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"I need to know," Rand said finally. "Are you still unwilling to command the army against Illian? I have to know now."
"I’m no general," Perrin said raggedly. There would be battles in Illian. Images flashed in his head. Men all around him, and the axe in his hands spi
"We all must take risks." Rand’s voice was very quiet. And very hard. Min peered around the doorframe again, looking as if she wanted to come to him, but she glanced at Faile and stayed outside.
"Rand, the Aes Sedai... " A smart man would let this lie, probably. He had never claimed to be particularly smart, though. "The Wise Ones are ready to skin them alive, or near enough. You can’t let them be harmed, Rand." In the corridor, Sulin turned to study him through the doorway.
The man he thought he knew laughed, a wheezing sound. "We all have to take risks," he repeated.
"I won’t let them be hurt, Rand."
Cold blue eyes met his gaze. "Youwon’t let it?"
"Iwon’t," Perrin told him levelly. He did not flinch from that stare, either. "They are prisoners, and no threat. They’re women."
"They are Aes Sedai." Rand’s voice was so like Aram’s back at Dumai’s Wells that it nearly took Perrin’s breath.
"Rand — "
"I do what I have to do, Perrin." For a moment he was the old Rand, not liking what was happening. For a moment he looked tired to death. A moment only. Then he was the new Rand again, hard enough to mark steel. "I won’t harm any Aes Sedai who doesn’t deserve it, Perrin. I can’t promise more. Since you don’t want the army, I can use you elsewhere. Just as well, really. I wish I could let you rest longer than a day or two, but I can’t. There’s no time. No time, and we must do what we must. Forgive me for interrupting you." He sketched a bow, one hand on the hilt of his sword. "Faile."
Perrin tried to catch his arm, but he was out of the room, the door closing behind him, before Perrin could move. Rand was not really Rand anymore, it seemed. A day or two? Where in the Light did Rand mean him to go, if not to the army gathering down on the Plains of Maredo?
"My husband," Faile breathed, "you have the courage of three men. And the sense of a child on leading strings. Why is it that as a man’s courage goes up, his sense goes down?"
Perrin grunted indignantly. He refrained from mentioning women who set themselves to spy on people who had committed murders and almost certainly knew they were spying. Women always talked about how logical they were compared to men, but for himself, he had seen precious little of it.
"Well, perhaps I don’t really want the answer even if you know it." Stretching with her arms over her head, she gave a throaty laugh. "Besides, I don’t mean to let him spoil the mood. I still feel as forward as a farmgirl at — Why are you laughing? Stop laughing at me, Perrin t’Bashere Aybara! Stop it, I say, you uncouth oaf! If you don’t — "
The only way to put an end to it was to kiss her. In her arms he forgot Rand and Aes Sedai and battles. Where Faile was, was home.
Chapter 7
(Lion Rampant)
Pitfalls and Tripwires
Rand felt the Dragon Scepter in his hand, felt every line of the carved Dragons against his heron-branded palm as clearly as if he were ru
He floated in the Void, surrounded by emptiness beyond knowing, and saidinfilled him, trying to grind him to dust beneath steel-shattering cold and heat where stone would flash to flame, carrying the Dark One’s taint on its flow, forcing corruption into his bones. Into his soul, he feared sometimes. It did not make him feel so sick to his stomach as it once had. He feared that even more. And larded through that torrent of fire, ice and filth — life. That was the best word. Saidintried to destroy him. Saidinfilled him to overflowing with vitality. It threatened to bury him, and it enticed him. The war for survival, the struggle to avoid being consumed, magnified the joy of pure life. So sweet even with the foulness. What would it be like, clean? Beyond imagining. He wanted to draw more, draw all there was.
There lay the deadly seduction. One slip, and the ability to cha
His thoughts whirled through his dance with saidin, slid across the Void. A
He tried to push that thought away. It came a little too close to raving. Nobody could live without giving trust somewhere. Just not to Aes Sedai. Mat, Perrin. If he could not trust them... Min. Never a thought of not trusting Min. He wished she were with him, instead of snugged in her bed. All those days a prisoner, days of worry — more for him than herself, if he knew her — days of being questioned by Galina and ill-treated when her answers failed to please — unconsciously he ground his teeth — all of that, and the strain of being Healed on top of it, had caught up with her at last. She had stayed by his side until her legs gave way, and he had to carry her to her bedchamber, with her sleepily protesting all the way that he needed her with him. No Min here, no comforting presence to make him laugh, make him forget the Dragon Reborn. Only the war with saidin, and the whirlwind of his thoughts, and...
They must be done away with. You must do it. Don’t you remember the last time? That place by the wells was a pittance. Cities burned whole out of the earth were nothing. We destroyed the world! DO YOU HEAR ME? THEY HAVE TO BE KILLED, WIPED FROM THE FACE...!
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