The Dragon Reborn

## Chapter 14

#### The Bite of the Thorns

The Amyrlin Seat did not speak at once—she walked to the tall, arched windows and looked out across the balcony at the garden below, hands clasped tightly behind her. Minutes went by before she spoke, still with her back to the two of them.

“I have kept the worst of it from getting out, but how long will that last? The servants do not know of the stolen ter’angreal, and they do not connect the deaths with Liandrin and the others leaving. It was not easy to manage that, gossip being what it is. They believe the deaths were the work of Darkfriends. And so they were. Rumors are reaching the city, too. That Darkfriends got into the Tower, that they did murder. There was no way to stop that. It does our reputation no good, but at least it is better than the truth. At least none outside the Tower, and few inside, know Aes Sedai were killed. Darkfriends in the White Tower. Faugh! I’ve spent my life denying that. I will not let them be here. I will hook them, and gut them, and hang them out in the sun to dry.”

Nynaeve gave Egwene an uncertain look—half as uncertain as Egwene felt—then took a deep breath. “Mother, are we to be punished more? Beyond what you’ve already sentenced us to?”

The Amyrlin looked over her shoulder at them; her eyes were lost in shadow. “Punished more? You might well say that. Some will say I’ve given you a gift, raising you. Now feel the real bite of that rose’s thorns.” She strode briskly back to her chair and sat down, then seemed to lose her urgency again. Or to gain uncertainty.

To see the Amyrlin look uncertain made Egwene’s stomach clench. The Amyrlin Seat was always sure, always serenely centered on her path. The Amyrlin was strength personified. For all her own raw power, the woman on the other side of the table had the knowledge and experience to wind her around a spindle. To see her suddenly wavering—like a girl who knew she had to dive head first into a pond without any idea of how deep it was or whether there were rocks or mud on the bottom—to see that, chilled Egwene right to her core. What does she mean, the real bite of the thorns? Light, what does she mean to do to us?

Fingering a carved black box on the table in front of her, the Amyrlin peered at it as if looking at something beyond. “It is a question of who I can trust,” she said softly. “I should be able to trust Leane and Sheriam, at least. But do I dare? Verin?” Her shoulders shook with a quick, silent laugh. “I already trust Verin with more than my life, but how far can I take it? Moiraine?” She was silent for a moment. “I have always believed I could trust Moiraine.”

Egwene shifted uneasily. How much did the Amyrlin know? It was not the kind of thing she could ask, not of the Amyrlin Seat. Do you know that a young man from my village, a man I used to think I’d marry one day, is the Dragon Reborn? Do you know two of your Aes Sedai are helping him? At least she was sure the Amyrlin did not know she had dreamed of him last night, running from Moiraine. She thought she was sure. She kept silent.

“What are you talking about?” Nynaeve demanded. The Amyrlin looked up at her, and she moderated her tone as she added, “Forgive me, Mother, but are we to be punished more? I do not understand this talk of trust. If you want my opinion, Moiraine is not to be trusted.”

“That is your opinion, is it?” the Amyrlin said. “A year out of your village, and you think you know enough of the world to choose which Aes Sedai to trust, and which not? A master sailor who’s barely learned to hoist a sail!”

“She did not mean anything, Mother,” Egwene said, but she knew Nynaeve meant exactly what she had said. She shot a warning glance at Nynaeve. Nynaeve gave her braid a sharp tug, but she kept her mouth shut.

“Well, who is to say,” the Amyrlin mused. “Trust is as slippery as a basket of eels, sometimes. The point is, you two are what I have to work with, thin reeds though you may be.”

Nynaeve’s mouth tightened, though her voice stayed level. “Thin reeds, Mother?”

The Amyrlin went on as if she had not spoken. “Liandrin tried to stuff you head first into a weir, and it may well be she left because she learned you were returning, and could unmask her, so I have to believe you aren’t—Black Ajah. I would rather eat scales and entrails,” she muttered, “but I suppose I’ll have to get used to saying that name.”

Egwene gaped in shock—Black Ajah? Us? Light!—but Nynaeve barked, “We certainly are not! How dare you say such a thing? How dare you even suggest it?”

“If you doubt me, child, go ahead!” the Amyrlin said in a hard voice. “You may have an Aes Sedai’s power sometimes, but you are not yet Aes Sedai, not by miles. Well? Speak, if you have more to say. I promise to leave you weeping for forgiveness! ‘Thin reed’? I’ll break you like a reed! I’ve no patience left.”

Nynaeve’s mouth worked. Finally, though, she gave herself a shake, and drew a calming breath. When she spoke her voice still had an edge, but a small one. “Forgive me, Mother. But you should not—We are not—We would not do such a thing.”

With a compressed smile, the Amyrlin leaned back in her chair. “So you can keep your temper, when you want to. I had to know that.” Egwene wondered how much of it had been a test; there was a tightness around the Amyrlin’s eyes that suggested her patience might well be exhausted. “I wish I could have found a way to raise you to the shawl, Daughter. Verin says you are already as strong as any woman in the Tower.”

“The shawl!” Nynaeve gasped. “Aes Sedai? Me?”

The Amyrlin gestured slightly as if tossing something away, but she looked regretful to lose it. “No point wishing for what can’t be. I could hardly raise you to full sister and send you to scrub pots at the same time. And Verin also says you still cannot channel consciously unless you are furious. I was ready to sever you from the True Source if you even looked like embracing saidar. The final tests for the shawl require you to channel while maintaining utter calm under pressure. Extreme pressure. Even I cannot—and would not—set that requirement aside.”

Nynaeve seemed stunned. She was staring at the Amyrlin with her mouth hanging open.

“I don’t understand, Mother,” Egwene said after a moment.

“I suppose you don’t, at that. You are the only two in the Tower I can be absolutely sure are not Black Ajah.” The Amyrlin’s mouth still twisted around those words. “Liandrin and her twelve went, but did all of them go? Or did they leave some of their number behind, like a stub in shallow water that you don’t see till it puts a hole in your boat? It may be I’ll not find that out until it is too late, but I will not let Liandrin and the others get away with what they did. Not the theft, and especially not the murders. No one kills my people and walks away unscathed. And I’ll not let thirteen trained Aes Sedai serve the Shadow. I mean to find them, and still them!”

“I don’t see what that has to do with us,” Nynaeve said slowly. She did not look as if she liked what she was thinking.

“Just this, child. You two are to be my hounds, hunting the Black Ajah. No one will believe it of you, not a pair of half-trained Accepted I humiliated publicly.”

“That is crazy!” Nynaeve’s eyes had opened wide by the time the Amyrlin reached the words “Black Ajah,” and her knuckles were white from her grip on her braid. She bit her words off and spat them: “They are all full Aes Sedai. Egwene hasn’t even been raised to Accepted yet, and you know I cannot channel enough to light a candle unless I am angry, not of my own free will. What chance would we have?”

Egwene nodded agreement. Her tongue had stuck to the roof of her mouth. Hunt the Black Ajah? I’d rather hunt a bear with a switch! She’s just trying to scare us, to punish us more. She has to be! If that was what the Amyrlin was trying, she was succeeding all too well.

The Amyrlin was nodding, too. “Every word you say is true. But each of you is more than a match for Liandrin in sheer power, and she is the strongest of them. Yes they are trained, and you are not, and you, Nynaeve, do have limitations, as yet. But when you don’t have an oar, child, any plank will do to paddle the boat ashore.”

“But I would be useless,” Egwene blurted. Her voice came out as a squeak, but she was too afraid to be ashamed. She means it! Oh, Light, she means it! Liandrin gave me to the Seanchan, and now she wants me to hunt thirteen like her? “My studies, my lessons, working in the kitchens. Anaiya Sedai will surely want to continue testing me to see if I am a Dreamer. I’ll barely have time left over to sleep and eat. How can I hunt anything?”

“You will have to find the time,” the Amyrlin said, cool and serene once more, as if hunting the Black Ajah were no more than sweeping a floor. “As one of the Accepted, you choose your own studies, within limits, and the times for them. And the rules are a little easier for Accepted. A little easier. They must be found, child.”

Egwene looked to Nynaeve, but what Nynaeve said was, “Why is Elayne not part of this? It can’t be because you think she is Black Ajah. Is it because she is Daughter-Heir of Andor?”

“A full net on the first cast, child. I would make her one of you if I could, but at the moment Morgase gives me enough problems as it is. When I have her combed and curried and prodded back on the proper path, perhaps Elayne will join you. Perhaps then.”

“Then leave Egwene out, too,” Nynaeve said. “She is barely old enough to be a woman. I will do your hunting for you.” Egwene made a sound of protest—I am a woman!—but the Amyrlin spoke before her.

“I am not setting you out as bait, child. If I had a hundred of you, I would still not be happy, but there are only you two, so two I will have.”

“Nynaeve,” Egwene said, “I do not understand you. Do you mean you want to do this?”

“It isn’t that I want to,” Nynaeve said wearily, “but I’d rather hunt them than sit wondering if the Aes Sedai teaching me is really a Darkfriend. And whatever they are up to, I do not want to wait until they’re ready to find out what it is.”

The decision Egwene came to twisted her stomach. “Then I will do it, too. I don’t want to sit wondering and waiting any more than you do.” Nynaeve opened her mouth, and Egwene felt a flash of anger; it was such a relief after fear. “And don’t you dare say I’m too young again. At least I can channel when I want to. Most of the time. I am not a little girl anymore, Nynaeve.”

Nynaeve stood there, jerking on her braid and not saying a word. Finally the stiffness drained out of her. “You are not, are you? I have said myself you are a woman, but I suppose I did not really believe it, inside. Girl, I—No, woman. Woman, I hope you realize you’ve climbed into a pickling cauldron with me, and the fire may be lit.”

“I know it.” Egwene was proud that her voice hardly shook at all.

The Amyrlin smiled as if pleased, but there was something in her blue eyes that made Egwene suspect she had known what their decisions would be all along. For an instant, she felt those puppeteer’s strings on her arms and legs again.

“Verin . . . ” The Amyrlin hesitated, then muttered half to herself. “If I must trust someone, it might as well be her. She knows as much as I already, and maybe more.” Her voice strengthened. “Verin will give you all that is known of Liandrin and the others, and also a list of the ter’angreal that were taken, and what they will do. Those that we know. As for any of the Black Ajah still in the Tower . . . Listen, watch, and be careful of your questions. Be like mice. If you have even a suspicion, report it to me. I will keep an eye on you myself. No one will think that strange, given what you’re being punished for. You can make your reports when I look in on you. Remember, they have killed before. They could easily kill again.”

“That’s all very well,” Nynaeve said, “but we will still be Accepted, and it is Aes Sedai we’re after. Any full sister can tell us to go about our business, or send us off to do her laundry, and we will have no choice but to obey. There are places Accepted are not supposed to go, things we’re not supposed to do. Light, if we were sure a sister was Black Ajah, she could tell the guards to lock us in our rooms and keep us there, and they would do it. They certainly would not take the word of an Accepted over that of an Aes Sedai.”

“For the most part,” the Amyrlin said, “you must work within the limitations of the Accepted. The idea is for no one to suspect you. But . . . ” She opened the black box on her table, hesitated and looked at the other two women as if still unsure she wanted to do this, then took out a number of stiff, folded papers. Sorting through them carefully, she hesitated again, then chose out two. The remainder she shoved back into the box, and handed those two to Egwene and Nynaeve. “Keep these well hidden. They are for an emergency only.”

Egwene unfolded her thick paper. It held writing in a neat, round hand, and was sealed at the bottom with the White Flame of Tar Valon.

What the bearer does is done at my order and by my authority. Obey, and keep silent, at my command.

Siuan Sanche
Watcher of the Seals
Flame of Tar Valon
The Amyrlin Seat

“I could do anything with this,” Nynaeve said in a wondering voice. “Order the guards to march. Command the Warders.” She gave a little laugh. “I could make a Warder dance, with this.”

“Until I found out about it,” the Amyrlin agreed dryly. “Unless you had a very convincing reason, I’d make you wish Liandrin had caught you.”

“I didn’t mean to do any of that,” Nynaeve said hastily. “I just meant that it gives more authority than I had imagined.”

“You may need every shred of it. But just you remember, child. A Darkfriend won’t heed that any more than a Whitecloak would. They would both likely kill you just for having it. If that paper is a shield . . . well, paper shields are flimsy, and this one may have a target painted on it.”

“Yes, Mother,” Egwene and Nynaeve said together. Egwene folded her paper up and tucked it into her belt pouch, resolving not to take it out again unless she absolutely had to. And how will I know when that is?

“What about Mat?” Nynaeve asked. “He’s very sick, Mother, and he does not have much time left.”

“I will send word to you,” the Amyrlin said curtly.

“But, Mother—”

“I will send word to you! Now, off with you, children. The hope of the Tower rests in your hands. Go to your rooms and get some rest. Remember, you have appointments with Sheriam, and with the pots.”