and there had been a young woman in Deven Ride only a few years ago. She had been a Wisdom's apprentice, too, one who could listen to the wind.
'You have great potential, I think,' Moiraine continued. 'With training you might become even more powerful than Egwene, and I believe she can become one of the most powerful Aes Sedai we have seen in centuries.'
Nynaeve pushed herself back from the Aes Sedai as she would have from a viper. 'No! I'll have nothing to do with —' With what? Myself? She slumped, and her voice became hesitant. 'I would ask you not to tell anyone about this. Please?' The word nearly stuck in her throat. She would rather Trollocs had appeared than she had been forced to say please to this woman. But Moiraine only nodded assent, and some of her spirit returned. 'None of this explains what you want with Rand, and Mat, and Perrin.'
'The Dark One wants them,' Moiraine replied. 'If the Dark One wants a thing, I oppose it. Can there be a simpler reason, or a better?' She finished her tea, watching Nynaeve over the rim of her cup. 'Lan, we must be going. South, I think. I fear the Wisdom will not be accompanying us.'
Nynaeve's mouth tightened at the way the Aes Sedai said 'Wisdom'; it seemed to suggest she was turning her back on great things in favor of something petty. She doesn't want me along. She's trying to put my back up so I'll go back home and leave them alone with her. 'Oh, yes, I will be going with you. You cannot keep me from it.'
'No one will try to keep you from it,' Lan said as he rejoined them. He emptied the tea kettle over the fire and stirred the ashes with a stick. 'A part of the Pattern?' he said to Moiraine.
'Perhaps so,' she replied thoughtfully. 'I should have spoken to Min again.'
'You see, Nynaeve, you are welcome to come.' There was a hesitation in the way Lan said her name, a hint of an unspoken 'Sedai' after it.
Nynaeve bristled, taking it for mockery, and bristled, too, at the way they spoke of things in front of her – things she knew nothing about – without the courtesy of an explanation, but she would not give them the satisfaction of asking.
The Warder went on preparing for departure, his economical motions so sure and swift that he was quickly done, saddlebags, blankets, and all fastened behind the saddles of Mandarb and Aldieb.
'I will fetch your horse,' he told Nynaeve as he finished with the last saddle tie.
He started up the riverbank, and she allowed herself a small smile. After the way she had watched him undiscovered, he was going to try to find her horse unaided. He would learn that she left little in the way of tracks when she was stalking. It would be a pleasure when he came back empty-handed.
'Why south?' she asked Moiraine. 'I heard you say one of the boys is across the river. And how do you know?'
'I gave each of the boys a token. It created a bond of sorts between them and me. So long as they are alive and have those coins in their possession, I will be able to find them.' Nynaeve's eyes turned in the direction the Warder had gone, and Moiraine shook her head. 'Not like that. It only allows me to discover if they still live, and find them should we become separated. Prudent, do you not think, under the circumstances?'
'I don't like anything that connects you with anyone from Emond's Field,' Nynaeve said stubbornly. 'But if it will help us find them...'
'It will. I would gather the young man across the river first, if I could.' For a moment frustration tinged the Aes Sedai's voice. 'He is only a few miles from us. But I cannot afford to take the time. He should make his way down to Whitebridge safely now that the Trollocs have gone. The two who went downriver may need me more. They have lost their coins, and Myrddraal are either pursuing them or else trying to intercept us all at Whitebridge.' She sighed. 'I must take care of the greatest need first.'
'The Myrddraal could have ... could have killed them,' Nynaeve said.
Moiraine shook her head slightly, denying the suggestion as if it were too trivial to be considered. Nynaeve's mouth tightened. 'Where is Egwene, then? You haven't even mentioned her.'
'I do not know,' Moiraine admitted, 'but I hope that she is safe.'
'You don't know? You hope? All that talk about saving her life by taking her to Tar Valon, and she could be dead for all you know!'
'I could look for her and allow the Myrddraal more time before I arrive to help the two young men who went south. It is them the Dark One wants, not her. They would not bother with Egwene, so long as their true quarry remains uncaught.'
Nynaeve remembered her own encounter, but she refused to admit the sense of what Moiraine said. 'So the best you have to offer is that she may be alive, if she was lucky. Alive, maybe alone, frightened, even hurt, days from the nearest village or help except for us. And you intend to leave her. '
'She may just as easily be safe with the boy across the river. Or on her way to Whitebridge with the other two. In any case, there are no longer Trollocs here to threaten her, and she is strong, intelligent, and quite capable of finding her way to Whitebridge alone, if need be. Would you rather stay on the chance that she may need help, or do you want to try to help those we know are in need? Would you have me search for her and let the boys – and the Myrddraal who are surely pursuing them – go? As much as I hope for Egwene's safety, Nynaeve, I fight against the Dark One, and for now that sets my path.'
Moiraine's calm never slipped while she laid out the horrible alternatives; Nynaeve wanted to scream at her. Blinking back tears, she turned her face so the Aes Sedai could not see. Light, a Wisdom is supposed to look after all of her people. Why do I have to choose like this?
'Here is Lan,' Moiraine said, rising and settling her cloak about her shoulders.
To Nynaeve it was only a tiny blow as the Warder led her horse out of the trees. Still, her lips thinned when he handed her the reins. It would have been a small boost to her spirits if there had been even a trace of gloating on his face instead of that insufferable stony calm. His eyes widened when he saw her face, and she turned her back on him to wipe tears from her cheeks. How dare he mock my crying!
'Are you coming, Wisdom?' Moiraine asked coolly.
She took one last, slow look at the forest, wondering if Egwene was out there, before sadly mounting her horse. Lan and Moiraine were already in their saddles, turning their horses south. She followed, stiff-backed, refusing to let herself look back; instead she kept her eyes on Moiraine. The Aes Sedai was so confident in her power and her plans, she thought, but if they did not find Egwene and the boys, all of them, alive and unharmed, not all of her power would protect her. Not all her Power. I can use it, woman! You told me so yourself. I can use it against you!
Chapter 22
A Path Chosen
In a small copse of trees, beneath a pile of cedar branches roughly cut in the dark, Perrin slept long after sunrise. It was the cedar needles, pricking him through his still-damp clothes, that finally pricked through his exhaustion as well. Deep in a dream of Emond's Field, of working at Master Luhhan's forge, he opened his eyes and stared, uncomprehending, at the sweet-smelling branches interwoven over his face, sunlight trickling through.
Most of the branches fell away as he sat up in surprise, but some hung haphazardly from his shoulders, and even his head, making him appear something like a tree himself. Emond's Field faded as memory rushed back, so vivid that for a moment the night before seemed more real than anything around him now.
Panting, frantic, he scrabbled his axe out of the pile. He clutched it in both hands and peered around cautiously, holding his breath. Nothing moved. The morning was cold and still. If there were Trollocs on the east bank of the Arinelle, they were not moving, at least not close to him. Taking a deep, calming breath, he lowered the axe to his knees, and waited a moment for his heart to stop pounding.
The small stand of evergreens surrounding him was the first shelter he had found last night. It was sparse enough to give little protection against watching eyes if he stood up. Plucking branches from his head and shoulders, he pushed aside the rest of his prickly blanket, then crawled on hands and knees to the edge of the copse. There he lay studying the riverbank and scratching where the needles had stabbed him.
The cutting wind of the night before had faded to a silent breeze that barely rippled the surface of the water. The river ran by, calm and empty. And wide. Surely too wide and too deep for Fades to cross. The far bank appeared a solid mass of trees as far as he could see upriver and down. Certainly nothing moved in his view over there.
He was not sure how he felt about that. Fades and Trollocs he could do without quite easily, even on the other side of the river, but a whole list of worries would have vanished with the appearance of the Aes Sedai, or the
