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Three more times he had to hide behind the Power as veiled Maidens rushed by, and once when he saw Cadsuane sweeping along the corridor ahead with no fewer than six Aes Sedai at her heels, and not one other that he recognized besides her. They seemed to be hunting. He was not afraid of the gray-haired sister, precisely. No, of course not afraid! But he waited until she and her friends were well out of sight before letting his concealing weave go. Lews Therin did not chuckle over Cadsuane. He was deathly silent until she was gone.
Rand stepped away from the wall, a door opened right beside him, and Ailil peeked out. He had not known he was near her rooms. Behind her shoulder stood a dark woman with fat golden rings in her ears and a medallion-filled golden chain ru
He was as gentle as he could be, but he had to be quick. A few moments after the door opened, he was tucking a somewhat rumpled Ailil beneath her bed alongside Shalon. Perhaps they were not part of what was happening. Perhaps. Safe was better than sorry. Glaring at him above mouths wadded full of Ailil’s scarves, the two women writhed against the torn strips of bedsheet he had used to bind their wrists and ankles. The shield he had tied off on Shalon would hold her for a day or two before the knot unraveled, but someone would find them and cut their other bonds before too much longer.
Worrying about that shield, he opened the door enough to check the hallway, and hurried out, along the empty corridor. He could not have left the Windfinder free to cha
Fifty paces beyond Ailil’s rooms, the corridor opened into a square-railed balcony of blue marble with broad stairs at either end, fronting a square chamber with a high, vaulted ceiling and the same sort of balcony at the other side. Tapestries ten paces long hung along the walls, birds soaring to the skies in rigid patterns. Below, Dashiva stood looking about, licking his lips uncertainly. Gedwyn and Rochaid were with him! Lews Therin chittered of killing.
"... telling you Ifelt nothing," Gedwyn was saying. "He’s dead!"
And Dashiva saw Rand, at the head of the stairs.
The only warning he had was the sudden snarl that contorted Dashiva’s face. Dashiva cha
That barrier would keep out anything short of balefire. Including air to breathe. Rand released it panting, scraping along the floor, with the crash of the explosions still ringing in the air, dust still hanging and bits of broken marble tumbling. As much as for breath, though, he let it go because what could keep the Power out, kept it in. Before he stopped sliding, he cha
Almost immediately, though, he was up and ru
He took care making his way back to where he had seen Dashiva, deadly weaves ready to fling at so much as a glimpse.
I should have killed them all in the begi
Rand let him rage.
The large chamber seemed to have been washed in fire. Only charred fragments licked by flames remained of the tapestries, and great gouges a pace across had been burned into floor and walls. The stairs Rand had been about to descend ended in a ten-foot gap halfway down. Of the three men, there was no sign. They would not have been consumed completely. Something would have remained.
A servant in a black coat cautiously poked his head from a tiny door beside the stairs on the other side of the chamber. His eyes fell on Rand, rolled up in his head, and he fell forward in a heap. Another servant peeped out of a corridor, then gathered her skirts and raced back the way she had come, shrieking at the top of her lungs that the Dragon Reborn was killing everyone in the Palace.
Rand slipped out of the chamber grimacing. He was very good at frightening people who could not harm him. Very good at destroying.
To destroy, or be destroyed, Lews Therin laughed. When that’s your choice, is there a difference?
Somewhere in the Palace, a man cha
He walked the corridors of the Palace, no longer bothering to hide. Everyone else seemed to be. The few servants he saw, fled screaming. Corridor after corridor, he hunted, filled near to bursting with saidin, full of fire and ice trying to a
A glimpse of a black coat ahead, and his hand shot up, fire streaking, exploding, tearing away the corner where the two hallways met. Rand let the weave subside, but did not let it go. Had he killed him?
"My Lord Dragon," a voice shouted from beyond the torn stonework, "it’s me, Narishma! And Fli
"I didn’t recognize you," Rand lied. "Come here."
"I think maybe your blood’s hot," Fli
"Yes," Rand said slowly. Had he really tried to kill Narishma? He did not think he could claim the excuse of Lews Therin. "Yes, that might be best. For a little while longer." There was no answer. Did he hear boots retreating? He forced his hands down and turned another way.
He searched through the Palace for hours without finding a sign of Dashiva or the others. The corridors and great halls, even the kitchens, were empty of people. He found nothing, and learned nothing. No. He realized that he had learned one thing. Trust was a knife, and the hilt was as sharp as the blade.
Then he found pain.
The small stone-walled room was deep below the Sun Palace and warm despite the lack of a fireplace, but Min felt cold. Three gilded lamps on the tiny wooden table gave more than enough light. Rand had said that from there, he could get her away even if someone tried to root the Palace out of the ground. He had not sounded as if he were joking.
Holding the crown of Illian on her lap, she watched Rand. Watched Rand watching Fedwin. Her hands tightened on the crown, and loosened immediately at the stabs of those small swords hidden among the laurel leaves. Strange, that the crown and scepter should have survived when the Dragon Throne itself was a pile of gilded splinters buried in rubble. A large leather scrip beside her chair, with Rand’s sword belt and scabbarded sword resting against it, held what else he had been able to salvage. Strange choices for the most part, in her estimation.