Page 124 of Towers of Midnight (The Wheel of Time 13)

;he died because she wasn't willing to hasten her step, it would be her own :ault.

Keep composure. Don't move too quickly.

She maintained her steady pace, reaching the six-pointed star as the Irollocs drew close. She began the weave she was required to make and »plit off a thread of Fire. She sent an enormous spray of heat away from her, turning the nearest of the beasts to cinders.

Jaw set against her fear, she crafted the rest of the required weave. She ¡plit her weaves a half-dozen times and finished the complicated thing in nere moments.

She set it in place, then nodded. There. Other Trollocs were coming, md she burned them away with a wave of her hand.

The six-pointed star was carved into the side of an archway of stone. She walked toward it, trying to keep from looking nervously over her ¡houlder. More Trollocs were coming. More than she could possibly kill.

She reached the archway and stepped through.

NTynaeve finished the forty-seventh weave, which caused the sounds of Dells in the air. She was exhausted. She'd had to make this weave while standing on top of an impossibly narrow tower hundreds of feet in the air. Wind buffeted her, threatening to blow her free.

An archway appeared below, in the dark night air. It seemed to grow right out of the pillar's side a dozen feet below her, parallel to the ground, ts opening toward the sky. It held the six-pointed star.

Gritting her teeth, she leaped off the spire and fell through the archway.

She landed in a puddle. Her clothing was gone. What had happened to t? She stood up, growling to herself. She was angry. She didn't know why, nut someone had done . . . something to her.

She was so tired. That was their fault, whoever they wete. As she fo-rused on that thought, it became more clear to her. She couldn't remember what they'd done, but they were definitely to blame. She had cuts across Doth of her arms. Had she been whipped? The cuts hurt something fierce.

Dripping wet, she looked around. She'd completed forty-seven of the lundred weaves. She knew that, but nothing else. Other than the fact that omebody very badly wanted her to fail.

She wasn't going to let them win. She rose out of the puddle, determined to be calm, and found some clothing nearby. It was garishly colored, aright pink and yellow with a generous helping of red. It seemed an insult. She put it on anyway.

She walked down a path in the bog, stepping around sinkholes and pools of stagnant water, until she found a six-pointed star drawn in the mud. She began the next weave, which would make a burning blue star shoot into the air.

Something bit at her neck. She slapped her hand at it, killing a black-fly. Well, no surprise that she'd find those in this dank swamp. She would be glad to

Another bite on her arm. She slapped at it. The very air started to buzz, flies zipping around her. Nynaeve gritted her teeth, continuing the weave. More and more bites prickled on her arms. She couldn't kill them all. Could she get rid of the flies with a weave? She began a weave of Air to create a breeze around her, but was interrupted as she heard screams.

It was faint over the buzzing of the flies, but it sounded like a child trapped in the bog! Nynaeve took a step toward the sounds and opened her mouth to call, but blackflies swarmed into her mouth, choking her. They got at her eyes, and she had to squeeze them shut.

That buzzing. The screams. The biting. Light, they were in her throat! In her lungs!

Finish the weave. You must finish the weave.

She continued, somehow, despite the pain. The sound of the insects was so loud that she could barely hear the whoosh of the fiery star as it blasted into the air. She quickly wove a weave to blow the flies away, and once she did, she looked about. She coughed and trembled. She could feel the flies sticking to the inside of her throat. She didn't see any child in danger. Had it been a trick of her ears?

She did see another six-pointed star, above a door carved into a tree. She walked toward it as the flies buzzed around her again. Calm. She had to be calm! Why? It made no sense! She did it anyway, walking with eyes closed as the flies swarmed her. She reached out, feeling for the door and pulling it open. She stepped through.

She pulled to a stop inside the building, wondering why she was coughing so much. Was she ill? She leaned against the wall, exhausted, angry. Her legs were covered in scrapes, and her arms itched with some kind of insect bites. She groaned, looking down at her garish clothing. What could possibly have possessed her to wear red, yellow and pink together?

She stood up with a sigh and continued down the rickety hallway. The planks that made up the floor rattled as she walked, and the plaster on the walls was broken and crumbling.

She reached a doorway and peeked in. The small chamber contained four small brass beds; the mattresses had straw peeking from the seams.

Each bed bore a young child clutching a ratty blanket. Two of them were coughing, and all four looked pale and sickly.

Nynaeve gasped, hurrying into the room. She knelt beside the first child, a boy of perhaps four years. She checked his eyes, then told him to cough as she listened at his chest. He had the creeping sickness.

"Who is caring for you?" Nynaeve demanded.

"Mistress Mala runs the orphanage," the child said in a weak voice. "We haven't seen her in a long time."

"Please," a young girl said from the next bed. She had bloodshot eyes, her skin so pale it was practically white. "Some water? Could I have some water?" She trembled.