“Are you quite finished?” Bera said coolly.

Kiruna was even more blunt. She turned to the others. “Faeldrin, you will come with us to Cairhien, if you will. And you also, Masuri, Rafela.”

Merana trembled, the folded letter crumpling in her fist. “Don’t you see?” she shouted. “You talk as if we can go on as before, as if nothing has changed. There is an embassy from Elaida in Cairhien, from the White Tower. That is how al’Thor must see it. We need him more than he needs us, and I fear he knows it!”

For a moment, shock covered every face save Verin’s. Verin only nodded thoughtfully, smiling a small, secretive smile. For a moment, every other face was full of wide eyes, stunned. Those words seemed to ring in the air. We need him more than he needs us. They did not need the Three Oaths to know it for truth.

Then Bera said quite firmly, “Sit down, Merana, and calm yourself.” Merana was sitting before she realized it; still trembling, still wanting to shout, but sitting with her hands clutched together around al’Thor’s missive.

Kiruna turned her back deliberately. “Seonid, you will come, of course. Another pair of Gaidin are always useful. And Verin, I think.” Verin nodded as if it were a request. “Demira,” Kiruna went on, “I know you have grievance against him, but we do not want to panic the man again, and someone must shepherd that extraordinary collection of girls from the Two Rivers to Salidar. You, Valinde, Kairen and Berenicia must assist Merana in that.”

The other four named murmured acceptance without the slightest hesitation, but Merana felt cold. The delegation was not crumbling; it was gone to dust.

“I. . . .” She trailed off as Bera’s gaze turned to her, and Kiruna’s. And Masuri’s and Faeldrin’s and Rafela’s as well. Gone to dust, and all her authority with it. “You may find some need for a Gray,” she said faintly. “There will certainly be negotiations, and. . . .” Words failed her again. This would never have happened when the Tower was whole.

“Very well,” Bera said at last, in such a tone that all Merana’s control only just kept her cheeks from going crimson in shame.

“Demira, you will see the girls to Salidar,” Kiruna said.

Merana sat very still. She prayed that the Hall had chosen an Amyrlin by now. Someone very strong, in the Power and in her heart. It would take another Deane, another Rashima, to make them once more what they had been. She prayed Alanna led them to al’Thor before he decided to acknowledge Elaida. Even another Rashima would not save them then.

CHAPTER

50

Thorns

Rand spent the rest of that day in his apartments in the Sun Palace, a good part lying on his bed, a huge thing with four square blackwood posts thicker than his leg, polished till they shone between the inlaid ivory wedges. As if to contrast with all the gilding in the anteroom and sitting room, the bedchamber furnishings were all blackwood and ivory, if no less angular.

Sulin rushed in and out, fluffing his feather pillows and adjusting the linen sheet over him, grumbling that blankets on the floor were healthier, bringing him mint tea he did not ask for and punch he did not want, until he ordered her to stop. “As my Lord Dragon commands,” she growled through a sweet smile. She made her second perfect curtsy, but she still stalked out as though she might not bother to open the door.

Min also stayed with him, sitting on the mattress and holding his hand and frowning until he suspected she thought he was dying. Finally he chased her out too, long enough to put on a dark gray silk robe that he had always left in the wardrobe before. He found something else in there as well, way in the back. A narrow, plain wooden case holding a flute, a gift from Thom Merrilin in what seemed another lifetime. Sitting by one of the tall narrow windows, he tried playing. After so long, he produced more squeaks and silences than anything else at first. It was the odd sounds that drew Min back.

“Play for me,” she said, laughing in delight, or perhaps astonishment, and of course settled herself on his knee while he tried with small success to produce something near a recognizable tune. Which was how the Wise Ones walked in on him, Amys and Bair and Sorilea and a dozen or so more. Min scrambled up quickly enough blushing at that, tugging her coat straight to such an extent you would have thought they had been wrestling.

Bair and Sorilea were at his side before he could say a word.

“Look left,” Sorilea commanded, thumbing back his eyelid and thrusting her leathery face into his, “Look right.”

“Your pulse is too quick,” Bair muttered, holding bony fingers against the side of his throat.

It seemed that Nandera had sent a Maiden running as soon as his knees gave way. It seemed that Sorilea had winnowed the small army of Wise Ones who had intended to descend on the palace into this smaller horde. And it seemed that Sorilea or no Sorilea, everyone wanted her turn at the Car’a’carn. When she and Bair were done, her place was taken by Amys, and Bair’s by Colinda, a lean woman with penetrating gray eyes who looked short of her middle years yet had almost as strong a presence as Sorilea. But then, so did Amys, of course, and any number of them. He was poked, prodded, stared at, and called stubborn when he refused to jump up and down. They really seemed to think he would.

Min was not ignored while the Wise Ones were taking their turns with him; the others surrounded her, asking a hundred questions, all about her viewings. Which widened her eyes to say the least, and had her staring at them and Rand as if wondering whether her mind was being read. Amys and Bair explained—Melaine had not been able to keep the news of her daughters to herself—and instead of growing any wider, which they probably could not at that point, Min’s eyes looked ready to fall out of her face. Even Sorilea seemed to accept Melaine’s view that Min’s ability put her on an equal footing of sorts with them, but Wise Ones being Wise Ones—very much in the manner of Aes Sedai being Aes Sedai—she had to repeat everything nearly as many times as there were Wise Ones, because those fussing over him at any given time wanted to be sure they had not missed anything.

Once Sorilea and the rest reluctantly concluded that all he needed was rest, and departed ordering him to see that he got it, Min made herself comfortable on his lap again. “They talk in dreams?” she said, shaking her head. “It doesn’t seem possible, like something out of a story.” A frown creased her forehead. “How old do you think Sorilea is? And that Colinda. I saw—No. No, it doesn’t have anything to do with you. Maybe the heat is affecting me. When I know, I always know. It must be the heat.” A mischievous light appeared in her eyes, and she slowly leaned closer, pursing her lips as if for a kiss. “If you put them like this,” she murmured when they were almost touching his, “it might help. There were bits in that last piece that almost sounded like ‘Rooster in the Gumtree.’ ” It took him a moment to understand, with her eyes filling his vision, and when he did, his face must have been a sight, because she collap