Nynaeve frowned. "It's a good plan, save for one thing. I don't like you being in danger, Mother. Let me lead this fight. I can manage it."
Egwene studied Nynaeve, and Siuan saw some of the real Egwene. Thoughtful. Bold, but calculating. She also saw Egwene's fatigue, the weight of responsibility. Siuan knew that feeling well.
I a admit you have a valid concern," Egwene said. "Ever since I let myself get captured by Elaid a's cronies outside of Tar Valon, I've wondered if I become too directly involved, too directly in danger."
"Exactly," Nynaeve said.
"However," Egwene said, "the simple fact remains that I am the one among us who is most expert at Tel'aran'rhiod. You two are skilled, true,
but I have more experience. In this case, I am not just the leader of the Aes Sedai, I am a tool that the White Tower must use." She hesitated "I dreamed this, Nynaeve. If we do not defeat Mesaana here, all could be lost. All will be lost. It is not a time to hold back any of our tools, no matter how valuable."
Nynaeve reached for her braid, but it now came only to her shoulders She gritted her teeth at that. "You might have a point. But I don't like it."
"The Aiel dreamwalkers," Siuan said. "Mother, you said you'll be meet-ing with them. Might they be willing to help? I'd feel much better about having you fight if I knew they were around to keep an eye on you."
"Yes," Egwene said. "A good suggestion. I will contact them before we meet and make the request, just in case."
"Mother," Nynaeve said. "Perhaps Rand—"
"This is a matter of the Tower, Nynaeve," Egwene said. "We will manage it."
"Very well."
"Now," Egwene continued, "we need to figure out how to spread the right rumors so that Mesaana won't be able to resist coming to listen . . ."
Perrin hit the nightmare running. The air bent around him, and the city houses—this time of the Cairhienin flat-topped variety—disappeared. The road became soft beneath his feet, like mud, then turned to liquid.
He splashed in the ocean. Water again? he thought with annoyance.
Deep red lightning crashed in the sky, throwing waves of bloody light across the sea. Each burst revealed shadowed creatures lurking beneath the waves. Massive things, evil and sinuous in the spasming red lightning.
People clung to the wreckage of what had once been a ship, screaming in terror and crying out for loved ones. Men on broken boards, women trying to hold their babies above the water as towering waves broke over them, dead bodies bobbing like sacks of grain.
The things beneath the waves struck, snatching people from the surface and dragging them into the depths with splashes of fins and sparking, razor-sharp teeth. The water was soon bubbling red that didn't come from the lightning.
Whoever had dreamed this particular nightmare had a singularly twisted imagination.
Perrin refused to let himself be drawn in. He squelched his fear, and did not swim for one of those planks. It isn't real. It isn't real. It isn't real.
Despite his understanding, part of him knew that he was going to die
in these waters. These terrible, bloody waters. The moans of the others assaulted him, and he yearned to try to help them. They weren't real, he knew. Just figments. But it was hard.
Perrin began to rise from the water, the waves turning back into ground. But then he cried out as something brushed his leg. Lightning crashed breaking the air. A woman beside him slipped beneath the waves,
tugged by unseen jaws. Panicked, Perrin was suddenly back in the water, there in a heartbeat, floating in a completely different place, one arm slung over a piece of wreckage.
This happened sometimes. If he wavered for a moment—if he let himself see the nightmare as real—it would pull him in and actually move him, fitting him into its terrible mosaic. Something moved in the water nearby, and he splashed away with a start. One of the surging waves raised him into the air.
It isn't real. It isn't real. It isn't real.
The waters were so cold. Something touched his leg again, and he screamed, then choked off as he gulped in a mouthful of salty water.
IT ISN'T REAL/
He was in Cairhien, leagues from the ocean. This was a street. Hard stones beneath. The smell of baked bread coming from a nearby bakery. The street lined with small, thin-trunked ash trees.
With a bellowing scream, he clung to this knowledge as the people around him held to their flotsam. Perrin knotted his hands into fists, focusing on reality.
There were cobblestones under his feet. Not waves. Not water. Not teeth and fins. Slowly, he rose from the ocean again. He stepped out of it and set his foot on the surface, feeling solid stone beneath his boot. The other foot followed. He found himself on a small, floating circle of stones.
Something enormous surged from the waters to his left, a massive beast part fish and part monster, with a maw so wide that a man could walk into it standing upright. The'teeth were as large as Perrin's hand, and they glittered, dripping blood.
It was not real.
The creature exploded into mist. The spray hit Perrin, then dried immediately. Around him, the nightmare bent, a bubble of reality pressing out from him. Dark air, cold waves, screaming people ran together like wet paint.
Tnere was no lightning—he did not see it light his eyelids. There was no thunder. He could not hear it crashing. There were no waves, not in the middle of landlocked Cairhien.
Perrin snapped his eyes open, and the entire nightmare broke apart, vanishing like a film of frost exposed to the spring sunlight. The buildings reappeared, the street returned, the waves retreated. The sky returned to the boiling black tempest. Lightning that was bright and white flashed in its depths, but there was no thunder.
Hopper sat on the street a short distance away. Perrin walked over to the wolf. He could have jumped there immediately, of course, but he didn't like the idea of doing everything easily. That would bite at him when he returned to the real world.
You grow strong, Young Bull, Hopper sent approvingly.
"I still take too long," Perrin said, glancing over his shoulder. "Every time I enter, it takes me a few minutes to regain control. I need to be faster. In a battle with Slayer, a few minutes might as well be an eternity."
He will not be so strong as these.
"He'll still be strong enough," Perrin said. "He's had years to learn to control the wolf dream. I only just started."
Hopper laughed. Young Bull, you started the first time you came here.
"Yes, but I just started training a few weeks back."
Hopper continued laughing. He was right, in a way. Perrin had spent two years preparing, visiting the wolf dream at night. But he still needed to learn as much as he could. In a way, he was glad for the delay before the trial.
But he could not delay too long. The Last Hunt was upon them. Many of the wolves were running to the north; Perrin could feel them passing. Running for the Blight, for the Borderlands. They were moving both in the real world and in the wolf dream, but those here did not shift there directly. They ran, as packs.
He could tell that Hopper longed to join them. However, he remained behind, as did some others.
"Come on," Perrin said. "Let's find another nightmare."
The Rose March was in bloom.
That was incredible. Few other plants had bloomed in this terrible summer, and those that did had wilted. But the Rose March was blooming, and fiercely, hundreds of red explosions twisting around the garden framework. Voracious insects buzzed from flower to flower, as if every bee in the city had come here to feed.
Gawyn kept his distance from the insects, but the scent of roses was so
pervasive that he felt bathed in it. Once he finished his walk, his clothing would probably smell of the perfume for hours.
Elayne was speaking with several advisors near one of the benches beside a small, lily-covered pond. She was showing her pregnancy, and seemed radi-
ant. Her golden hair reflected the sunlight like the surface of
a mirror; atop that hair, the Rose Crown of Andor looked almost plain by comparison.
She often had much to do these days. He'd heard hushed reports of the weapons she was building, the ones she thought might be as powerful as captive damane. The bellfounders in Caemlyn had been working for straight through the nights, from what he'd heard. Caemlyn was preparing for war, the city abuzz with activity. She didn't often have time for him, though he was glad for what she could spare.
She smiled at him as he approached, then waved off her attendants for the moment. She walked to him and gave him a fond kiss on the cheek. "You look thoughtful."
"A common malady of mine lately," he said. "You look distracted."
"A common malady of mine lately," she said. "There is always too much to do and never enough of me to do it.
"If you need to—"
"No," she said, taking his arm. "I need to speak to you. And I've been told that a walk around the gardens once a day will be good for my constitution."
Gawyn smiled, breathing in the scents of roses and mud around the pond. The scents of life. He glanced up at the sky as they walked. "I can't believe how much sunlight we've been seeing here. I'd nearly convinced myself that the perpetual gloom was something unnatural."
"Oh, it probably is," she said nonchalantly. "A week back the cloud cover in Andor broke around Caemlyn, but nowhere else."
"But. . . how?"
She smiled. "Rand. Something he did. He was atop Dragonmount, I think. And then . . ."
Suddenly, the day seemed darker. "Al'Thor again," Gawyn spat. "He follows me even here."
"Even here?" she said with amusement. "I believe these gardens are where we first met him."
Gawyn didn't reply to that. He glanced northward, checking the sky in that direction. Ominous dark clouds hung out there. "He's the father, isn't he?"
"If he were," Elayne said without missing a beat, "then it would be
prudent to hide that fact, wouldn't it? The children of the Dragon Reborn will be targets."
Gawyn felt sick. He'd suspected it the moment he'd discovered the pregnancy. "Burn me," he said. "Elayne, how could you? After what he did to our mother!"
"He did nothing to her," Elayne said. "I can produce witness after wit-ness that will confirm it, Gawyn. Mother vanished before Rand liberated Caemlyn." There was a fond look in her eyes as she spoke of him. "Something is happening to him. I can feel it, feel him changing. Cleansing. He drives back the clouds and makes the roses bloom."
Gawyn raised an eyebrow. She thought the roses bloomed because of a/'Thor? Well, love could make a person think strange things, and when the man she spoke of was the Dragon Reborn, perhaps some irrationality was to be expected.
They approached the pond's small dock. He could remember swimming there as a child, then getting an earful for it. Not from his mother, from Galad, though Gawyn's mother had given him a stern, disappointed look. He'd never told anyone that he'd been swimming only because Elayne had pushed him in.
"You're never going to forget that, are you?" Elayne asked.
"What?" he asked.
"You were thinking of the time you slipped into the pond during Mother's meeting with House Farah."
"Slipped? You pushed me!"
"I did nothing of the sort," Elayne said primly. "You were showing off, balancing on the posts."
"And you shook the dock."
"I stepped onto it," Elayne said. "Forcefully. I'm a vigorous person. I have a forceful stride."
"A forceful— That's a downright lie!"
"No, I'm merely stating the truth creatively. I'm Aes Sedai now. Its a talent of ours. Now, are you going to row me on the pond, or nor?"
"I . . . Row you? When did that come up?"
"Just now. Weren't you listening?"
Gawyn shook a bemused head. "Fine." Behind them, several Guards-women took up posts. They were always near, often led by the tall woman who fancied herself an image of Birgitte from the stories. And maybe she did look like Birgitte at that—she went by the name, anyway, and was serving as Captain-General.
The Guards were joined by a growing group of attendants and mes-
sengers. The Last Battle approached, and Andor prepared—and, unfortu-
nately, many of those preparations required Elayne's direct attention.
Though Gawyn had heard a curious story of Elayne having been carried up
on the city wall in her bed a week or so back. So far, he hadn't been able to
pin her down on whether that was true or not.
He waved to Birgitte, who gave him a scowl as he led Elayne to the
pond's small rowboat. "I promise not to dump her in," Gawyn called. Then, under his breath, "Though I might row 'forcefully' and upend us."
"Oh, hush," Elayne said, settling down. "Pondwater wouldn't be good for the babies."
"Speaking of which," Gawyn said, pushing the boat off with his toe, then stepping into it. The vessel shook precariously until he sat down. "Aren't you supposed to be walking for your 'constitution'?"
"I'll tell Melfane I needed to take the opportunity to reform my miscreant brother. You can get away with all kinds of things if you're giving someone a proper scolding."
"And is that what I'm getting? A scolding?"
"Not necessarily." Her voice was somber. Gawyn shipped the oars and slipped them into the water. The pond wasn't large, barely big enough to justify a boat, but there was a serenity about being upon the water, amid the pond-runners and the butterflies.
"Gawyn," Elayne said, "why have you come to Caemlyn?"
"It's my home," he said. "Why shouldn't I come here?"
"I worried about you during the siege. I could have used you in the fighting. But you stayed away."
"I explained that, Elayne! I was embroiled in White Tower politics, not to mention the winter snows. It burns me that I couldn't help, but those women had their fingers on me."
"I'm one of 'those women' myself, you know." She held up her hand, Great Serpent ring encircling her finger.
"You're different," Gawyn said. 'Anyway, you're right. I should have been here. I don't know what other apologies you expect me to make, though."
I don't expect any apologies," Elayne said. "Oh, Gawyn, I wasn't chastising you. While I certainly could have used you, we managed. I also worried about you getting caught between defending the Tower and protecting Egwene. It seems that worked out as well. So, I ask. Why have you come here now? Doesn't Egwene need you?"
"Apparently not," Gawyn said, backing the boat. A massive draping willow grew from the side of the pond here, hanging down branches like
braids to dangle above the water. He raised his oars outside those branches and the boat stilled.
"Well," Elayne said. "I won't presume to pry into that—at least, not at the moment. You are always welcome here, Gawyn. I'd make you Captain.. General if you asked, but I don't think you want it."
"What makes you say that?"
"Well, you've spent the majority of your time here moping around these gardens."
"I have not been moping. I've been pondering."
"Ah, yes. I see you've learned to speak the truth creatively, too."
He snorted softly.
"Gawyn, you haven't been spending time with any of your friends or acquaintances from the palace. You haven't been stepping into the role of a prince or Captain-General. Instead you merely . . . ponder."
Gawyn looked out across the pond. "I don't spend time with the others because they all want to know why I wasn't here for the siege. They keep asking when I'm going to take my station here and lead your armies."
"It's all right, Gawyn. You don't have to be Captain-General, and I can survive with my First Prince of the Sword absent, if I must. Though I'll admit, Birgitte is rather upset with you for not becoming Captain-General."
"Is that the reason for the glares?"
"Yes. But she will manage; she's actually good at the job. And if there's anyone I'd want you protecting, it would
be Egwene. She deserves you."
"And what if I've decided I don't want her?"
Elayne reached forward, resting her hand on his arm. Her face— framed in golden hair, topped by that matching crown—looked concerned. "Oh, Gawyn. What has happened to you?"
He shook his head. "Bryne thinks I was too accustomed to succeeding, and didn't know how to react when things started to upend on me."
"And what do you think?"
"I think it's been good for me to be here," Gawyn said, taking a deep breath. Some women were walking along the path around the pond, led by a woman with bright red hair that was streaked with white. Dimana was some kind of failed student of the White Tower. Gawyn wasn't quite certain about the nature of the Kin and their relationship with Elayne.
"Being here," he said, "reminded me of my life before. It's been particularly liberating to be free of Aes Sedai. For a time, I was sure that I needed to be with Egwene. When I left the Younglings to ride to her, it felt like the best choice I'd ever made. And yet, she seems to have moved beyond needing me. She's so concerned with being strong, with being the
Amyrlin, that she doesn't have room for anyone who won't bow to her every whim."
"I doubt that it's as bad as you say, Gawyn. Egwene . . . well, she has to
put forward a strong front. Because of her youth, and the way she was
raised But she's not arrogant. No more so than is necessary."
Elayne dipped her fingers in the water, startling a goldenback fish. "I've
felt the way she must be feeling. You say she wants someone to bow and
scrape for her, but what I'd bet she really wants—what she really needs—is
someone she can trust completely. Someone she can give tasks, then not
worry about how they will be handled. She has enormous resources. Wealth,
troops, fortifications, servants. But there's only one of her, and so if everything
requires her attention directly, she might as well have no resources at all."
"I . . ."
"You say you love her," Elayne said. "You've told me you're devoted to her, that you'd die for her. Well, Egwene has armies full of those kinds of people, as do I. What is truly unique is someone who does what I tell them. Better, someone who does what they know I'd tell them, if I had the chance."
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