Staggering, she stepped out of the arch, neither noticing her nakedness nor caring. A shudder ran through her, and she covered her mouth with both hands. “I couldn’t, Rand,” she whispered. “I couldn’t. Please forgive me.” Light help him. Please, Light help Rand.
Cold water poured over her head.
“You are washed clean of false pride,” Elaida intoned. “You are washed clean of false ambition. You come to us washed clean, in heart and soul.”
As the Red sister turned away, Sheriam gently took Egwene’s shoulders and guided her toward the last arch. “One more, child. One more, and it is done.”
“He said they could turn him to the Shadow,” Egwene mumbled. “He said the Myrddraal and the Dreadlords could force him.”
Sheriam missed a step, and looked around quickly. Elaida was almost back to the table. The Aes Sedai surrounding the ter’angreal stared at it, seeming lost to anything else. “An unpleasant thing to talk of, child,” Sheriam said finally, and softly. “Come. One more.”
“Can they?” Egwene insisted.
“Custom,” Sheriam said, “is not to speak of what happens within the ter’angreal. A woman’s fears are her own.”
“Can they?”
Sheriam sighed, glanced at the other Aes Sedai again, then dropped her voice to a whisper and spoke swiftly. “This is something known only to a few, child, even in the Tower. You should not learn it now, if ever, but I will tell you. There is—a weakness in being able to channel. That we learn to open ourselves to the True Source means that we can be—opened to other things.” Egwene shuddered. “Calm yourself, child. It is not so easily done. It is a thing not done, so far as I know—Light send it has not been done!—since the Trolloc Wars. It took thirteen Dreadlords—Darkfriends who could channel—weaving the flows through thirteen Myrddraal. You see? Not easily done. There are no Dreadlords today. This is a secret of the Tower, child. If others knew, we could never convince them they were safe. Only one who can channel can be turned in this way. The weakness of our strength. Everyone else is as safe as a fortress; only their own deeds and will can turn them to the Shadow.”
“Thirteen,” Egwene said in a tiny voice. “The same number who left the Tower. Liandrin, and twelve more.”
Sheriam’s face hardened. “That is nothing for you to dwell on. You will forget it.” Her voice climbed to a normal volume. “The third time is for what will be. The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.”
Egwene stared at the glowing arch, stared at some far distance beyond it. Liandrin and twelve others. Thirteen Darkfriends who can channel. Light help us all. She stepped into the light. It filled her. It shone through her. It burned her to the bone, seared her to the soul. She flashed incandescent in the light. Light help me! There was nothing but the light. And the pain.
Egwene stared into the standing mirror, and was not sure whether she was more surprised by the ageless smoothness of her face or the striped stole that hung around her neck. The stole of the Amyrlin Seat.
The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.
Thirteen.
She swayed, caught at the mirror and almost toppled it and herself to the blue-tiled floor of her dressing chamber. Something is wrong, she thought. The wrongness had nothing to do with her sudden dizziness, or at least that was not what felt wrong. It was something else. But she had no idea what.
There was an Aes Sedai at her elbow, a woman with Sheriam’s high cheekbones but dark hair and concerned brown eyes, and the hand-wide stole of the Keeper on her shoulders. Not Sheriam, though. Egwene had never seen her before; she was sure she knew her as well as she knew herself. Haltingly, she put a name to the woman. Beldeine.
“Are you ill, Mother?”
Her stole is green. That means she was raised from the Green Ajah. The Keeper always comes from the same Ajah as the Amyrlin she serves. Which means if I’m the Amyrlin—if?—then I was Green Ajah, too. That thought shook her. Not that she had been Green Ajah, but that she had to reason it out. Light, something is wrong with me.
The way back will come bu. . . . The voice in her head trailed away to finish in a buzz.
Thirteen Darkfriends.
“I am well, Beldeine,” Egwene said. The name felt strange on her tongue; it felt as if she had been saying it for years. “We mustn’t keep them waiting.” Keep who waiting? She did not know, except that she felt infinitely sad about ending that wait, endlessly reluctant.
“They will be growing impatient, Mother.” There was a hesitation in Beldeine’s voice, as if she felt the same reluctance as Egwene, but for a different reason. Unless Egwene missed her guess, behind that outer calm, Beldeine was terrified.
“In that case, we had best be about it.”
Beldeine nodded, then took a deep breath before crossing the carpet to where her staff of office, topped with the snowdrop White Flame of Tar Valon, stood propped beside the door. “I suppose we must, Mother.” She took up the staff and opened the door for Egwene, then hurried ahead so that they made a procession of two, Keeper of the Chronicles leading the Amyrlin Seat.
Egwene noticed little of the corridors they took. All her attention was directed inward. What is the matter with me? Why can’t I remember? Why is so much of what I . . . almost remember wrong? She touched the seven-striped stole on her shoulders. Why am I half sure I’m still a novice?
The way back will come but on—This time it ended abruptly.
Thirteen of the Black Ajah.
She stumbled at that. It was a frightening thought, but it chilled her to the marrow beyond fear. It felt—personal. She wanted to scream, to run and hide. She felt as if they were after her. Nonsense. The Black Ajah has been destroyed. That seemed an odd thought, too. Part of her remembered something called the Great Purge. Part of her was sure no such thing had happened.