Page 26 of Towers of Midnight (The Wheel of Time 13)

Stop that, Siuan thought. He's come into our seat of power. He's the one caught in the net.

"What is his game, do you think?" Saerin asked. "Burn me if I know," Siuan replied. "He's bound to be mostly insane by now. Maybe he's frightened,

and has come to turn himself in."

"I doubt that."

"As do I," Siuan said grudgingly. During these last few days, she'd found to her amazement that she liked Saerin. As Amyrlin, Siuan hadn't had time for friendships; it had been too important to play the Ajahs off one another. She'd thought Saerin obstinate and frustrating. Now that they weren't butting heads so often, she found those attributes appealing.

"Maybe he heard that Elaida was gone," Siuan said, "and thought that he would be safe here, with an old friend on the Amyrlin Seat."

"That doesn't match what I've read of the boy," Saerin replied. "Reports call him mistrustful and erratic, with a demanding temper and an insistence on avoiding Aes Sedai."

That was what Siuan had heard as well, though it had been two years since she'd seen the boy. In fact, the last time he'd stood before her, she'd been the Amyrlin and he'd been a simple sheepherder. Most of what she knew of him since then had come through the Blue Ajah's eyes-and-ears. It took a great deal of skill to separate speculation from truth, but most agreed about al'Thor. Temperamental, distrustful, arrogant. Light burn Elaida! Siuan thought. If not for her, we'd have had him safely in Aes Sedai care long ago.

They climbed down three spiraling ramps and entered another of the White Tower's white-walled hallways, moving toward the Hall of the Tower. If the Amyrlin was going to receive the Dragon Reborn, then she'd do it there. Two twisting turns later past mirrored stand-lamps and stately tapestries they entered one last hallway and froze.

The floor tiles here were the color of blood. That wasn't right. The ones here should have been white and yellow. These glistened, as if wet.

Chubain inhaled sharply, hand going to his sword hilt. Saerin raised an eyebrow. Siuan was tempted to barrel onward, but these places where the Dark One had touched the world could be dangerous. She might find herself sinking through the floor, or being attacked by the tapestries.

The two Aes Sedai turned and walked the other way. Chubain lingered for a moment, then hurried after. It was easy to read the tension in his face. First the Seanchan, and now the Dragon Reborn himself, come to assault the Tower on his watch.

As they passed through the hallways, they met other sisters flowing in the same direction. Most of them wore their shawls. One might have argued that was because of the news of the day, but the truth was that many still held to their distrust of other Ajahs. Another reason to curse Elaida. Egwene had been working hard to reforge the Tower, but one couldn't mend years' worth of broken nets in one month.

They finally arrived at the Hall of the Tower. Sisters clustered in the wide hallway outside, divided by Ajah. Chubain hurried to speak with his guards at the door, and Saerin entered the Hall proper, where she could wait with the other Sitters. Siuan remained standing with the dozens outside.

Things were changing. Egwene had a new Keeper to replace Sheriam. The choice of Silviana made a great deal of sense the woman was known to have a level head, for a Red, and choosing her had helped forge the two halves of the Tower back together. But Siuan had harbored a small hope that she herself would be chosen. Now Egwene had so many demands on her time and was becoming so capable on her own that she was relying on Siuan less and less.

That was a good thing. But it was also infuriating.

The familiar hallways, the scent of freshly washed stone, the echoing of footsteps . . . When last she'd been in this place, she'd commanded it. No longer.

She had no mind to climb her way into prominence again. The Last Battle was upon them; she didn't want to spend her time dealing with the squabbles of the Blue Ajah as they reintegrated into the Tower. She wanted to do what she'd set out to do, all those years before with Moiraine. Shepherd the Dragon Reborn to the Last Battle.

Through the bond, she felt Bryne arrive before he spoke. "Now, there's a concerned face," he said, piercing the hallway's dozens of hushed conversations as he walked up behind her.

Siuan turned to him. He was stately and remarkably calm particularly for a man who had been betrayed by Morgase Trakand, then sucked into Aes Sedai politics, then told he was going to be leading his troops on the front lines of the Last Battle. But that was Bryne. Serene to a fault. He soothed her worries just by being there.

"You came faster than I'd assumed you'd be able to," she said. "And I do not have a 'concerned face,' Gareth Bryne. I'm Aes Sedai. My very nature is to be in control of myself and my surroundings."

"Yes," he said. "And yet, the more time I spend around the Aes Sedai, the more I wonder about that. Are they in control of their emotions? Or do those emotions just never change? If one is always concerned, one will always look the same."

She eyed him. "Fool man."

He smiled, turning to look through the hallway full of Aes Sedai and Warders. "I was already returning to the Tower with a report when your messenger found me. Thank you."

"You're welcome," she said gruffly.

"They're nervous," he said. "I don't think I've ever seen the Aes Sedai like this."

"Well, can you blame us?" she snapped.

He looked at her, then raised a hand to her shoulder. His strong, callused fingers brushed her neck. "What is wrong?"

She took a deep breath, glancing to the side as Egwene finally arrived, walking toward the Hall in conversation with Silviana. As usual, the somber Gawyn Trakand lurked behind like a distant shadow. Unacknowledged by Egwene, not bonded as her Warder, yet not cast from the Tower either. He'd spent the nights since the reunification guarding Egwene's doors, despite the fact that it angered her.

As Egwene neared the entrance to the Hall, sisters stepped back and made way, some reluctantly, others reverently. She'd brought the Tower to its knees from the inside, while being beaten every day and doused with so much forkroot she could barely light a candle with the Power. So young. Yet what was age to Aes Sedai?