Crossroads of Twilight (85 page)

“I know,” she said. And since it seemed Algarin might have told him everything, she added, “I was the one who captured Emarin and took him to Tar Valon.” A strange thing for Algarin to be grateful for, in some eyes, but his younger brother survived being gentled for more than ten years after she had helped him reconcile to it. The brothers had been close.

The boy’s eyebrows twitched as he settled into his chair. He had
not
known. “Algarin wants to be tested,” he said.

She met his gaze levelly, serenely, and held her tongue. Algarin’s children were married, those who still lived. Maybe he was ready to turn this piece of land over to his descendants. In any case, one man more or less who could channel hardly made any difference at this point. Unless it was the boy who was staring at her.

After a moment, his chin moved, the vestige of a nod. Had he been testing her? “Never fear that I’ll fail to tell you when you’re being a fool, boy.” Most people remembered that after one meeting she had a sharp tongue. This young man required reminding from time to time. He grunted. It might have been a laugh. It might have been rueful. She reminded herself that he wanted her to teach him something, though he did not seem to know what. No matter. She had a list to choose from, and she had only begun on it.

His face might have been carved from stone for all the expression he showed, but he bounded to his feet and began to pace back and forth between the fireplace and the door. His hands were clenched in fists behind his back. “I’ve been talking with Alivia, about the Seanchan,” he said. “They call their army the Ever Victorious Army for a reason. It’s never lost a war. Battles, yes, but never a war. When they lose a battle, they sit down and work out what they did wrong, or what the enemy did right. Then they change what needs changing for them to win.”

“A wise way,” she said when the flow of words paused. Plainly, he expected some comment. “I know men who do the same. Davram Bashere, for one. Gareth Bryne, Rodel Ituralde, Agelmar Jagad. Even Pedron Niall did, when he was alive. All judged great captains.”

“Yes,” he said, still pacing. He did not look at her, perhaps did not see her, but he was listening. It was to be hoped that he actually heard, as well. “Five men, all great captains. The Seanchan
all
do it. That’s been their way for a thousand years. They change what they have to change, but they don’t give up.”

“Are you considering the possibility they can’t
be
defeated?” she asked calmly. Calmness always suited until you knew the facts, and usually after, too.

The boy rounded on her, stiff-necked and eyes like ice. “I can defeat them eventually,” he said, struggling to keep his tone civil. That much was to the good. The less often she had to prove that she could and would punish transgressions of her rules, the better. “But—” He cut off with a growl as the sounds of argument in the hallway penetrated the door.

A moment later the door swung open, and Elza backed into the room, still arguing in a loud voice and trying to hold back two other sisters with her spread arms. Erian, her pale face flushed with color, was pushing the other Green ahead of her physically. Sarene, a woman so beautiful she made Erian look almost ordinary, wore a cooler expression, as might be expected from a White, but she was shaking her head in exasperation, and hard enough to make the colorful beads in her thin braids click together. Sarene possessed a temper, though she normally kept it sealed away tightly.

“Bartol and Rashan do be coming,” Erian announced loudly, agitation thickening Illian in her speech. Those were her two Warders, left behind in Cairhien. “I did no send for them, but someone did Travel with them. An hour ago, I felt them suddenly closer, and just now, closer again. They are coming toward us now.”

“My Vitalien, he also is coming closer,” Sarene said. “He will be here in a few hours, I think.”

Elza let her arms drop, though from the stiffness of her back, she was still glaring at the two sisters. “My Fearil will be here shortly as well,” she muttered. He was her only Warder; it was said they were married, and Greens who married seldom took another another Warder at the same time. Cadsuane wondered whether she would have spoken if the others had not.

“I didn’t expect it so soon,” the boy said softly. Softly, but there was steel in his voice. “But I shouldn’t have expected events to wait on me, should I, Cadsuane?”

“Events never wait on anyone,” she said, standing. Erian flinched as if she had just noticed her, though Cadsuane was sure her face was as smooth
as the boy’s. And maybe as stony, at that. What had brought those Warders from Cairhien, and who had Traveled with them, might be problems enough to go on with, but she thought she had gotten another answer from the boy, and she was going to have to consider very carefully how to advise him on it. Sometimes, the answers were thornier than the questions.

A Strengthening Storm

Midafternoon sunlight should have been slanting through the windows of Rand’s bedchamber, but a hard rain was falling outside, and all the lamps were lit to hold off a twilight darkness. Thunder rattled the glass-filled casements in the windows. It was a fierce storm that had rolled down out of the Dragonwall faster than a running horse and brought a deeper cold, almost deep enough for snow. The raindrops pelting the house were half-frozen slush, and despite blazing logs on the hearthstone, a chill clung to the room.

Lying on his bed with his booted feet propped one atop the other on the coverlet, he stared up at the canopy and tried to put his thoughts in order. He could disregard the thunderstorm outside, but Min, snuggling under his arm, was another matter. She did not try to distract him; she just did it without trying. What was he to do about her? About Elayne, and Aviendha. Those two were only vague presences in his head, at this distance from Caemlyn. At least, he assumed they were still in Caemlyn. Assuming was dangerous when it came to those two. All he had of them at the moment was a general sense of direction and the knowledge they were alive. Min’s body was pressed tight against his side, though, and the bond made her as vibrant inside his head as she was in the flesh. Was it too late to keep Min safe, to keep Elayne and Aviendha safe?

What makes you think you can keep anyone safe?
Lews Therin whispered in
his head. The dead madman was an old friend, now.
We are
all
going to die. Just hope that you aren’t the one who kills them.
Not a welcome friend, just one he could not rid himself of. He no longer feared killing Min or Elayne or Aviendha any more than he feared going mad. Madder than he already was, at least, with a dead man in his head, and sometimes a foggy face he could almost recognize. Did he dare ask Cadsuane about either one?

Trust no one,
Lew Therin murmured, then gave a wry laugh.
Including me.

Without warning, Min punched him in the ribs hard enough to make him grunt. “You’re getting melancholy, sheepherder,” she growled. “If you’re worrying about me again, I swear, I’ll . . .” She had so many different ways of growling, Min did, each matched to very different sensations through the bond. There was the light irritation he felt from her now, this time touched with worry, and sometimes there was a sharp edge as if she were refraining from snapping his head off. There was a growl that almost made him laugh from the amusement in her head, or as close to laughing as he had come in what seemed a very long time, and a throaty growl that would have heated his blood even without the bond.

“None of that, now,” she said warningly, before he could move the hand resting on her back, and rolled off the bed to her feet, tugging her embroidered coat straight with a reproving look. Since bonding him, she was even better at reading his mind, and she had been good enough before. “What are you going to do about them, Rand? What is Cadsuane going to do?” Lightning flashed in the windows, almost bright enough to wash out the lamps, and thunder boomed against the window glass.

“I haven’t yet been able to see what she was going to do ahead of time, Min. Why should today be different?”

The thick feather mattress sagged beneath him as he swung his legs over the side and sat up facing her. He almost pressed a hand to the old wounds in his side without thinking, then caught himself and changed the movement to buttoning up his coat. Half-healed and never healing, those two overlapping wounds hurt since Shadar Logoth. Or maybe he was just more aware of how they throbbed, the heat of them a furnace of fever trapped in an area smaller than the palm of his hand. One, at least, he hoped, would begin to heal with Shadar Logoth gone. Maybe there had just not been enough time yet for him to feel any difference. It was not the same side that Min had fisted—she was always gentle with that, if not always with the rest of him—but he thought he had kept the pain hidden from her. No point in giving her something more to worry over. The concern in her eyes, and in her head, must be about Cadsuane. Or the others.

The manor house and all of its outlying buildings were crowded, now. It had seemed inevitable that sooner or later someone would try using the Warders left in Cairhien; their Aes Sedai had not blared that they were going off to find the Dragon Reborn, but neither had they been particularly secretive. Even so, he had never anticipated those who arrived with them. Davram Bashere with a hundred of his Saldaean light horse, dismounting in a wind-driven soaking rain and muttering about ruined saddles. Over half a dozen black-coated Asha’man who for some reason had not shielded themselves from the downpour. They rode with Bashere, but it had been like two parties arriving, a little distance between them always, a strong whiff of watchful wariness. And one of the Asha’man was Logain Ablar. Logain! An Asha’man, wearing the Sword and Dragon on his collar! Bashere and Logain both wanted to talk to him, but not in front of anyone, especially each other it seemed. Unexpected or not, though, they were hardly the most surprising of the visitors. He had thought the eight Aes Sedai must be more friends of Cadsuane, yet he would swear she had been as surprised as he to see most of them. Odder, all but one seemed to be with the Asha’man! Not prisoners, and certainly not guards, but Logain had been reluctant to explain with Bashere present, and Bashere reluctant to leave Logain the first chance to talk to Rand alone. Now they were all drying off and settling into their rooms, leaving him to try to put his thoughts in order. To the extent that he could, with Min close by. What
would
Cadsuane do? Well, he had tried to ask her advice. Events had outrun both of them, though. The decision had been made, whatever Cadsuane thought. Lightning flashed again in the windows. Lightning seemed to suit Cadsuane. You could never tell where it would strike.

Alivia would finish her,
Lews Therin muttered.
She’s going to help us die; she’d remove Cadsuane for us, if you tell her to.

I don’t want to kill her,
Rand thought at the dead man.
I can’t afford for her to die.
Lews Therin knew that as well as he, but the man grumbled under his breath anyway. Since Shadar Logoth, he seemed a touch less mad, sometimes. Or maybe Rand was a touch more. After all, he took talking to a dead man in his head as a matter of every day, and that was hardly sane.