Seaine did not press her; she herself had committed something akin to treason by breaking that same seal, and Pevara would have to decide on her own. “Looking at reports will be safer than asking questions with no idea who we’re really asking. Logically, a Black sister must be able to lie despite the Oaths.” Otherwise, the Black Ajah would have been revealed long since. That name seemed to be coming more easily with use. “If any sister wrote that she did one thing when we can prove she did another, then we have found a Darkfriend.”
Pevara nodded. “Yes. Perhaps the Black Ajah has no hand in the rebellion, but I cannot think they would let this turmoil pass without taking advantage. We must look closely at this last year, I think.”
To that, Seaine agreed reluctantly. There would be fewer pieces of paper to read and more questions to ask concerning recent months. Deciding who else to make part of the inquiry was even harder. Especially after Pevara said, “You were very brave coming to me, Seaine. I’ve known Darkfriends to kill brothers, sisters, parents, to try hiding who they are and what they’ve done. I love you for it, but you were very brave indeed.”
Seaine shivered as if a goose had walked on her grave. Had she wanted to be brave, she would have chosen Green. She almost wished Elaida had gone to someone else. There was no turning back now, though.
Chapter 33
A Bath
* * *
The days after sending Perrin away seemed endless to Rand, and the nights longer. He retreated to his rooms and stayed there, telling the Maidens to allow no one to enter. Only Nandera was allowed past the doors with the gilded suns, bringing his meals. The sinewy Maiden would set down a covered tray and list those who had asked to see him, then give him a look of rebuke when he repeated that he would see no one. Often he heard disapproving comments from the Maidens outside before she pulled the door shut behind her; he was intended to hear, else they would have used handtalk. But if they thought to chivy him out by claiming that he was sulking . . . The Maidens di
d not understand, and might not if he explained. If he could have brought himself to.
He picked at the meals without appetite, and tried to read, but his favorite books could divert him for only a few pages even in the beginning. At least once every day, though he had promised himself he would not, he lifted the massive wardrobe of polished blackwood and ivory in his bedchamber, floated it aside on flows of Air and carefully unraveled the traps he had set and the Mask of Mirrors that made the wall seem smooth, all inverted so no other eyes but his could see. There, in a niche hollowed out with the Power, stood two small statues of white stone about a foot tall, a woman and a man, each in flowing robes and holding a clear crystal sphere overhead in one hand. The night he set the army in motion toward Illian he had gone to Rhuidean alone to fetch these ter’angreal: if he needed them, he might not have much time. That was what he had told himself. His hand would stretch toward the bearded man, the only one of the pair a man could use, stretch out and stop, shaking. One finger touching, and more of the One Power than he could imagine could be his. With that, no one could defeat him, no one stand against him. With that, Lanfear had said once, he could challenge the Creator.
“It is mine by right,” he muttered each time, with his hand trembling just short of the figure. “Mine! I am the Dragon Reborn!”
And each time he made himself draw back, reweaving the Mask of Mirrors, reweaving the invisible traps that would burn anyone to a cinder who tried to pass them without the key. The huge wardrobe wafted back into place like a feather. He was the Dragon Reborn. But was that enough? It would have to be.
“I am the Dragon Reborn,” he whispered at the walls sometimes, and sometimes shouted at them. “I am the Dragon Reborn!” Silently and aloud he raged at those who opposed him, the blind fools who could not see and those who refused to see, for ambition or avarice or fear. He was the Dragon Reborn, the only hope of the world against the Dark One. And the Light help the world for it.
But his rages and thoughts of using the ter’angreal were only attempts to escape other things, and he knew it. Alone, he picked at his meals, though less every day, and tried to read, though seldom, and attempted to find sleep. That he tried more often as the days passed, not caring whether the sun was down or high. Sleep came in fitful snatches, and what harrowed his waking thoughts also stalked his dreams and chased him awake too soon for any rest. No amount of shielding could keep out what was already inside. He had the Forsaken to face, and sooner or later the Dark One himself. He had fools who fought him or ran away when their only hope was to stand behind him. Why would his dreams not let him be? From one dream he always sprang awake before it more than began, to lie there filled with self-loathing and muddled with lack of sleep, but the others . . . He deserved them all, he knew.
Colavaere confronted him sleeping, her face black and the scarf she had used to hang herself still buried in the swollen flesh of her neck. Colavaere, silent and accusing, with all the Maidens who had died for him arrayed behind her in silent staring ranks, all the women who died because of him. He knew every face as well as his own, and every name but one. From those dreams, he woke weeping.
A hundred times he hurled Perrin across the Grand Hall of the Sun, and a hundred times he was overwhelmed by blazing fear and rage. A hundred times, he killed Perrin in his dreams and woke to his own screams. Why had the man chosen the Aes Sedai prisoners to use for their argument? Rand tried not to think about them; he had done his best to ignore their existence from the beginning. They were too dangerous to keep long as captives, and he had no idea what to do with them. They frightened him. Sometimes he dreamed of being bound inside the box again, of Galina and Erian and Katerine and the rest taking him out to beat him, dreamed and woke whimpering even after he convinced himself his eyes were open and he was outside. They frightened him because he feared he might give way to the fear and the anger, and then . . . He tried not to think of what he might do then, but sometimes he dreamed it, and woke shaking in a cold sweat. He would not do that. Whatever he had done, he would not do that.
In dreams he gathered the Asha’man to attack the White Tower and punish Elaida; he leaped from a gateway filled with righteous anger and saidin — and learned that Alviarin’s letter had been a lie, saw her stand alongside Elaida, saw Egwene beside her, too, and Nynaeve, and even Elayne, all with Aes Sedai faces, because he was too dangerous to let run free. He watched the Asha’man destroyed by women who had years of studying the One Power behind them, not just a few months of harsh tutoring, and from those dreams, he could never wake until every man in a black coat was dead, and he stood alone to face the might of the Aes Sedai. Alone.
Again and again Cadsuane spoke those words about madmen hearing voices, till he flinched at them as at blows of a whip, flinched in his sleep when she appeared. In dreams and waking, he called to Lews Therin, shouted at him, screamed for him, and only silence answered. Alone. That small bundle of sensations and emotions in the back of his head, the sense of Alanna’s almost touch, slowly became a comfort. In many ways, that frightened him most of all.
On the fourth morning, he woke groggily from a dream of the White Tower, flinging up a hand to shield grainy eyes from what he thought was a flare of saidar-wrought fire. Dust motes sparkled in the sunlight streaming through the window to reach his bed, with its great square black-wood bedposts inlaid with ivory wedges. Every piece of furnishing in the room was polished blackwood and ivory, square and stark and heavy enough to suit his mood. For a moment he lay there, but if sleep returned, it would only bring another dream.
Are you there, Lews Therin? he thought without any hope of answer, and wearily pushed himself to his feet, tugging his wrinkled coat straight. He had not changed his clothes since first shutting himself away.
When he staggered into the anteroom, at first he thought he was dreaming again, the dream that always woke him straight off in shame and guilt and loathing, but Min looked up at him from one of the tall gilded chairs, a leather-bound book on her knees, and he did not wake. Dark ringlets framed her face, big dark eyes so intent he almost felt her touch. Her breeches of brocaded green silk fit her like a second skin, and her coat of matching silk hung open, a cream-colored blouse rising and falling with her breath. He prayed to wake. It had not been fear, or anger, or guilt over Colavaere, or Lews Therin’s disappearance that drove him to shut himself away.
“There’s a feast of sorts in four days,” she said brightly, “at the half moon. The Day of Repentance, they call it for some reason, but there will be dancing that night. Sedate dancing, I hear, but any dancing is better than none.” Carefully tucking a thin strip of leather into the book, she placed it on the floor beside her. “That’s just time to have a dress made, if I set the seamstress to work today. That is, if you mean to dance with me.”
He pulled his gaze away from her, and it fell on a cloth-covered tray beside the tall doors. Just the thought of food made him queasy. Nandera was not supposed to let anyone in, burn her! Least of all Min. He had not mentioned her by name, but he had said no one! “Min, I — I don’t know what to say. I — “
“Sheepherder, you look like what the dogs fought over. Now I understand why Alanna was so frantic, even if I don’t see how she knew. She practically begged me to speak to you, after the Maidens turned her away for about the fifth time. Nandera wouldn’t have let me in if she wasn’t in a lather about you not eating, and even so, I had to do a little begging myself. You owe me, country boy.”
Rand flinched. Images of himself flashed in his head; him tearing at her clothes, forcing himself on her like a mindless beast. He owed her more than he could ever pay. Raking a hand through his hair, he made himself turn to face her. She had tucked her feet up so she sat cross-legged in the chair, leaning her fists on her knees. How could she look at him so calmly? “Min, there’s no excuse for what I did. If there was any justice I’d go to the gallows. If I could, I’d put the rope around my neck myself. On oath, I would.” The words tasted bitter. He was the Drago
n Reborn, and she would have to wait on justice until the Last Battle. What a fool he had been to want to live past Tarmon Gai’don. He did not deserve to.
“What are you talking about, sheepherder?” she said slowly.
“I’m talking about what I did to you,” he groaned. How could he have done that, to anyone, but most of all to her? “Min, I know how hard it is for you to be in the same room with me.” How could he recall the soft feel of her so, the silkiness of her skin? After he had torn her clothes off. “I never thought I was an animal, a monster.” But he was. He loathed himself for what he had done. And loathed himself worse because he wanted to do it again. “The only excuse I have is madness. Cadsuane was right. I did hear voices. Lews Therin’s voice, I thought. Can you —? No. No, I have no right to ask you to forgive me. But you have to know how sorry I am, Min.” He was sorry. And his hands ached to run down her bare back, over her hips. He was a monster. “Bitterly sorry. At least know that.”
She sat there motionless, staring at him as if she never before had seen his like. Now, she could stop pretending. Now, she could say what she really thought of him, and however vile it was, it would not be half vile enough.
“So that’s why you’ve been keeping me away,” she said finally. “You listen to me, you wooden-headed numbskull. I was ready to cry myself to dust because I’d seen one death too many, and you, you were about to do the same for the same reason. What we did, my innocent lamb, was comfort one another. Friends comfort one another at times like that. Close your mouth, you Two Rivers hay-hair.”