Lelaine dodged back, barely avoiding the splash. “Temper, temper,” she chided, coming on in.

No more asking permission than Romanda had, she embraced the Source and wove a ward to stop anyone overhearing what she had to say. Where Romanda had been in a fury, Lelaine appeared pleased with herself, rubbing her gloved hands and smiling.

“I don’t suppose I need tell you your little secret is out. Very bad of Lord Bryne, but I think he’s too valuable to kill. A good thing for him I do. Let me see. I suppose Romanda told you that there will be a meeting with Pelivar and Arathelle, but you are to let her do all the talking. Am I right?” Egwene stirred, but Lelaine waved a hand at her. “No need to answer. I know Romanda. Unfortunately for her, I learned about this before she did, and instead of running to you straight away, I’ve been polling the other Sitters. Do you want to know what they think?”

Egwene balled her fists in her lap, where she hoped they would not be noticed. “I expect you’re going to tell me.”

“You are in no position to take that tone with me,” Lelaine said sharply, but the next instant, her smile returned. “The Hall is displeased with you. Very displeased. Whatever Romanda has threatened you with — and it’s easy enough to imagine — I can deliver. Romanda, on the other hand, has upset a number of Sitters with her bullying. So, unless you want to find yourself with less authority than the little you have now, Romanda is going to be surprised tomorrow when you name me to speak for you. It’s hard to believe Arathelle and Pelivar were foolish enough to put a thing like this in motion, but they’ll slink away with their tails between their legs once I’m done with them.”

“How do I know you won’t carry out those threats anyway?” Egwene hoped her angry mutter sounded like sullenness. Light, but she was tired of this!

“Because I say I won’t,” Lelaine snapped. “Don’t you know by now that you aren’t really in charge of anything? The Hall is, and that is between Romanda and me. In another hundred years, you may grow into the stole, but for now, sit quietly, fold your hands, and let someone who knows what she is about see to pulling Elaida down.”

After Lelaine left, Egwene once more sat staring. This time, she was not letting anger boil. You may grow into the stole. Almost the same thing Romanda had said. Someone who knows what she is about. Was she deceiving herself? A child, ruining what a woman with experience could handle easily?

Siuan slipped into the tent and stood looking worried. “Gareth Bryne just came to tell me the Hall knows,” she said dryly. “Under cover of asking about his shirts. Him and his bloody shirts! The meeting is set for tomorrow, at a lake about five hours to the north. Pelivar and Arathelle are already on the way. Aemlyn, too. That’s a third strong House.”

“That’s more than Lelaine or Romanda saw fit to tell me,” Egwene said, just as dryly. No. A hundred years of being led by the hand, pushed by the scruff of her neck, or fifty years, or five, and she would be fit for nothing more. If she had to grow, she had to grow now.

“Oh, blood and bloody ashes,” Siuan groaned. “I can’t stand it! What did they say? How did it go?”

“About as we expected.” Egwene smiled with a wonder that touched her voice, too. “Siuan, they couldn’t have handed me the Hall better if I had told them what to do.”

The last light was failing as Sheriam approached her tiny tent, smaller even than Egwene’s. If she had not been Keeper, she would have had to share. Ducking inside, she had only time to realize she was not alone when she was shielded and flung facedown on her cot. Stunned, she tried to cry out, but a corner of one of her blankets wadded itself into her mouth. Dress and shift burst away from her body like a pricked bubble.

A hand stroked her head. “You were supposed to keep me informed, Sheriam. That girl is up to something, and I want to know what.”

It took a long time to convince her questioner that she had already told all she knew, that she would never hold back a word, not a whisper. When she was left alone at last, it was to lie curled up and whimpering from her welts, bitterly wishing that she had never in her life spoken to a single sister in the Hall.

Chapter 17

(Flame of Tar Valon)

Out on the Ice

The next morning, a column rode north from the Aes Sedai camp well before dawn, near silent except for the creak of saddles and the crunch of hooves breaking through the snow’s crisp crust. Occasionally a horse snorted, or metal jingled and was quickly muffled. The moon was already down, the sky glistening with stars, but the pale blanket lying over everything below lightened the darkness. When the first glimmers of day appeared in the east, they had been riding a good hour or more. Which was not to say they had traveled far. Over some open stretches, Egwene could let Daishar go at a slow canter that sprayed white like splashing water, but for the most part, the horses walked, and not quickly, through sparse forest where the snow made deep drifts below and clung to branches overhead. Oak and pine, sourgum and leatherleaf and trees she did not recognize all looked even more bedraggled than they had in the heat and drought. Today was the Feast of Abram, but there would be no prizes baked in honeycakes. The Light send some people found surprises in the day, though.

The sun rose and climbed, a pale golden ball that gave no warmth. Every breath still bit the throat and produced a puff of mist. A sharp wind blew, not hard, but cutting, and to the west dark clouds rolled north on their way to Andor. She felt a touch of pity for whoever would know the burden of those clouds. And relief that they were heading away. Waiting another day would have been maddening. She had been unable to sleep at all, for fidgety restlessness, not headaches. Restlessness, and tendrils of fear that had crept in like cold air under the edges of the tent. She was not tired, though. She felt like a compressed spring, a tightwound clock, full of energy that wanted desperately to find release. Light, everything could still go horribly wrong.

It was an impressive column, behind the standard of the White Tower, the white Flame of Tar Valon centered on a spiral of seven colors, one for each Ajah. Sewn secretly in Salidar, it had lain in the bottom of a chest ever since, with the keys in the keeping of the Hall. She did not think they would have produced it except for this morning’s need for pomp. A thousand heavy cavalry in plateandmail provided a close escort, a panoply of lances, swords, maces and axes seldom seen south of the Borderlands. Their commander was a oneeyed Shienaran with a vividly painted eyepatch, a man she had met once, what seemed an Age ago. Uno Nomesta glared at the trees through the steel bars of his helmet’s faceguard as if he expected every last one to hide an ambush, and his men seemed nearly as watchfu