Portions of the Tower’s wings below were alight with flames, and to her horror, Egwene saw several gaping holes directly in the sides of the Tower. To’raken clutched the side of the Tower, climbing up like bats clinging to a wall, unloading soldiers and damane into the building. As Egwene watched, a to’raken leapt free of the side of the Tower, the height allowing it to forgo its normal running start. The creature wasn’t as graceful as one of the smaller raken, but its handler did a masterful job of directing it back into the air. The creature flew right by Egwene’s window, the wind of its passing blowing back her hair. Egwene faintly heard screaming as the to’raken swept past. Terrified screaming.
It wasn’t a full-scale attack—it was a raid! A raid to capture marath’damane! Egwene pulled to the side as a blast of fire shot by the window and hit the wall a short distance away. She could hear rock crumble, and the Tower shook violently. Dust and smoke exploded down a side passage off the hallway.
Soldiers would soon follow. Soldiers and sul’dam. With those leashes. Egwene shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself. The cool, seamless metal. The nausea, the degradation, the panic, despair, and—shamefully—guilt at not serving her mistress to the best of her abilities. She remembered the haunted look of an Aes Sedai as she was broken. Most of all, she remembered her own terror.
The terror of realizing that she would be like the others, eventually. Just another slave, happy to serve.
The Tower shook. Fire flashed in the distant hallways accompanied by shouts and wails of despair. She could smell smoke. Oh, Light! Could this really be? She wouldn’t go back. She wouldn’t let them leash her again. She had to run! She had to hide, flee, escape . . .
No!
She pushed herself upright.
No, she would not flee. She was Amyrlin.
Nicola huddled beside the wall, whimpering. “They’re coming for us,” the girl whispered. “Oh Light, they’re coming!”
“Let them come!” Egwene roared, opening herself to the Source. Blessedly, enough time had passed to dull the forkroot slightly, and she was able to grab a faint trickle of the Power. It was tiny, perhaps the least amount of the Power she’d ever channeled. She wouldn’t be able to weave a tongue of Air to shift a piece of paper. But it would be enough. It had to be. “We will fight!”
Nicola just sniffed, looking up at her. “You can barely channel, Mother!” she wailed. “I can see it. We can’t fight them!”
“We can and will,” Egwene said firmly. “Stand, Nicola! You’re an initiate of the Tower, not a frightened milkmaid.”
The girl looked up.
“I will protect you,” Egwene said. “I promise.”
The girl seemed to take heart, rising. Egwene glanced toward the distant hallway where the blast had hit. It was dark, the wall lamps unlit, but she thought she spotted shadows. They’d be coming, and they’d be leashing any women they found.
Egwene turned in the other direction. She could still faintly hear screams that way. They were the ones she’d heard just after she’d awakened. She didn’t know where the guard at her door had gone, and didn’t really care.
“Come,” she said, striding forward, holding to her tiny bit of the Power like a drowning woman clinging to a rescue rope. Nicola followed, still sniffling, but she followed. Several moments later, Egwene discovered what she’d hoped to find. The hallway was filled with girls, some in their white dresses, others wearing their shifts. The novices clumped together, many of them screaming at each blast that shook the Tower. Likely, they wished that they were down below, where the novices’ quarters had once been.
“The Amyrlin!” several exclaimed as Egwene entered the hallway. They were a sorry bunch, lit by candles in terrified hands. Their questions sprouted like rotwood mushrooms in the spring.
“What’s happening?”
“Are we under attack?”
“Is it the Dark One?”
Egwene raised her hands, and the girls fell mercifully silent. “The Tower is under attack from the Seanchan,” she said in a calm voice. “They have come to capture women who can channel; they have ways of forcing those women to serve them. It is not the Last Battle, but we are in grave danger. I don’t intend to let them take a single one of you. You are mine.”
The hallway grew still. Girls glanced at her, hopeful, nervous. There were a good fifty of them, perhaps more. They would have to do.
“Nicola, Jasmen, Yeteri, Inala,” Egwene said, naming off some of the more powerful of the novices. “Come forward. The rest of you pay close attention. I’m going to teach you something.”
“What, Mother?” one of the girls asked.
This had better work, Egwene thought. “I’m going to teach you how to link.”
There were gasps. This wasn’t a thing taught to novices, but Egwene would see that sul’dam did not find easy pickings in the novices’ quarters!
Teaching the method took a worrisome length of time, each moment torn by more blasts and more screams. The novices were frightened, and that made it difficult for some of them to embrace the Source, let alone learn a new technique. What had taken Egwene only a few tries to master took the novices a heart-pounding five minutes to begin.
Nicola was a help—she had been taught to link back in Salidar—and could help demonstrating. As they practiced, Egwene had Nicola join a circle with her. The young novice opened herself up to the Source, but stayed just on the cusp of surrender and let Egwene pull power through her. It worked, bless the Light! Egwene felt a rush of exhilaration as the One Power—too long denied her in meaningful quantities—flooded into her. How sweet it was! The world was more vibrant around her, sounds more sweet, colors more beautiful.
She smiled at the thrill of it. She could feel Nicola, sense her fear, her emotions bubbling over. Egwene had been part of enough circles to know how to separate herself from Nicola, but Egwene remembered that first time, how she had felt swept up into something far larger than herself.
There was a special skill to opening oneself to a circle. It wasn’t terribly difficult to learn, but they didn’t have much time. Fortunately, some of the girls soon picked it up. Yeteri, a petite blonde still in her nightgown, was first. Inala, a coppery and lanky Domani, followed soon after. Egwene eagerly formed a circle with Nicola, and the two other novices. Power flooded into her.
Next, she set about getting the others to practice. She had some inkling, from discussions with the novices during her stay in the Tower, which among them were the most skilled with weaves and the most level-headed. Those weren’t always the most powerful, but that wouldn’t matter if they had a circle backing them up. Egwene hurriedly set them into groups, explaining how to accept the Source through a link. Hopefully, at least some of them would figure it out.
What mattered was that Egwene now had the Power. A fair measure of it, almost as much as she was accustomed to without forkroot. She smiled in anticipation, then began a weave, the complexity of it awing several of the novices. “What you are seeing,” Egwene warned, “is something that you are not to try, even those of you leading circles. It is far too difficult and dangerous.”
A line of light split the air at the end of the hallway, rotating upon itself. She hoped that the gateway would open in the right location; she was going on Siuan’s instructions, which had been somewhat vague, though she also had Elayne’s original description of the place.
“Also,” Egwene said to the novices in a stern voice, “you are not to repeat this weave for anyone without my express permission, not even other Aes Sedai.” She doubted that would be an issue; the weave was complex and few novices would have the skill yet to repeat it.
“Mother?” a hawk-nosed girl named Tamala squeaked. “Are you escaping?” Her voice was edged with fear, and not a little hope, as if Egwene might take her, too.
“No,” Egwene said firmly. “I’ll return in just a moment. When I come back, I want at least five good circles formed!”
And with Nicola and her two other attendant
s in tow, Egwene stepped through the gateway into a dark room. She wove a globe of light, and the illumination revealed a storeroom with shelves lining the walls. She let out a relieved sigh. She’d gotten the location right.
Those shelves, along with two short rows of shelves out on the floor, were filled with items of curious design. Crystal globes, small exotic statues, here a glass pendant which reflected blue in the light, there a large set of metal gauntlets lined at the cuffs with firedrops. Egwene strode into the room, leaving the three novices to stare in wonder. They could likely sense what Egwene knew—these were objects of the One Power. Ter’angreal, angreal, sa’angreal. Relics of the Age of Legends.
Egwene scanned the shelves. Items of the Power were infamously dangerous to use if you didn’t know exactly what they did. Any one of these items could kill her. If only. . . .
She smiled broadly, stepping up to a shelf and sliding a fluted white wand as long as her forearm off the top shelf. She’d found it! She held it reverently for a moment, then reached and pulled the One Power through it. An awesome, almost overpowering, torrent of power flooded through her.
Yeteri gasped audibly at sensing it. Few women had ever held such power. It surged into Egwene, like a deep breath drawn in. It made her long to roar. She looked at the three novices, smiling broadly. “Now we’re ready,” she announced.
Let the sul’dam try and shield her while she was wielding one of the most powerful sa’angreal that the Aes Sedai possessed. The White Tower would not fall while she was Amyrlin! Not without a fight to rival the Last Battle itself.
Siuan found Gawyn’s tent illuminated, shadows playing on the walls as the man moved about inside. His tent was suspiciously close to the guard post; he was allowed to stay within the palisade, perhaps so that Bryne—and the watching guards—could keep an eye on him.
Bryne, being the stubborn devilfish he was, had not gone to his guard post as she’d instructed. He’d followed behind her, cursing and calling for his attendants to come find him, rather than meet him at the post. Even as she stopped at young Gawyn’s tent, Bryne stepped up beside her, hand resting on the hilt of his sword. He eyed her with dissatisfaction. Well. She wouldn’t let him be the judge of her honor! She would do what she pleased.
Although it was likely to make Egwene very, very annoyed with her. She’ll be thankful in the end, Siuan thought. “Gawyn!” she barked.
The handsome youth burst out of his tent, hopping as he stomped on his left boot. He had his sheathed sword in hand, sword belt half on around his waist. “What?” he asked, scanning the camp. “I heard shouts. Are we being attacked?”
“No,” Siuan said, glancing at Bryne. “But Tar Valon might be.”
“Egwene!” Gawyn cried, hurriedly doing the last loops on his belt. Light, but the boy was single-minded.
“Boy,” Siuan said, folding her arms. “I owe you a debt for getting me out of Tar Valon. Will you take my help getting you in to Tar Valon as repayment?”
“Gladly!” Gawyn said eagerly, sliding his sword in place. “Repayment and then some!”
She nodded. “Go get us some horses, then. It might just be the two of us.”
“I’ll risk it,” Gawyn said. “Finally!”
“You won’t be taking my horses for this fool’s errand,” Bryne said sternly.
“There are mounts in his stables owned by the Aes Sedai, Gawyn,” Siuan said, ignoring Bryne. “Get one of them for me. A mild one, mind you. Very, very mild.”
Gawyn nodded and ran away into the night. Siuan followed him at a more careful pace, plotting. This would all be so much easier if she could create a gateway, but she didn’t have enough strength in the Power for that. She had before her stilling, but wishing for things to be different was about as useful as wishing the silverpike you’d caught was a fangfish instead. You sold what you had and were happy for any kind of catch at all.
“Siuan,” Bryne said softly, walking beside her. Couldn’t he just let her be! “Listen to me. This is insanity! How are you going to get in?”
Siuan glanced at him. “Shemerin got out.”
“That was before there was a siege, Siuan.” Bryne sounded exasperated. “The place is much tighter now.”
Siuan shook her head. “Shemerin was being watched closely. She got out through a watergate; it’s unwatched I’ll bet, even now. I’d never heard of it, and I was Amyrlin. I have a map to its location.”
Bryne hesitated. Then his face hardened. “It doesn’t matter. The two of you still have no chance on your own.”
“Then come with us,” Siuan said.
“I will not be party to you breaking your oath again.”
“Egwene said we could do something if it looked like she was in danger of execution,” Siuan said. “She told me she’d let us rescue her then! Well, the way she vanished from the meeting with me tonight, I’m inclined to think she’s in danger.”
“It isn’t Elaida who put her there, but the Seanchan!”
“We don’t know for certain.”
“Ignorance is not an excuse,” Bryne said sternly, stepping closer to her. “You have made oathbreaking far too convenient, Siuan, and I don’t want it to become a habit for you. Aes Sedai or not, former Amyrlin or not, people must have rules and boundaries. To say nothing of the fact that you’re likely to get yourself killed attempting this!”
“And will you stop me?” She was still holding the source. “Do you think you could manage it?”
He ground his teeth. But he said nothing. Siuan turned and walked away from him, straight toward the fires at the palisade gate.
“Blasted woman,” Bryne said from behind. “You’ll be the death of me.”
She turned, raising an eyebrow.
“I’ll come,” he said, hand gripping the hilt of his sheathed sword. He cut an imposing figure in the night, the straight lines of his coat matching the set cast of his face. “But there are two conditions.”
“Name them,” she said.
“The first is that you bond me as your Warder.”
Siuan started. He wanted. . . . Light! Bryne wanted to be her Warder? She felt a surge of excitement.
But she hadn’t considered taking a Warder, not since Alric’s death. Losing him had been a terrible experience. Did she want to risk that again?
Did she dare pass the opportunity to have this man bonded to her, to feel his emotions, have him by her side? After all that she had dreamed and all that she had wished?
Feeling reverent, she stepped back up to Bryne, then laid a hand against his chest and wove the required weaves of Spirit and laid them over him. He breathed in sharply as new awareness blossomed inside of both of them, a new connection. She could feel his emotions, could sense his concern for her, which was shockingly powerful. It was ahead of his worry for Egwene and concern for his soldiers! Oh, Gareth, she thought, feeling herself smile at the sweetness of his love for her.
“I always wondered what that would feel like,” Bryne said, raising his hand and making a fist a few times in the torchlight. He sounded amazed. “Would that I could give this to each man in my army!”
Siuan sniffed. “I highly doubt that their wives and families would approve of that.”
“They would if it kept the soldiers alive,” Bryne said. “I could run a thousand leagues and never want for breath. I could stand against a hundred foes at once and laugh at them all.”
She rolled her eyes. Men! She had given him a deeply personal and emotional connection to another person—the likes of which even husbands and wives would never know—and all he could think about was how much better he might have become at swordplay!
“Siuan!” a voice called. “Siuan Sanche!”
She turned. Gawyn, riding a black gelding, approached. Another horse trotted behind him—a shaggy brown mare. “Bela!” Siuan exclaimed.
“Is she suitable?” Gawyn said, sounding slightly out of breath. “Bela was once Egwene’s horse, I recall, and the stablemaster said she was the most placid he had
.”
“She’ll do just fine,” Siuan said, turning back to Bryne. “You said you had two requirements?”
“I’ll tell you the second at a later time.” Bryne still sounded a little breathless.
“That’s rather ambiguous.” Siuan folded her arms. “I don’t like giving an open promise.”
“Well, you’ll have to do it anyway,” Bryne said, meeting her eyes.
“Fine, but it had better not be indecent, Gareth Bryne.”
He frowned.
“What?”
“It’s odd,” he said, smiling. “I can sense your emotions now. For instance I could tell. . . .” He cut off, and she could sense him growing just faintly embarrassed.
He can tell that I half want him to demand something indecent of me! Siuan realized, aghast. Bloody ashes! She felt herself blushing. This was going to be very inconvenient. “Oh, for the Blessed Light. . . . I agree to your terms, you lout. Get moving! We have to go.”
He nodded. “Let me prepare my captains to take charge in case the fight spills out of the city. I’ll bring a guard of my best hundred with us. That should be small enough to get in, assuming this gate really is passable.”
“It will be,” she said. “Go!”
He actually saluted her, his face straight, but she could sense his inward grin—and he likely knew it. Insufferable man! She turned to Gawyn, who sat his gelding, looking confused.
“What’s happening?” Gawyn asked.
“We don’t have to go in alone.” Siuan took a deep breath, then steeled herself as she climbed up into Bela’s saddle. Horses couldn’t be trusted, not even Bela, though she was better than most. “That means our chances of surviving long enough to take Egwene just improved. Which is fortunate, since after what we’re about to do, she’ll undoubtedly want the privilege of killing us personally.”
Adelorna Bastine ran through the hallways of the White Tower. For once, she rued the enhanced senses that holding the Power offered. Scents seemed more crisp to her, but all she could smell were burning wood and dying flesh. Colors were more vibrant, and all she could see were the ashen scars of broken stone where lashes or balls of flame had fallen. Sounds were more crisp, but all she heard were screams, curses, and the raucous calls of those horrible beasts in the air.
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