He smiled, then channeled, weaving Water and drawing the liquid from the barrel in a stream. Aviendha stepped back, watching with curiosity.
"You no longer seem bothered by the idea of a man channeling", he noted as he fanned the water out into the air and heated it with a thread of Fire.
"There is no longer a reason to be bothered. If I were to be uncomfortable with you channeling, I would be behaving like a man refusing to forget a woman’s shame after her toh has been met". She eyed him.
"I can’t imagine anyone being that crass", he said, tossing aside his robe and stepping up to her. "Here. This is a relic from that ancient wisdom’ you apparently find so frustrating".
He brought the water in, warmed perfectly, and shattered it into a thick misting spray that wove about them in a rush. Aviendha gasped, clutching his arm. She might be growing more comfortable with wetlander ways, but water still made her both uncomfortable and reverent.
Rand snatched some soap with Air and shaved it into part of the mix of water, sending a spinning whirl of bubbles around them, swirling up their bodies and pulling their hair into the air, twisting Aviendha’s about like a column before dropping it back lightly to her shoulders.
He used another wave of warm water to remove the soap, then pulled most of the wetness away, leaving them damp but not soaked. He dumped the water back into the barrel and, with a hint of reluctance, released saidin.
Aviendha was panting. "That . . . That was completely crackbrained and irresponsible".
"Thank you", he said, fetching a towel and tossing it to her. "You would consider most of what we did during the Age of Legends to be crackbrained and irresponsible. That was a different time, Aviendha. There were many more channelers, and we were trained from a young age. We didn’t need to know things like warfare, or how to kill. We had eliminated pain, hunger, suffering, war. Instead, we used the One Power for things that might seem common".
"You’d only assumed that you’d eliminated war", Aviendha said with a sniff. "You were wrong. Your ignorance left you weak".
"It did. I can’t decide if I would have changed things, though. There were many good years. Good decades, good centuries. We believed we were living in paradise. Perhaps that was our downfall. We wanted our lives to be perfect, so we ignored imperfections. Problems were magnified through inattention, and war might have become inevitable if the Bore hadn’t ever been made". He toweled himself dry.
"Rand", Aviendha said, stepping up to him. "Today, I will require a boon". She laid her hand on his arm. The skin of her hand was rough, callused from her days as a Maiden. Aviendha would never be a milk-softened lady like those from the courts of Cairhien and Tear. Rand liked that just fine. Hers were hands that had known work.
"What boon?" he asked. "I’m not certain I could deny you anything today, Aviendha".
"I’m not yet certain what it will be".
"I don’t understand".
"You needn’t understand", she said. "And you needn’t promise me you will agree. I felt I needed to give you warning, as one does not ambush a lover. My boon will require you to change your plans, perhaps in a drastic way, and it will be important".
"All right . . ".
She nodded, as mystifying as ever, and began gathering up her clothing to dress for the day.
Egwene strode around a frozen pillar of glass in her dream. It almost looked like a column of light. What did it mean? She could not interpret it.
The vision changed, and she found a sphere. The world, she knew somehow. Cracking. Frantic, she tied it with cords, striving to hold it together. She could keep it from breaking, but it took so much effort . . .
She faded from the dream and started awake. She embraced the Source immediately and wove a light. Where was she?
She was wearing a nightgown and lying in bed back in the White Tower. Not her own rooms, which were still in disrepair following the assassins’ attack. Her study had a small sleeping chamber, and she’d bedded down in that.
Her head pounded. She could vaguely remember growing bleary-eyed the night before, listening in her tent at the Field of Merrilor to reports of Caemlyn’s fall. At some point during the late hours of the night, Gawyn had insisted that Nynaeve make a gateway back to the White Tower so Egwene could sleep in a bed, rather than on a pallet on the ground.
She grumbled to herself, rising. He’d probably been right, though she could remember feeling distinctly annoyed at his tone. Nobody had corrected him on it, not even Nynaeve. She rubbed at her temples. The headache wasn’t as bad as those she’d had when Halima had been "caring" for her, but it did hurt mightily. Undoubtedly, her body was expressing displeasure at the lack of sleep she’d given it in recent weeks.
A short time later—dressed, washed and feeling a little better—she left her rooms to find Gawyn sitting at Silviana’s desk, looking over a report, ignoring a novice who was lingering near the doorway.
"She’d hang you out the window by your toes if she saw you doing that", Egwene said dryly.
Gawyn jumped. "It’s not a report from her stack", he protested. "It’s the latest news from my sister about Caemlyn. It came by gateway for you just a few minutes ago".
"And you’re reading it?"
He blushed. "Burn me, Egwene. It’s my home. It wasn’t sealed. I thought.. "
"It’s all right, Gawyn", she said with a sigh. "Let’s see what it says".
"There’s not much", he said with a grimace, handing it to her. At a nod from him the novice scurried away. A short time later, the girl came back with a tray of wizened bellfruit, bread and a pitcher of milk.
Egwene sat down at her desk in the study to eat, feeling guilty as the novice left. The bulk of the Tower’s Aes Sedai and soldiers camped in tents on the Field of Merrilor while she dined on fruit, no matter how old, and slept in a comfortable bed?
Still, Gawyn’s arguments had made sense. If everyone thought she was in her tent on the Field, then potential killers would strike there. After her near-death at the hands of the Seanchan assassins, she was willing to accept a few extra precautions. Particularly those that helped her get a good night’s sleep.
"That Seanchan woman", Egwene said, staring into her cup. "The one with the Illianer. Did
