The Path of Daggers

## Chapter 26

#### The Extra Bit

Seaine strode the hallways of the Tower with a growing sense of being confounded at every turn. The White Tower was quite large, true, but she had been at this for hours. She very much wanted to be snug in her own rooms. Despite casements in place in every window, drafts drifted along the broad, tapestry-hung corridors and made the stand-lamps flicker. Cold drafts, and difficult to ignore when they slipped under her skirts. Her rooms were warm and comfortable, and safe.

Maids bobbed curtsies and manservants bowed in her wake, half-seen and completely ignored. Most sisters were in their own Ajahs’ quarters, and those few out and about moved with wary pride, often in pairs, always of the same Ajah, shawls spread along their arms and displayed like banners. She smiled and nodded pleasantly to Talene, but the statuesque, golden-haired Sitter returned a hard stare, beauty carved from ice, then stalked away twitching her green-fringed shawl.

Too late now to approach Talene about being part of the search, even had Pevara been agreeable. Pevara counseled caution, then more caution, and truth to tell, Seaine was more than willing to listen under the circumstances. It was just that Talene was a friend. Had been a friend.

Talene was not the worst. Several ordinary sisters sniffed at her openly. At a Sitter! None White, of course, but that should have made no difference. No matter what was going on in the Tower, proprieties should be observed. Juilaine Madome, a tall, attractive woman with short-cut black hair who had held a chair for the Brown less than a year, brushed past her without so much as a murmur of apology and went off with those mannish strides of hers. Saerin Asnobar, another Brown Sitter, gave Seaine a fierce scowl and fingered that curved knife she always carried behind her belt before disappearing down a side corridor. Saerin was Altaran, slight touches of white at her dark temples emphasizing a thin age-faded white scar across one olive cheek, and only a Warder could match her for scowling.

Perhaps these things were all to be expected. There had been several unfortunate incidents recently, and no sister would forget being bundled unceremoniously from the hallways around another Ajah’s quarters, much less what had sometimes gone with it. Rumor said a Sitter—a Sitter!—had had more than her dignity ruffled by the Reds, though not who. A great pity the Hall could not obstruct Elaida’s mad decree, but first one Ajah, then another, had leaped on the new prerogatives, few Sitters were willing to think of giving them up now they were in place, and the result was a Tower divided very nearly into armed camps. Once Seaine had thought the air in the Tower felt like a quivering hot jelly of suspicion and backbiting; now it was quivering hot jelly with an acid bite.

Clicking her tongue in vexation, she adjusted her own white-fringed shawl as Saerin vanished. It was illogical to flinch because an Altaran scowled—even Saerin would go no further; surely not—and more than illogical to worry over what she could not change when she had a task.

And then, after all of her search that morning, she took a single step and saw her long-sought quarry walking toward her. Zerah Dacan was a slim, black-haired girl with a prideful air, properly self-possessed, and by all outward evidence untouched by the heated currents flowing through the Tower these days. Well, not a girl precisely, but Seaine was sure she had not worn that white-fringed shawl fifty years yet. She was inexperienced. Relatively inexperienced. That might help.

Zerah made no move to avoid a Sitter of her own Ajah, bowing her head in respect as Seaine fell in beside her. Quite a lot of intricate golden embroidery climbed the sleeves of her snowy dress and made a wide band at the bottom of her skirt. It was an unusual degree of show for the White Ajah. “Sitter,” she murmured. Did her blue eyes hold a touch of worry?

“I need you for something,” Seaine said more calmly than she felt. Very likely she was transplanting her own feelings into Zerah’s big eyes. “Come with me.” There was nothing to fear, not in the heart of the White Tower, but keeping her hands folded at her waist, unclenched, required surprising effort.

As expected—as hoped—Zerah went along with only another murmur, this of acquiescence. She glided at Seaine’s side quite gracefully as they descended broad marble staircases and wide curving ramps, and gave only the slightest frown when Seaine opened a door on the ground floor, onto narrow stairs that spiraled down into darkness.

“After you, sister,” Seaine said, channeling a small ball of light. By protocol, she should have preceded the other woman, but she could not bring herself to do that.

Zerah did not hesitate in going down. Logically, she had nothing to fear from a Sitter, a White Sitter. Logically, Seaine would tell her what she wanted when the time was ripe, and it would be nothing she could not do. Illogically, Seaine’s stomach fluttered like a huge moth. Light, she held saidar and the other woman did not. Zerah was weaker in any case. There was nothing to fear. Which did nothing to quiet those fluttering wings in her middle.

Down they climbed and down, past doors letting onto basements and sub-basements, until they reached the very lowest level, below even where the Accepted were tested. The dark hallway was lit only by Seaine’s small light. They held their skirts high, but their slippers kicked up small clouds of dust however carefully they stepped. Plain wooden doors lined the smooth stone walls, many with great lumps of rust for hinges and locks.

“Sitter,” Zerah asked, finally showing doubt, “whatever can we be after down here? I don’t believe anyone has been this deep for years.”

Seaine was sure her own visit, a few days earlier, had been the first to this level in at least a century. That was one of the reasons she and Pevara had chosen it. “Just in here,” she said, swinging open a door that moved with only a little squealing. No amount of oil could loosen all the rust, and efforts to use the Power had been useless. Her abilities with Earth were better than Pevara’s, but that was not saying very much.

Zerah stepped in, and blinked in surprise. In an otherwise empty room, Pevara sat behind a sturdy if rather worn table with three small benches around it. Getting those few pieces down unseen had been difficult—especially when servants could not be trusted. Clearing out the dust had been much simpler if no more pleasant, and smoothing the dust in the hall outside, necessary after every visit, had been simply onerous.

“I was about to give up sitting here in the dark,” Pevara growled. The glow of saidar surrounded her as she lifted a lantern from beneath the table and channeled it alight, casting as much illumination as the rough-walled former storeroom deserved. Somewhat plump and normally pretty, the Red Sitter looked a bear with two sore teeth. “We want to ask you a few questions, Zerah.” And she shielded the woman as Seaine shut the door.

Zerah’s shadowed face remained utterly calm, but she swallowed audibly. “About what, Sitters?” There was the faintest tremor in the younger woman’s voice, as well. It could be simply the mood of the Tower, though.

“The Black Ajah,” Pevara replied curtly. “We want to know whether you’re a Darkfriend.”

Amazement and outrage shattered Zerah’s calm. Most would have taken that for sufficient denial without her snapped “I don’t have to take that from you! You Reds have been setting up false Dragons for years! If you ask me, there’s no need to look further than the Red quarters to find Black sisters!”

Pevara’s face darkened with fury. Her loyalty to her Ajah was strong, which went without saying, but worse, she had lost her entire family to Darkfriends. Seaine decided to step in before Pevara resorted to brute force. They had no proof. Not yet.

“Sit, Zerah,” she said with as much warmth as she could muster. “Sit down, sister.”

Zerah turned toward the door as though she might disobey an order from a Sitter—and of her own Ajah!—but at last she settled onto one of the benches, stiffly, sitting right at the edge.

Before Seaine had finished taking a seat that placed Zerah between them, Pevara laid the ivory-white Oath Rod on the battered tabletop. Seaine sighed. They were Sitters, with a perfect right to use any ter’angreal they wished, but she had been the one to filch it—she could not help thinking of it as filching when she had observed none of the proper procedures—and the whole time, in the back of her head, she had been sure she would turn to find long-dead Sereille Bagand standing here, ready to haul her off to the Mistress of Novices’ study by her ear. Irrational, but no less real.

“We want to make sure you tell the truth,” Pevara said, still sounding like an angry bear, “so you will swear an oath on this, and then I’ll ask again.”

“I should not be subjected to this,” Zerah said with an accusing look at Seaine, “but I will re-swear all of the Oaths, if that’s what it needs to satisfy you. And I will demand an apology from you both, afterward.” She hardly sounded like a women shielded and asked such a question. Almost contemptuously, she reached for the slim, foot-long rod. It shone in the dim light of the lantern.

“You’ll swear to obey the two of us absolutely,” Pevara told her, and that hand snatched back as if from a coiled viper. Pevara went right on, even sliding the Rod closer to the woman with two fingers. “That way, we can tell you to answer truthfully and know you will, and if you give the wrong answer, we can know you’ll be obedient and helpful in helping us hunt down your Black sisters. The Rod can be used to free you of the oath, if you give the right answer.”

“To free—?” Zerah exclaimed. “I’ve never heard of anyone being loosed from an oath on the Oath Rod.”

“That is why we are taking all these precautions,” Seaine told her. “Logically, a Black sister must be able to lie, which means she must have been freed of at least that Oath and likely all three. Pevara and I tested, and found the procedure much the same as taking an oath.” She did not mention how painful it had been, though, leaving the pair of them weeping. She also did not mention that Zerah would not be freed of her oath whatever her answer, not until the search for the Black Ajah came to a conclusion. For one thing, she could not be allowed to run off and complain about this questioning, which she most certainly would, with every right, if she was not of the Black. If.

Light, but Seaine wished they had found a sister from another Ajah who fit the criteria they had set. A Green or a Yellow would have done quite nicely. That lot were overweening at the best of times, and of late . . . ! No. She was not going to fall prey to the sickness spreading through the Tower. Yet she could not help the names that flashed through her head, a dozen Greens, twice as many Yellows, and every one long past due taking down a few rungs. Sniff at a Sitter?

“You freed yourselves from one of the Oaths?” Zerah sounded startled, disgusted, uneasy, all at the same time. Perfectly reasonable responses.

“And took it again,” Pevara muttered impatiently. Snatching up the slim rod, she channeled a little Spirit into one end while maintaining Zerah’s shield. “Under the Light, I vow to speak no word that is not true. Under the Light, I vow to make no weapon for one man to kill another. Under the Light, I vow not to use the One Power as a weapon except against Shadowspawn, or in the last defense of my life, the life of my Warder, or that of another sister.” She did not grimace over the part about Warders; new sisters bound for the Red often did. “I am not a Darkfriend. I hope that satisfies you.” She showed Zerah her teeth, but whether in smile or snarl was hard to say.

Seaine retook the Oaths in turn, each producing a slight momentary pressure everywhere from her scalp to the soles of her feet. In truth, the pressure was difficult to detect at all, with her skin still feeling too tight from retaking the Oath against speaking a lie. Claiming that Pevara had a beard or that the streets of Tar Valon were paved with cheese had been strangely exhilarating for a time—even Pevara had giggled—but hardly worth the discomfort now. Testing had not really seemed necessary, to her. Logically, it must be so. Saying that she was not of the Black twisted her tongue—a vile thing to be forced to deny—but she handed Zerah the Oath Rod with a decisive nod.

Shifting on her bench, the slender woman turned the smooth white rod in her fingers, swallowing convulsively. The pale lantern light made her appear ill. She looked from one of them to the other, wide-eyed, then her hands tightened on the Rod, and she nodded.

“Exactly as I said,” Pevara growled, channeling Spirit to the Rod again, “or you’ll be swearing until you have it right.”

“I vow to obey the two of you absolutely,” Zerah said in a tight voice, then shuddered as the oath took hold. It was always tighter at the first. “Ask me about the Black Ajah,” she demanded. Her hands shook holding the Rod. “Ask me about the Black Ajah!” Her intensity told Seaine the answer even before Pevara released the flow of Spirit and asked the question, commanding utter truth. “No!” Zerah practically shouted. “No, I am not Black Ajah! Now take this oath from me! Free me!”

Seaine slumped dejectedly, resting her elbows on the table. She certainly had not wanted Zerah to answer yes, but she had been sure they had found the other woman out in a lie. One lie found, or so it had seemed, after weeks of searching. How many more weeks of searching lay ahead? And of looking over her shoulder from waking to sleeping? When she managed to sleep.

Pevara stabbed an accusing finger at the woman. “You told people that you came from the north.”

Zerah’s eyes went wide again. “I did,” she said slowly. “I rode down the bank of the Erinin to Jualdhe. Now free me of this oath!” She licked her lips.

Seaine frowned at her. “Goldenthorn seeds and a red cockle-burr were found on your saddlecloth, Zerah. Goldenthorn and red cockleburr can’t be found for a hundred miles south of Tar Valon.”

Zerah leaped to her feet, and Pevara snapped, “Sit down!”

The woman dropped onto the bench with a loud smack, but she did not even wince. She was trembling. No, shaking. Her mouth was clamped shut, otherwise Seaine was sure her teeth would have been chattering. Light, the question of north or south frightened her more than an accusation of being a Darkfriend.

“From where did you start out,” Seaine asked slowly, “and why—?” She meant to ask why the woman had gone roundabout—which plainly she had—just to hide which direction she came from, but answers burst from Zerah’s mouth.

“From Salidar,” she squealed. There was no other word for it. Still clutching the Oath Rod, she writhed on her bench. Tears spilled from her eyes, eyes as wide as they would go and fixed on Pevara. Words poured out, though her teeth truly did chatter now. “I c-came to m-make sure all the sisters here know about the R-Reds and Logain, so they’ll d-depose Elaida and the T-Tower can be whole again.” With a wail she collapsed into openmouthed bawling as she stared at the Red Sitter.

“Well,” Pevara said. Then again, more grimly, “Well!” Her face was all composure, but the glitter in her dark eyes was far from the mischief Seaine remembered as novice and Accepted. “So you are the source of that . . . rumor. You are going to stand before the Hall and reveal it for the lie it is! Admit the lie, girl!”

If Zerah’s eyes had been wide before, they bulged now. The Rod dropped from her hands to roll across the tabletop, and she clutched her throat. A choking sound came from her suddenly gaping mouth. Pevara stared at her in shock, but suddenly Seaine understood.

“Light’s mercy,” she breathed. “You do not have to lie, Zerah.” Zerah’s legs thrashed beneath the table as if she were trying to rise and could not get her feet under her. “Tell her, Pevara. She believes it’s true! You’ve commanded her to speak the truth and to lie. Don’t look at me that way! She believes!” A bluish tinge appeared on Zerah’s lips. Her eyelids fluttered. Seaine gathered calm with both hands. “Pevara, you gave the order so apparently you must release her, or she will suffocate right in front of us.”

“She’s a rebel.” Pevara’s mutter invested that word with all the scorn it could hold. But then she sighed. “She hasn’t been tried, yet. You don’t have to . . . lie . . . girl.” Zerah toppled forward and lay with her cheek pressed against the tabletop, gulping air between whimpers.

Seaine shook her head in wonder. They had not considered the possibility of conflicting oaths. What if the Black Ajah did not merely remove the Oath against lying, but replaced it with one of their own? What if they replaced all Three with their own oaths? She and Pevara would need to go very carefully if they did find a Black sister, or they might have her fall dead before they knew what the conflict was. Perhaps first a renunciation of all oaths—no way to go about it more carefully without knowing what Black sisters swore—followed by retaking the Three? Light, the pain of being loosed from everything at once would be little short of being put to the question. Maybe not short of it at all. But certainly a Darkfriend deserved that and more. If they ever found one.

Pevara glared down at the gasping woman without the slightest touch of pity on her face. “When she stands trial for rebellion, I intend to sit on her court.”

“When she is tried, Pevara,” Seaine said thoughtfully. “A pity to lose the assistance of one we know isn’t a Darkfriend. And since she is a rebel, we need not be overly concerned about using her.” There had been a number of discussions, none to a conclusion, about the second reason for leaving the new oath in place. A sister sworn to obey could be compelled—Seaine shifted uneasily; that sounded entirely too close to the forbidden vileness of Compulsion—she could be induced to help in the hunt, so long as you did not mind forcing her to accept the danger, whether she wished to or not. “I cannot think they would send only one,” she went on. “Zerah, how many of you came to spread this tale?”

“Ten,” the woman mumbled against the tabletop, then jerked erect, glaring in defiance. “I will not betray my sisters! I won’t—!” Abruptly she cut off, lips twisting bitterly as she realized she had done just that.

“Names!” Pevara barked. “Give me their names, or I will have your hide here and now!”

Names spilled from Zerah’s unwilling lips. At the command, certainly, more than the threat. Looking at Pevara’s grim face, though, Seaine was sure she needed little provocation to stripe Zerah like a novice caught stealing. Strangely, she herself did not feel the same animosity. Revulsion, yes, but clearly not as strong. The woman was a rebel who had helped break the White Tower when a sister must accept anything to keep the Tower whole, and yet . . . Very strange.

“You agree, Pevara?” she said when the list concluded. The stubborn woman gave her only a fierce nod for agreement. “Very well. Zerah, you will bring Bernaile to my rooms this afternoon.” There were two from each Ajah excepting the Blue and the Red, it seemed, but best to begin with the other White. “You will say only that I wish to speak to her on a private matter. You will give her no warning by word, deed, or omission. Then you will stand quietly and let Pevara and me do what is necessary. You are being recruited into a worthier cause than your misguided rebellion, Zerah.” Of course it was misguided. No matter how mad with power Elaida had become. “You are going to help us hunt down the Black Ajah.”

Zerah’s head jerked unwilling nods at each injunction, her face pained, but at mention of a hunt for the Black Ajah, she gasped. Light, her wits must have been totally unhinged by her experiences not to see that!

“And you will stop spreading these . . . stories,” Pevara put in sternly. “From this moment, you’ll not mention the Red Ajah and false Dragons together. Am I understood?”

Zerah’s face donned a mask of sullen stubbornness. Zerah’s mouth said, “I understand, Sitter.” She looked ready to begin weeping again from sheer frustration.

“Then get out of my sight,” Pevara told her, releasing the shield and saidar together. “And compose yourself! Wash your face and straighten your hair!” That last was directed at the back of the woman already darting from the table. Zerah had to pull her hands away from her hair to open the door. As the door squeaked shut behind her, Pevara snorted. “I wouldn’t put it past her to have gone to this Bernaile like a sloven, hoping to warn her that way.”

“A valid point,” Seaine admitted. “But who will we warn if we scowl right and left at these women? At the very least, we will attract notice.”

“The way matters are, Seaine, we wouldn’t attract notice kicking them across the Tower grounds.” Pevara sounded as if that were an attractive notion. “They are rebels, and I intend to hold them so hard they squeak if one of them so much as has a wrong thought!”

They went round and round about that. Seaine insisted that care in the orders they gave, leaving no loopholes, would be sufficient. Pevara pointed out that they were letting ten rebels—ten!—walk the Tower’s halls unpunished. Seaine said they would face punishment eventually, and Pevara growled that eventually was not soon enough. Seaine had always admired the other woman’s strength of will, but really, sometimes it was pure stubbornness.

A faint creak from a hinge was all the warning Seaine had to snatch the Oath Rod into her lap, hiding it in folds of her skirt as the door opened wide. She and Pevara embraced the Source almost as one.

Saerin walked into the room calmly, holding a lantern, and stood aside for Talene, who was followed by tiny Yukiri, with a second light, and boyishly slim Doesine, tall for a Cairhienin, who closed the door quite firmly and settled her back against it as if to keep anyone from leaving. Four Sitters, representing all the remaining Ajahs in the Tower. They seemed to ignore the fact that Seaine and Pevara held saidar. Suddenly, to Seaine, the room felt rather crowded. Imagination, and irrational, but . . .

“Strange to see the pair of you together,” Saerin said. Her face might be serene, but she slid fingers along the hilt of that curved knife behind her belt. She had held her chair forty years, longer than anyone else in the Hall, and everyone had learned to be careful of her temper.

“We might say the same of you,” Pevara replied dryly. Saerin’s temper never upset her. “Or did you come down here to help Doesine try to get some of her own back?” A sudden flush made the Yellow’s face look even more that of a pretty boy despite her elegant bearing, and told Seaine which Sitter had strayed too near the Red quarters with unfortunate results. “I wouldn’t have thought that would bring you together, though. Greens at Yellows’ throats, Browns at Grays’. Or did you just bring them down for a quiet duel, Saerin?”

Frantically, Seaine cast around for what reason would have these four this deep into the bedrock of Tar Valon. What could tie them together? Their Ajahs—all of the Ajahs—truly were at one another’s throats. All four had been handed penances by Elaida. No Sitter could enjoy Labor, especially when everyone knew exactly why she was scrubbing floors or pots, yet that was hardly a bond. What else? None were nobly born. Saerin and Yukiri were the daughters of innkeepers, Talene of farmers, while Doesine’s father had been a cutler. Saerin had been trained first by the Daughters of Silence, the only one of that lot to reach the shawl. Absolutely useless drivel. Suddenly, something did strike her, and dried her throat. Saerin with her temper often barely in rein. Doesine, who had actually run away three times as a novice, though she had only once made it as far as the bridges. Talene, who might have earned more punishments than any other novice in the history of the Tower. Yukiri, always the last Gray to join her sisters’ consensus when she wanted to go another way, the last to join the Hall’s, for that matter. All four were considered rebels, in a way, and Elaida had humiliated every one. Could they be thinking they had made a mistake, standing to depose Siuan and raise Elaida? Could they have found about Zerah and the others? And if so, what did they intend to do?

Mentally, Seaine prepared herself to weave saidar, though without much hope that she could escape. Pevara matched Saerin and Yukiri in strength, but she herself was weaker than any here save Doesine. She prepared herself, and Talene stepped forward and burst all of her logical deductions to flinders.

“Yukiri noticed you two sneaking about together, and we want to know why.” Her surprisingly deep voice held heat despite the ice that seemed to coat her face. “Did the heads of your Ajahs set you a secret task? In public, the Ajahs’ heads snarl at one another worse than anyone else, but they’ve been sneaking off into corners to talk, it seems. Whatever they’re scheming, the Hall has a right to know.”

“Oh, do give over, Talene.” Yukiri’s voice was always an even bigger surprise than Talene’s. The woman looked a miniature queen, in dark silver silk with ivory lace, but she sounded a comfortable country woman. She claimed the contrast helped in negotiations. She smiled at Seaine and Pevara, a monarch perhaps unsure how gracious she should be. “I saw the pair of you sniffing about like ferrets at the hencoop,” she said, “but I held my tongue—you might be pillow friends, for all I know, and whose business is that but yours?—I held my tongue till Talene here started yelping about who’s been huddling in corners. I’ve seen a bit of huddling in corners myself, and I suspect some of those women might head their Ajahs as well, so . . . Sometimes six and six make a dozen, and sometimes they make a mess. Tell us if you can, now. The Hall does have a right.”

“We are not leaving until you do tell,” Talene put in even more heatedly than before.

Pevara snorted and folded her arms. “If the head of my Ajah spoke two words to me, I’d see no reason to tell you what they were. As it happens, what Seaine and I were discussing has nothing to do with the Red or the White. Snoop elsewhere.” But she did not release saidar. Neither did Seaine.

“Bloody useless and I bloody knew it,” Doesine muttered from her place by the door. “Why I ever flaming let you talk me into this . . . Just as bloody well nobody else knows, or we’d have sheepswallop all over faces for the whole bloody Tower to see.” At times she had a tongue like a boy, too, a boy who needed his mouth washed out.

Seaine would have stood to leave if she had not feared her knees would betray her. Pevara did stand, and raised an impatient eyebrow at the women between her and the door.

Saerin fingered her knife hilt and eyed them quizzically, not shifting a step. “A puzzle,” she murmured. Suddenly she glided forward, her free hand dipping into Seaine’s lap so quickly that Seaine gasped. She tried to keep the Oath Road hidden, but the only result was that she ended with Saerin holding the Rod waist high with one hand while she held the other end and a fistful of her skirts. “I enjoy puzzles,” Saerin said.

Seaine let go and adjusted her dress; there seemed nothing else to do.

The appearance of the Rod produced a momentary babble as nearly everyone spoke at once.

“Blood and fire,” Doesine growled. “Are you down here raising new bloody sisters?”

“Oh, leave it with them, Saerin,” Yukiri laughed right on top of her. “Whatever they’re up to, it’s their own business.”

Atop both, Talene barked, “Why else are they sneaking about—together!—if it isn’t to do with the Ajah heads?”

Saerin waved a hand, and after a moment gained quiet. All present were Sitters, but she had the right to speak first in the Hall, and her forty years counted for something, too. “This is the key to the puzzle, I think,” she said, stroking the Rod with her thumb. “Why this, after all?” Abruptly the glow of saidar surrounded her, too, and she channeled Spirit to the Rod. “Under the Light, I will speak no word that is not true. I am not a Darkfriend.”

In the silence that followed, a mouse sneezing would have sounded loud.

“Am I right?” Saerin said, releasing the Power. She held the Rod out toward Seaine.

For the third time, Seaine retook the Oath against lying, and for the second time repeated that she was not of the Black. Pevara did the same with frozen dignity. And eyes sharp as an eagle’s.

“This is ridiculous,” Talene said. “There is no Black Ajah.”

Yukiri took the Rod from Pevara and channeled. “Under the Light, I will speak no word that is not true. I am not Black Ajah.” The light of saidar around her winked out, and she handed the Rod to Doesine.

Talene frowned in disgust. “Stand aside, Doesine. I for one will not put up with this filthy suggestion.”

“Under the Light, I will speak no word that is not true,” Doesine said almost reverently, the glow around her like a halo. “I am not of the Black Ajah.” When matters were serious, her tongue was as clean as any Mistress of Novices could have wished. She extended the Rod to Talene.

The golden-haired woman started back as from a poisonous snake. “Even to ask this is a slander. Worse than slander!” Something feral moved in her eyes. An irrational thought, perhaps, but that was what Seaine saw. “Now move out of my way,” Talene demanded with all the authority of a Sitter in her voice. “I am leaving!”

“I think not,” Pevara said quietly, and Yukiri nodded slowly in agreement. Saerin did not stroke her knife hilt; she gripped it till her knuckles went white.

Riding through the deep snows of Andor, floundering through them, Toveine Gazal cursed the day she was born. Short and slightly plump, with smooth copper skin and long glossy dark hair, she had seemed pretty to many over the years, but none had ever called her beautiful. Certainly none would now. The dark eyes that had once been direct now bored into whatever she looked at. That was when she was not angry. She was angry today. When Toveine was angry, serpents fled.

Four other Reds rode—floundered—at her back, and behind them twenty of the Tower Guard in dark coats and cloaks. None of the men liked it that their armor was stowed away on the packhorses, and they watched the forest lining both sides of the road as though expecting attack any moment. How they thought to cross three hundred miles of Andor unnoticed, wearing coats and cloaks with the Flame of Tar Valon shining bright on them, Toveine could not imagine. The journey was almost done, though. In another day, perhaps two with roads knee-deep in snow on the horses, she would join with nine other parties exactly like hers. Not all of the sisters in them were Red, unfortunately, but that did not trouble her overmuch. Toveine Gazal, once a Sitter for the Red, would go into the histories as the woman who destroyed this Black Tower.

She was sure Elaida thought her grateful for the chance, called back from exile and disgrace, given the opportunity for redemption. She sneered, and if a wolf had been looking into the deep hood of her cloak, it might have quailed. What had been done twenty years ago was necessary, and the Light burn all those who muttered that the Black Ajah must have been involved. It had been necessary and right, but Toveine Gazal had been driven from her chair in the Hall, and forced to howl for mercy under the birch, with the assembled sisters watching, and even novices and Accepted witnessing that Sitters, too, lay beneath the law, though they were not told what law. And then she had been sent to work these last twenty years on the isolated Black Hills farm of Mistress Jara Doweel, a woman who considered an Aes Sedai serving penance in exile no different from any other hand laboring in sun and snow. Toveine’s hands shifted on her reins; she could feel the calluses. Mistress Doweel—even now, she could not think of the woman without the honorific she had demanded—Mistress Doweel believed in hard work. And discipline as tight as any novice faced! She had no mercy on anyone who tried to shirk the backbreaking labor that she herself shared, and less than none for a woman who sneaked away to comfort herself with a pretty boy. That had been Toveine’s life these past twenty years. And Elaida had slipped through the cracks uncaught, danced her way to the Amyrlin Seat that Toveine had once dreamed of for herself. No, she was not grateful. But she had learned to wait her chance.

Abruptly, a tall man in a black coat, dark hair falling to his shoulders, spurred his horse out of the forest into the road ahead of her, spraying snow. “There’s no point struggling,” he announced firmly, raising a gloved hand. “Surrender peacefully, and no one will be hurt.”

It was neither his appearance nor his words that made Toveine rein up short, letting the other sisters gather beside her. “Take him,” she said calmly. “You had better link. He has me shielded.” It seemed one of these Asha’man had come to her. How convenient of him.

Abruptly she realized that nothing was happening and took her eyes from the fellow to frown at Jenare. The woman’s pale, square face seemed absolutely bloodless. “Toveine,” she said unsteadily, “I also am shielded.”

“I am shielded, too,” Lemai breathed in disbelief, and the others chimed in, increasingly frantic. All shielded.

More men in black coats appeared from among the trees, their horses stepping slowly, all around. Toveine stopped counting at fifteen. The Guards muttered angrily, waiting on a sister’s command. They knew nothing yet except that a band of rogues had waylaided them. Toveine clicked her tongue in irritation. These men could not all channel, of course, but apparently every Asha’man who could do so had come against her. She did not panic. Unlike some of the sisters with her, these were not the first men who channeled that she had confronted. The tall man began riding toward her, smiling, apparently thinking they had obeyed his ridiculous order.

“At my command,” she said quietly, “we will break in every direction. As soon as you are far enough away that the man loses the shield,” men always thought they had to be able to see to hold their weaves, which meant that they did have to, “turn back and help the Guards. Ready yourselves.” She raised her voice to a shout. “Guardsmen, fight them!”

Roaring, the Guardsmen surged forward, waving their swords and no doubt thinking to surround and protect the sisters. Pulling her mare around to the right, Toveine dug in her heels and crouched low over Sparrow’s neck, dodging between startled Guardsmen, then between two very young men in black coats who gaped at her in astonishment. Then she was into the trees, urging more speed, snow spraying wildly, careless of whether the mare broke a leg. She liked the animal, but more than a horse would die today. Behind her, shouts. And one voice, roaring through all the cacophony. The tall man’s voice.

“Take them alive, by order of the Dragon Reborn! Harm an Aes Sedai, and you’ll answer to me!”

By order of the Dragon Reborn. For the first time, Toveine felt fear, an icicle worming into her middle. The Dragon Reborn. She thrashed Sparrow’s neck with the reins. The shield was still on her! Surely there were enough trees between them already to block the cursed men’s sight of her! Oh, Light, the Dragon Reborn!

She grunted as something struck her across the middle, a branch where there was no branch, snatching her out of the saddle. She hung there watching Sparrow plow off at as much of a gallop as the snow allowed. She hung there. In the middle of the air, arms trapped at her sides, feet dangling a pace or more above the ground. She swallowed. Hard. It had to be the male part of the Power holding her up. She had never been touched by saidin before. She could feel the thick band of nothing snug around her middle. She thought she could feel the Dark One’s taint. She quivered, fighting down screams.

The tall man reined his horse to a halt in front of her, and she floated down to sit sideways in front of his saddle. He did not seem particularly interested in the Aes Sedai he had captured, though. “Hardlin!” he shouted. “Norley! Kajima! One of you bloody young louts come here now!”

He was very tall, with shoulders an axe-handle wide. That was how Mistress Doweel would have put it. Just short of his middle years, handsome in a brooding, rugged fashion. Not at all like the pretty boys Toveine liked, eager and grateful and so easily controlled. A silver sword decorated the tall collar of his black wool coat on one side, with a peculiar creature in gold and red enamel on the other. He was a man who could channel. And he had her shielded and a prisoner.

The shriek that burst from her throat startled even her. She would have held it back if she could, but another leaped out behind it, higher still, and another even higher, another and another. Kicking wildly, she flung herself from side to side. Useless against the Power. She knew that, but only in a tiny corner of her mind. The rest of her howled at the top of her lungs, howled wordless pleas for rescue from the Shadow. Screaming, she struggled like a mad beast.

Dimly she was aware of his horse plunging and dancing as her heels drummed its shoulder. Dimly she heard the man talking. “Easy, you lump-eared sack of coal! Calm down, sister. I’m not going to—Easy, you spavined mule! Light! My apologies, sister, but this is how we learn to do it.” And then he kissed her.

She had only a heartbeat to realize his lips were touching hers, then sight vanished, and warmth flooded through her. More than warmth. She was melted honey inside, bubbling honey, rushing toward the boil. She was a harpstring, vibrating faster and faster, vibrating to invisibility and faster still. She was a thin crystal vase, quivering on the brink of shattering. The harpstring broke; the vase shattered.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

At first, she did not realize that sound had come from her gaping mouth. For a moment, she could not think coherently. Panting, she stared up at the male face above her, wondering who it belonged to. Yes. The tall man. The man who could—

“I could have done without the extra bit,” he sighed, patting the horse’s neck; the animal snorted, but it no longer leaped about, “yet I suppose it is necessary. You’re hardly a wife. Be calm. Don’t try to escape, don’t attack anyone in a black coat, and don’t touch the Source unless I give you permission. Now, what’s your name?”

Unless he gave permission? The effrontery of the man! “Toveine Gazal,” she said, and blinked. Now, why had she answered him?

“There you are,” another black-coated man said, splashing his horse through the snow to them. This one would be much more to her liking—if he could not actually channel, at least. She doubted this pink-cheeked lad shaved more than twice in the week. “Light, Logain!” the pretty boy exclaimed. “Did you take a second one? The M’Hael won’t like that! I don’t think he likes us taking any! Maybe it won’t matter, though, you two being so close and all.”

“Close, Vinchova?” Logain said wryly. “If the M’Hael had his way, I’d be hoeing turnips with the new boys. Or buried under the field,” he added in a mutter she did not think he meant to be heard.

However much he heard, the pretty boy laughed with incredulous disbelief. Toveine barely heard him. She was gazing up at the man looming over her. Logain. The false Dragon. But he was dead! Stilled and dead! And holding her before his saddle with a casual hand. Why was she not screaming, or striking at him? Even her belt knife would do, this near. Yet she had no desire at all to reach for the ivory haft. She could, she realized. That band around her middle was gone. She could at least slip down off the horse and try to—She had no desire to do that, either.

“What did you do to me?” she demanded. Calmly. At least she had managed to hold on to that!

Turning his horse to ride back to the road, Logain told her what he had done, and she put her head against that wide chest, not caring at all how big he was, and wept. She was going to make Elaida pay for this, she vowed. If Logain ever let her, she would. That last was an especially bitter thought.