Nodding, Rand turned away. He was already beginning to pace again, already beginning to scowl over Elayne. Min settled into her chair once more, wishing she had one of Master Fel’s books to read. Or to throw at Rand. Well, one of Master Fel’s to read, and someone else’s to throw.
Sorilea herded the blackclad sisters out of the room, but at the last, she paused with one hand holding a door and looked back at Rand striding away from her toward the gilded throne. Her lips pursed thoughtfully. “That woman, Cadsuane Melaidhrin, is beneath this roof again today,” she said at last, to his back. “I think she believes you are afraid of her, Rand al’Thor, the way you avoid her whereabouts.” With that, she left.
For a long moment, Rand stood staring at the throne. Or maybe at something beyond it. Abruptly, he gave himself a shake and strode the remaining distance to pick up the Crown of Swords. On the point of setting it on his head, though, he hesitated, then put it back. Donning the coat, he left crown and scepter where they lay.
“I mean to find out what Cadsuane wants,” he announced. “She doesn’t come to the palace every day because she likes a trip through the snow. Will you come with me, Min? Maybe you’ll have a viewing.”
She was on her feet faster than any of those Aes Sedai. A visit with Cadsuane would likely be as pleasurable as a visit with Sorilea, yet anything was better than sitting there alone. Besides, maybe she would have a viewing. Fedwin fell in behind her and Rand with an alert look in his eyes.
The six Maidens outside in the tall vaulted hallway rose, but they did not follow. Somara was the only one Min knew; she gave Min a brief smile, and Rand a flat, disapproving stare. The others glowered. The Maidens had accepted his explanation about why he had gone without them in the first place, so any watchers would believe for as long as possible that he was still in Cairhien, but they still demanded to know why he had not sent for them afterward, and Rand had had no answers. He muttered something under his breath, and quickened his pace so Min had to stretch her legs to keep up.
“Watch Cadsuane carefully, Min,” he said. “And you, too, Morr. She’s up to some Aes Sedai scheme, but burn me if I can see what. I don’t know. There’s — ”
A stone wall seemed to strike Min from behind; she thought she heard roaring, crashing. And then Rand was turning her over — she was lying on the floor? — looking down at her with the first fear she remembered seeing in those morningblue eyes. It only faded when she sat up, coughing. The air was full of dust! And then she saw the corridor.
The Maidens were gone from in front of Rand’s doors. The doors themselves were gone, along with most of the wall, and a jagged hole nearly as big gaped in the wall opposite. She could see into his apartments clearly despite the dust, into devastation. Massive piles of rubble lay everywhere, and above, the ceiling yawned open to the sky. Snow swirled down onto flames dancing among the rubble. One of the massive blackwood posts of his bed stuck burning out of shattered stone, and she realized she could see all the way outside to the stepped towers veiled by the snowfall. It was as if a huge hammer had smashed into the Sun Palace. And had they been in there, instead of going to see Cadsuane... Min shivered.
“What...?” she began unsteadily, then abandoned the useless question. Any fool would see what had happened. “Who?” she asked instead.
Covered in dust, hair every which way, and with tears in their coats, the two men looked as if they had been rolled along the corridor, and perhaps they had. She thought they were all a good ten paces farther from the doors than she remembered. From where the doors had been. In the distance, anxious shouts rose, echoing along the halls. Neither man answered her.
“Can I trust you, Morr?” Rand asked.
Fedwin met his gaze openly. “With your life, my Lord Dragon,” he said simply.
“That’s what I am trusting you with,” Rand said. His fingers brushed her cheek, and then he stood abruptly. “Guard her with your life, Morr.” Hard as steel, his voice. Grim as death. “If they’re still in the Palace, they’ll feel you try to make a gateway, and strike before you can finish. Don’t channel at all unless you must, but be ready. Take her down to the servants’ quarters, and kill anyone or anything that tries to get to her. Anyone!”
With a last look down at her — oh, Light, any other time, she would have thought she could die happily, seeing that look in his eyes! — he went running, away from the ruination. Away from her. Whoever had tried to kill him would be hunting for him.
Morr patted her on the arm with a dusty hand and gave her a boyish grin. “Don’t worry, Min. I’ll take care of you.”
But who was going to take care of Rand? Can I trust you, he had asked this boy who had been one of the first to come asking to learn. Light, who would make him safe?
Rounding a corner, Rand stopped with a hand against one wall to seize the Source. A fool thing, not wanting Min to see him stagger when someone tried to kill him, but there it was. Not just any someone. A man, Demandred, or perhaps Asmodean come back at last. Maybe both; there had been an oddity, as if the weaving came from different directions. He had felt the channeling too late to do anything. He would have died, in his rooms. He was ready to die. But not Min, no, not Min. Elayne was better off, turning against him. Oh, Light, she was!
He seized the Source, and saidin flooded him with molten cold and freezing heat, with life and sweetness, filth and death. His stomach twisted, and the hallway in front of him doubled itself. For an instant, he thought he saw a face. Not with his eyes; in his head. A man, shimmering and unrecognizable, gone. He floated in the Void, empty, and full of the Power.
You won’t win, he told Lews Therin. If I die, I’ll die me!
I should have sent Ilyena away, Lews Therin whispered back. She would have lived.
Pushing the voice away as he pushed himself from the wall, Rand slipped along the Palace corridors with all the stealth he could muster, stepping lightly, gliding close to tapestryhung walls, around goldworked chests and gilded cabinets bearing fragile golden porcelains and ivory statuettes. His eyes searched for his attackers. They would not be satisfied short of finding his body, but they would be very careful in approaching his rooms in case he had survived by some ta’veren swirl of fate. They would wait, to see whether he stirred. In the Void, he was as near one with the Power as any man could live through. In the Void, as with a sword, he was
