Hopper sat on the street a short distance away. Perrin walked over to the wolf. He could have jumped there immediately, of course, but he didn’t like the idea of doing everything easily. That would bite at him when he returned to the real world.
You grow strong, Young Bull, Hopper sent approvingly.
“I still take too long,” Perrin said, glancing over his shoulder. “Every time I enter, it takes me a few minutes to regain control. I need to be faster. In a battle with Slayer, a few minutes might as well be an eternity.”
He will not be so strong as these.
“He’ll still be strong enough,” Perrin said. “He’s had years to learn to control the wolf dream. I only just started.”
Hopper laughed. Young Bull, you started the first time you came here.
“Yes, but I just started training a few weeks back.”
Hopper continued laughing. He was right, in a way. Perrin had spent two years preparing, visiting the wolf dream at night. But he still needed to learn as much as he could. In a way, he was glad for the delay before the trial.
But he could not delay too long. The Last Hunt was upon them. Many of the wolves were running to the north; Perrin could feel them passing. Running for the Blight, for the Borderlands. They were moving both in the real world and in the wolf dream, but those here did not shift there directly. They ran, as packs.
He could tell that Hopper longed to join them. However, he remained behind, as did some others.
“Come on,” Perrin said. “Let’s find another nightmare.”
The Rose March was in bloom.
That was incredible. Few other plants had bloomed in this terrible summer, and those that did had wilted. But the Rose March was blooming, and fiercely, hundreds of red explosions twisting around the garden framework. Voracious insects buzzed from flower to flower, as if every bee in the city had come here to feed.
Gawyn kept his distance from the insects, but the scent of roses was so pervasive that he felt bathed in it. Once he finished his walk, his clothing would probably smell of the perfume for hours.
Elayne was speaking with several advisors near one of the benches beside a small, lily-covered pond. She was showing her pregnancy, and seemed radiant. Her golden hair reflected the sunlight like the surface of a mirror; atop that hair, the Rose Crown of Andor looked almost plain by comparison.
She often had much to do these days. He’d heard hushed reports of the weapons she was building, the ones she thought might be as powerful as captive damane. The bellfounders in Caemlyn had been working straight through the nights, from what he’d heard. Caemlyn was preparing for war, the city abuzz with activity. She didn’t often have time for him, though he was glad for what she could spare.
She smiled at him as he approached, then waved off her attendants for the moment. She walked to him and gave him a fond kiss on the cheek. “You look thoughtful.”
“A common malady of mine lately,” he said. “You look distracted.”
“A common malady of mine lately,” she said. “There is always too much to do and never enough of me to do it.
“If you need to—”
“No,” she said, taking his arm. “I need to speak to you. And I’ve been told that a walk around the gardens once a day will be good for my constitution.”
Gawyn smiled, breathing in the scents of roses and mud around the pond. The scents of life. He glanced up at the sky as they walked. “I can’t believe how much sunlight we’ve been seeing here. I’d nearly convinced myself that the perpetual gloom was something unnatural.”
“Oh, it probably is,” she said nonchalantly. “A week back the cloud cover in Andor broke around Caemlyn, but nowhere else.”
“But…how?”
She smiled. “Rand. Something he did. He was atop Dragonmount, I think. And then…”
Suddenly, the day seemed darker. “Al’Thor again,” Gawyn spat. “He follows me even here.”
“Even here?” she said with amusement. “I believe these gardens are where we first met him.”
Gawyn didn’t reply to that. He glanced northward, checking the sky in that direction. Ominous dark clouds hung out there. “He’s the father, isn’t he?”
“If he were,” Elayne said without missing a beat, “then it would be prudent to hide that fact, wouldn’t it? The children of the Dragon Reborn will be targets.”
Gawyn felt sick. He’d suspected it the moment he’d discovered the pregnancy. “Burn me,” he said. “Elayne, how could you? After what he did to our mother!”
“He did nothing to her,” Elayne said. “I can produce witness after witness that will confirm it, Gawyn. Mother vanished before Rand liberated Caemlyn.” There was a fond look in her eyes as she spoke of him. “Something is happening to him. I can feel it, feel him changing. Cleansing. He drives back the clouds and makes the roses bloom.”
Gawyn raised an eyebrow. She thought the roses bloomed because of al’Thor? Well, love could make a person think strange things, and when the man she spoke of was the Dragon Reborn, perhaps some irrationality was to be expected.
They approached the pond’s small dock. He could remember swimming there as a child, then getting an earful for it. Not from his mother, from Galad, though Gawyn’s mother had given him a stern, disappointed look. He’d never told anyone that he’d been swimming only because Elayne had pushed him in.
“You’re never going to forget that, are you?” Elayne asked.
“What?” he asked.
“You were thinking of the time you slipped into the pond during Mother’s meeting with House Farah.”
“Slipped? You pushed me!”
“I did nothing of the sort,” Elayne said primly. “You were showing off, balancing on the posts.”
“And you shook the dock.”
“I stepped onto it,” Elayne said. “Forcefully. I’m a vigorous person. I have a forceful stride.”
“A forceful—That’s a downright lie!”
“No, I’m merely stating the truth creatively. I’m Aes Sedai now. It’s a talent of ours. Now, are you going to row me on the pond, or not?”
“I…Row you? When did that come up?”
“Just now. Weren’t you listening?”
Gawyn shook a bemused head. “Fine.” Behind them, several Guardswomen took up posts. They were always near, often led by the tall woman who fancied herself an image of Birgitte from the stories. And maybe she did look like Birgitte at that—she went by the name, anyway, and was se
