"Back!" Androl shouted, stepping to the side of the door—against the earthen wall. The door exploded in a weave of fire and destruction.
Pevara didn’t wait for the debris to settle; she wove Fire and released a column of destruction down the corridor beyond. She knew she was facing Darkfriends, or worse. The Three Oaths did not hinder her here.
She heard shouts, but something deflected the fire. Immediately, a shield tried to slam between her and the Source. She fought it off, barely, and ducked to the side, breathing deeply.
"Whoever it is, they’re strong", Pevara said.
A voice called orders distantly, echoing in the tunnels.
Jonneth knelt down beside her, bow out. "Light, that’s Taim’s voice!"
"We cannot stand here", Logain said. "Androl. A gateway".
"I’m trying", Androl said. "Light, I’m trying!"
"Bah", Nalaam set Logain down beside the wall. "I’ve been in tighter spots before!" He joined the others at the doorway, flinging weaves down the corridor. Blasts shook the side walls, and dirt rained down from the roof above.
Pevara jumped in front of the doorway, releasing a weave, then knelt down beside Androl. He stared ahead, not seeing, face a mask of concentration. She could feel determination and frustration pulsing through the bond. She took his hand.
"You can do it", she whispered.
The doorway erupted, and Jonneth fell back, arm burned. The ground trembled; the walls started to break apart.
Sweat dripped down the sides of Androl’s face. He gritted his teeth, his face going red, eyes opening wide. Smoke poured through the doorway, making Emarin cough as Nalaam Healed Jonneth.
Androl yelled, and he neared the top of that wall in his mind. He was almost there! He could—
A weave thumped against the room, a ripple in the earth, and the strained roof finally gave out. Earth poured down atop them, and all went black.
CHAPTER 5
To Require a Boon
Rand al’Thor awoke and drew in a deep breath. He slipped from the blankets in his tent, leaving Aviendha slumbering there, and threw on a robe. The air smelled wet.
He was reminded, in passing, of mornings during his youth, rising before dawn to milk the cow, which would need milking twice a day. Eyes closed, he remembered the sounds of Tam—already up—cutting new fence posts in the barn. Remembering the chilly air, stomping his feet into his boots, washing his face with water left to warm beside the stove.
On any morning, a farmer could open his door and look out on a world that was still new. Crisp frost. The first, tentative calls of birds. Sunlight breaking the horizon, like the morning yawn of the world.
Rand stepped up to the flaps of his tent and drew them back, nodding to Katerin, a short, golden-haired Maiden who was on guard. He looked out on a world that was far from new. This world was old and tired, like a peddler who had been to the Spine of the World and back on foot. Tents crowded the Field of Merrilor, cook fires trailing pillars of smoke toward the still-dark morning sky.
Everywhere, men worked. Soldiers oiled armor. Smiths sharpened spearheads. Women prepared feathers for fletching arrows. Breakfasts were served from meal wagons to men who should have slept better than they had. Everyone knew these were their last moments before the storm arrived.
Rand closed his eyes. He could feel it, the land itself, like a faint Warder bond. Beneath his feet, grubs crawled through the soil. The roots of the grasses continued to spread, ever so slowly, seeking nutrients. The skeletal trees were not dead, for water seeped through them. They slumbered. Bluebirds clustered in a nearby tree. They did not call out with the arrival of dawn. They huddled together, as if for warmth.
The land still lived. It lived like a man clinging to the edge of a cliff by his fingertips.
Rand opened his eyes. "Have my clerks returned from Tear?"
"Yes, Rand al’Thor", said Katerin.
"Send word to the other rulers", Rand said. "I will meet with them in one hour at the center of the field where I commanded no tents be placed".
Katerin went off to relay his command, leaving three other Maidens nearby to guard. Rand let the tent flaps close in front of him and turned around, then jumped as he found Aviendha—as bare as the day she’d been born—standing in the tent.
"It is very difficult to sneak up on you, Rand al’Thor", she announced with a smile. "The bond gives you too much of an advantage. I have to move very slowly, like a lizard at midnight, so that your sense of where I am does not change too quickly".
"Light, Aviendha! Why do you need to sneak up on me in the first place?"
"For this", she said, then jumped forward, snatching his head and kissing him, her body pressed against his.
He relaxed, letting the kiss linger. "Unsurprisingly", he mumbled around her lips, "this is much more fun now that I don’t have to worry about freezing my bits off while doing it".
Aviendha pulled back. "You should not speak of that event, Rand al’Thor".
"But—"
"My toh is paid, and I am now first-sister to Elayne. Do not remind me of a shame that is forgotten".
Shame? Why would she be ashamed of that when just now . . . He shook his head. He could hear the land breathing, could sense a beetle on a leaf half a league away, but sometimes he could not fathom Aiel. Or maybe it was just women.
In this case, it was probably both.
Aviendha hesitated beside the tent’s barrel of fresh water. "I suppose that we will not have time for a bath".
"Oh, you like baths now?"
"I have accepted them as a part of life", she said. "If I am going to live in the wetlands, then I will adopt some wetlander customs. When they are not foolish". Her tone indicated that most of them were.
"What’s wrong?" Rand asked, stepping up to her.
"Wrong?"
"Something bothers you, Aviendha. I can see it in you, feel it in you". She looked him over with a critical eye. Light, but she was beautiful. "You were much easier to manage before you received the ancient wisdom of your former self, Rand al’Thor".
"I was?" he asked, smiling. "You didn’t act that way at the time".
"That was when I was as a new child, inexperienced in Rand al’Thor’s boundless capacity to be frustrating". She dipped her hands into the water and washed her face. "It is well; if I had known some of what was to come with you, I might have put on the white an
