“I think perhaps Cadsuane meddles the way anyone else breathes,” Shalon replied with a sigh, “but I will try, Harine. I will do my best.”

“You always have, sister. You always will. I know that.”

Shalon sighed again. It was much too soon to test the depth of her sister’s newfound warmth. Confession might bring absolution or not, and she could not live with the loss of her marriage and her rank at one blow. But for the first time since Verin had bluntly laid out Cadsuane’s terms for keeping her secret, Shalon began to consider confession.

Chapter 25

Bonds

In his room at The Counsel’s Head, Rand sat on the bed with his legs folded and his back against the wall, playing the silver-mounted flute Thom Merrilin had given him so long ago. An Age ago. This room, with carved wall panels and windows overlooking the Nethvin Market, was better than that they had abandoned at The Crown of Maredo. The pillows stacked beside him were goose down, the bed had an embroidered canopy and curtains, and the mirror above the washstand had not a single bubble. The lintel above the stone fireplace even had a bit of simple carving. It was a room for a well-to-do foreign merchant. He was glad he had thought to bring enough gold when he left Cairhien. He had lost the habit of carrying much. Everything had been provided for the Dragon Reborn. Still, he could have earned a bed of some sort with the flute. The tune was called “Lament for the Long Night,” and he had never heard it before in his life. Lews Therin had, though. It was like the skill at drawing. Rand thought that should frighten him, or make him angry, but he simply sat and played while Lews Therin wept.

“Light, Rand,” Min muttered, “are you just going to sit there puffing on that thing?” Her skirts swirled as she paced up and down the flowered carpet. The bond with her and Elayne and Aviendha felt as though he had never known anything else or wanted to. He breathed, and he was bonded to them; one was as natural as the other. “If she says one wrong word where it can be overheard, if she’s already said it . . . I am not letting anyone haul you off to a cell for Elaida!” Alanna’s bond had never felt that way. It had not changed, not in itself, yet increasingly since that day in Caemlyn, Alanna’s bond seemed an intrusion, a stranger looking over his shoulder, a sandspur in his boot. “Do you have to play that? It makes me want to cry, and it makes my skin crawl at the same time. If she puts you in danger . . .!” Snatching one of her knives from its hiding place up a loose-fitting sleeve, she flourished it in her fist.

He took the flute away from his mouth and silently looked at her over it. Her face reddened, and with a sudden snarl, she hurled the blade to stick quivering in the door.

“She’s there,” he said, using the flute to point. Unconsciously, he shifted the instrument, following Alanna exactly. “She’ll be here soon.” She had been in Far Madding since the day before, and he did not understand why she had waited till now. Alanna was a tangle of emotions inside his skull, nervous and wary, worried and determined and above all, angry. In a barely restrained fury. “If you’d rather not be here, you can wait . . .” Min shook her head fiercely. Right beside Alanna in his head lay the bundle that was her. She bubbled with worry and anger, too, but love shone through like a beacon whenever she looked at him and often when she did not. Fear shone through, as well, though she was trying to hide that.

He put the flute back to his lips and began “The Drunken Peddler.” That was jolly enough to cheer the dead. Lews Therin snarled at him.

Min stood studying him, her arms folded, then abruptly gave her dress a twitch, settling it on her hips. With a sigh, he lowered the flute and waited. When a woman adjusted her clothes for no reason, it was like a man tightening the straps of his armor and checking his saddle girth; she meant to drive home a charge, and you would be cut down like a dog if you ran. Determination was as strong in Min now as it was in Alanna, twin suns flaring in the back of his brain.

“We will not talk about Alanna any more until she gets here,” she said firmly, as though he had been the one insisting. Determination, and still the fear, stronger now than before, continually trampled down and continually springing back up.

“Why, of course, wife, if it pleases you,” he replied, bending his neck in the approved Far Madding fashion. She sniffed loudly.

“Rand, I like Alivia. I do, even if she does make Nynaeve have kittens left and right.” One fist planted on her hip, Min leaned forward and pointed a finger at his nose. “But she is going to kill you.” She bit off every word.

“You said she was going to help me die,” he said quietly. “Those were your words.” How would he feel at dying? Sadness at leaving her, at leaving Elayne and Aviendha. Sadness for the pain he had brought them. He would like to see his father again before the end. Aside from those things, he almost thought death would be a relief.

Death is a relief, Lews Therin said fervently. I want death. We deserve death!

“Helping me die isn’t the same as killing me,” Rand went on. He was very good at ignoring the voice, now. “Unless you’ve changed your mind about what you saw.”

Min flung up her hands in exasperation. “I saw what I saw and it’s what I told you, but the Pit of Doom swallow me if I can see any difference. And I can’t see why you think there is!”

“Sooner or later, I have to die, Min,” he said patiently. He had been told by those he had to believe. To live, you must die. That still made no sense to him, but it left one cold hard fact. Just as the Prophecies of the Dragon seemed to say, he had to die. “Not soon, I hope. I plan not soon. I’m sorry, Min. I never should have let you bond me.” But he had not been strong enough to refuse, any more than he had been strong enough to push her away. He was too weak for what had to be done. He needed to drink in winter, till he made winter’s heart seem Sunday noon.

“If you hadn’t, we’d have tied you up and done it anyway.” Best not to ask how that would have differed from what Alanna had done, he decided. Certainly, she saw a difference. Climbing onto the bed on her knees, she cupped his face in her hands, “You listen to me, Rand al’Thor. I won’t let you die. And if you manage it just to spite me, I’ll follow you and bring you back.” Suddenly a thick vein of amusement rippled through the seriousness he felt in his head. Her voice took on a mock sternness: “And then I’ll bring you back here to live. I’ll make you grow your hair below your waist and wear hair cli