The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time #5) 75

The next parchment was about Elayne and Nynaeve. First the writer advised against punishing the agent who had allowed them to escape — Elaida had scratched that out in bold strokes and written “Make an example!” in the margin — and then, just when the woman began to detail the search for the pair in Amadicia, the single sheet became a fistful, a sheaf of what seemed to be builders' and masons' estimates for constructing a private residence for the Amyrlin Seat on the Tower grounds. More like a palace, by the number of pages.

She let the pages fall, and they vanished before they finished scattering across the tabletop. The lacquered box was closed again. She could spend the rest of her life here, she knew; there would always be more documents in the box, and they would always be changing. The more ephemeral something was in the waking world — a letter, a piece of clothing, a bowl that might be frequently moved — the less firm its reflection in Tel'aran'rhiod. She could not remain here too long; sleep while in the World of Dreams was not as restful as sleep undisturbed.

Hurrying out to the antechamber, she was about to reach for the neat piles of scrolls and parchments, some with seals, on the Keeper's writing table, when the room seemed to flicker. Before she had time to even consider what that meant, the door opened, and Galad stepped in, smiling, his brocaded blue coat fitting his shoulders perfectly, snug breeches showing the shape of his calves.

She took a deep breath, her stomach fluttering. It just was not fair for a man to have a face so beautiful.

He stepped closer, dark eyes twinkling, and brushed her cheek with his fingers. “Will you walk with me in the Water Garden?” he said softly.

“If you two wish to canoodle,” a brisk woman's voice said, “you will not do so here.”

Egwene spun, wideeyed, staring at Leane seated behind the table with the Keeper's stole on her shoulders and a fond smile on her coppercheeked face. The door to the Amyrlin's study was open, and inside Siuan stood beside her simple, wellpolished writing table, reading a long parchment, the striped stole of office on her shoulders. This was madness.

She fled without thinking of what image she was forming, and found herself gulping for breath on the Green in Emond's Field, with the thatchroofed houses all around, and the Winespring gushing from the stone outcrop on the broad expanse of grass. Near the swift, rapidly widening stream stood her father's small inn, its lower floor stone, the overhanging upper whitewashed. “The only roof like it in the Two Rivers,” Bran al'Vere had often said of his red tiles. The large stone foundation near the Winespring Inn, a huge, spreading oak rising from its center, was far older than the inn, but some said an inn of some sort had stood there beside the Winespring Water for more than two thousand years.

Fool. After warning Nynaeve so firmly about dreams in Tel'aran'rhiod, she had nearly let herself be caught in one of her own. Though it was odd that it had been Galad. She did dream of him, sometimes. Her face heated; she certainly did not love him, or even like him very much, but he was beautiful, and in those dreams he had been much more what she could have wished him. It was his brother Gawyn that she dreamed of more often, but that was just as silly. Whatever Elayne said, he had never made any feelings known to her.

It was that fool book, with all those tales of lovers. As soon as she woke in the morning she was going to give the thing back to Aviendha. And tell her that she did not think that she read it for the adventures at all.

She was reluctant to leave, though. Home. Emond's Field. The last place that she had really felt safe. More than a year and a half had passed since she last saw it, yet everything seemed as she remembered. Not quite everything. On the Green stood two tall poles with large banners, one a red eagle, the other an equally red wolf's head.

Had Perrin anything to do with those? She could not imagine how. Yet he had come home, so Rand said, and she had dreamed of him with wolves more than once.

Enough idle standing about. It was time to —

Flicker.

Her mother stepped out of the inn, graying braid pulled over one shoulder. Mann al'Vere was a slim woman, still handsome, and the best cook in the Two Rivers. Egwene could hear her father laughing inside the common room, where he was meeting with the rest of the Village Council.

“Are you still out here, child?” her mother said, gently chiding and amused. “You've certainly been married long enough to know you shouldn't let your husband know you mope about waiting on him.” With a shake of her head, she laughed. “Too late. Here he comes.”

Egwene turned eagerly, eyes darting past the children playing on the Green. The timbers of the low Wagon Bridge thrummed as Gawyn galloped across and swung down from his saddle in front of her. Tall and straight in his goldembroidered red coat, he had his sister's redgold curls, and marvelous deep blue eyes. He was not so handsome as his halfbrother, of course, but her heart beat faster for him than it had for Galad — For Galad? What? — and she had to press her hands to her stomach in a vain attempt to still gigantic butterflies.

“Did you miss me?” he said, smiling.

“A little.” Why did I think of Galad? As if I'd just seen him a moment ago. “Now and then, when there was nothing interesting to occupy my time. Did you miss me?”

For answer, he pulled her off her feet and kissed her. She was not aware of very much else until he set her back down on unsteady legs. The banners were gone. What banners?

“Here he is,” her mother said, approaching with a babe wrapped in swaddling. “Here's your son. He is a fine boy. He never cries at all.”

Gawyn laughed as he took the child, held him aloft. “He does have your eyes, Egwene. He will be a fine one with the girls one day.”

Egwene backed away from them, shaking her head. There had been banners, red eagle and red wolf's head. She had seen Galad. In the Tower. “N0000000!”

She fled, leaping from Tel'aran'rhiod to her own body. Awareness remained only long enough for her to wonder how she could possibly have been fool enough to let her own fancies nearly trap her, and then she was deep in her own safe dream. Gawyn galloped across the Wagon Bridge, swinging down...

Stepping out from behind a thatchroofed house, Moghedien wondered idly where this little village was. Not the sort of place she would expect to see banners flying. The girl had been stronger than she had thought, to escape her weaving of Tel'aran'rhiod. Even Lanfear could not improve on her abilities here, whatever she claimed. Still, the girl had just been of interest because she was speaking to Elayne Trakand, who might lead her to Nynaeve al'Meara. The only reason to trap her had simply been to rid Tel'aran'rhiod of one who could walk it freely. It was bad enough that she m