooling as her brain was surgically lobotomized.

This one would never channel again, but still the Red sister did not scream.

These children did have an admirable kind of military precision, Lanfear thought, no doubt the product of life in a barbaric age.

Spinning back to the others, Lanfear channelled again, now fiercely certain of her victory.

A breath of wind touched her behind, and she staggered about in time to avoid a net of burning air, thrown by one of the first women she had put down. She was forced to drop her weave of invisibility to continue the battle as well as fend off the attack. In an instant, Lanfear was fully visible to all, a moon-skinned, ravishingly beautiful woman, a lush flower with bewitching dark eyes.

She was all the more lovely in comparison to the plain-faced creature that had crept up behind her. Her features were unknown to Lanfear, but there was something familiar in her stance, her careless dress, and the diffident way she held her body. It was an awkwardness that did not prevent her from throwing weaves at Lanfear with a power that none of these other witches could match, and with such subtlety that none of them would recognize it.

“Mesanna,” Lanfear said, raising her voice for the benefit of the would-be Aes Sedai. “I heard you were hiding in their feeble Tower like a craven nobody. Some things never change."

Even from behind her mirror mask, Mesanna’s scowl was confirmation enough for Lanfear. Long after the fall of the Collam Daan, reminding Mesanna of her lack of professional accomplishment was still the best way to get under her skin.

Lanfear realized that she had miscalculated when her taunt seemed to embolden the other Forsaken rather than weaken her.

“You will not deceive us, Forsaken, nor drive us apart,” Mesanna shouted. "Your time of judgment has come!”

Lanfear saw the other Red Sisters taking heart from Masanna’s anger, those still living standing up and tightening their formation. These fool women were a threat now that she was visible, and Lanfear felt the first stirring of panic. She prepared to Gate out, but Mesanna kept her distracted, engaging her in a duel that took most of her concentration, barely allowing her time to fend off the attacks of the lesser channellers.

Under siege, Lanfear did not sense the arrival of a new channeller until it was too late. A weave of air reached out from a window of the Winespring Inn, seizing her long, dark hair and putting her on her back. Lanfear’s breath exploded from her lungs. She recovered from her shock quickly, but not quickly enough. The enemy channellers joined their power and blocked her from the Source with that same military precision that she had reluctantly admired. The Daughter of the Night look at the new arrival with dazed eyes, and was not terribly surprised to see Egwene al’Vere staring boldly down at her.

“Excellent, girl,” Mesanna praised. “They say you’ll choose the Green, but perhaps you’ll make a Red Sister after all.”

“Perhaps,” Egwene whispered.

“You would betray so easily the man you loved?” Lanfear asked the girl, hoping to upset her composure, searching a weakness in her armour that she might slide a knife in.

"Silence, Forsaken!” Mesanna barked. She followed with a gag of air, knowing that Lanfear’s words could shake the girl and unmask Mesanna herself, with enough work.

“Good work, Sister,” one of the other Reds said. “Fall back in line now.”

Mesanna slipped back in the shadows where she belonged, and the other Red, who was likely the new next in command to the fallen leader, addressed Lanfear.  

“Forsaken. You are to be taken to the White Tower. You will be tried for what you have done to our Sisters, as well as for countless crimes against humanity. But first, we will wait for the one who dares to call himself Dragon.”

A shadow flashed across Egwene’s face, but she said nothing.

“You, Accepted." The Red pointed at Egwene. "This is your home?”

“Yes, Aes Sedai.”

“Lead us inside, then, girl. We will hold this one here until we are finished.”

Lanfear lifted a cool, mocking eyebrow at Egwene, watching the girl as she visibly ground her teeth and dropped a slight curtsy.

“Yes, Aes Sedai.”

The Reds joined weaves to set Lanfear on her feet, then bound her hands with ropes, and gagged her mouth with cloth, allowing Mesanna to release the weave on her tongue. They walked Lanfear inside the Inn, keeping her within the centre of a tight formation.

Marin heard them coming and rushed into the common room of the Inn.

"What is this?” She was pale and wide-eyed, but brave as the Two Rivers folk always were. It was clear to Lanfear now why prophecy had set Lews Therin deep in the soil of this place.

“We are the Red Ajah of the White Tower,” the Red leader announced. “We have captured the Forsaken Lanfear and will be making use of your place of business to take the one who calls himself Dragon, when he returns.”

Marin’s eyes drifted to her daughter, who stood to the side of the Red formation.

"Egwene," Marin said softly. "You did this.”

Egwene’s hands tightened in her gown and she stared at her mother defiantly.

“Well, someone had to do it!”

Marin’s lips tightened.

“You have placed us all in danger.”

“You were already in danger! We’ve had Forsaken showing up for weeks, threatening to destroy us all. I did what I have to do.”

“But is that why you did it?”

“Enough!” the Red sister commanded. "Consider your village under restrictions. When the Dragon returns, we will capture him and leave. Until then, the Forsaken Lanfear will not be leaving this Inn. You will close your tavern until further notice, as you are suspected of harbouring an agent of the Shadow, woman. Should you be proven innocent by the time of our departure, you will be left in peace. If not, it is our duty to try you as a Darkfriend.”