Page 28 of Towers of Midnight (The Wheel of Time 13)

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"An Aes Sedai answer for certain." Al'Thor smiled. A relaxed, soft smile. That surprised her. "I wonder if I will ever grow accustomed to those. You once took an arrow for me. Did I thank you for that?"

"I didn't do it intentionally, as I recall," she said dryly.

"You have my thanks nonetheless." He turned toward the door to the Hall of the Tower. "What kind of Amyrlin is she?"

Why ask me? He couldn't know of the closeness between Siuan and Egwene. "She's an incredible one," Siuan said. "One of the greatest we've had, for all the fact that she's only held the Seat a short time."

He smiled again. "I should have expected nothing less. Strange, but I feel that seeing her again will hurt, though that is one wound that has well and truly healed. I can still remember the pain of it, I suppose."

Light, but this man was making a muddle of her expectations! The White Tower was a place that should have unnerved any man who could channel, Dragon Reborn or not. Yet he didn't seem worried in the least.

She opened her mouth, but was cut off as an Aes Sedai pushed through the group. Tiana?

The woman pulled something out of her sleeve and proffered it to Rand. A small letter with a red seal. "This is for you," she said. Her voice sounded tense, and her fingers trembled, though the tremble was so faint that most would have missed it. Siuan had learned to look for signs of emotion in Aes Sedai, however.

Al'Thor raised an eyebrow, then reached over and took it. "What is it?"

"I promised to deliver it," Tiana said. "I would have said no, but I never thought you'd actually come to ... I mean . . ." She cut herself off, closing her mouth. Then she withdrew into the crowd.

Al'Thor slipped the note into his pocket without reading it. "Do your best to calm Egwene when I am done," he said to Siuan. Then he took a deep breath and strode forward, ignoring his guards. They hastened after him, the Warders looking sheepish, but nobody dared touch him as he strode between the doors and into the Hall of the Tower.

* * *

Hairs bristled on Egwene's arms as Rand came into the room, unaccompanied. Aes Sedai outside crowded around the doorway, trying to look as if they were not gawking. Silviana glanced at Egwene. Should this meeting be Sealed to the Hall?

No, Egwene thought. They need to see me confront him. Light, but I don't feel ready for this.

There was no helping it. She steeled herself, repeating in her head the same words she'd been going over all morning. This was not Rand al'Thor, friend of her childhood, the man she'd assumed that she'd one day marry. Rand al'Thor she could be lenient with, but leniency here could bring about the end of the world.

No. This man was the Dragon Reborn. The most dangerous man ever to draw breath. Tall, much more confident than she ever remembered him being. He wore simple clothing.

He walked directly into the center of the Hall, his Warder guards remaining outside. He stopped in the center of the Flame on the floor, surrounded by Sitters in their seats.

"Egwene," Rand said, voice echoing in the chamber. He nodded to her, as if in respect. "You have done your part, I see. The Amyrlin's stole fits you well."

From what she had heard of Rand recently, she had not anticipated such calm in him. Perhaps it was the calm of the criminal who had finally given himself up.

Was that how she thought of him? As a criminal? He had done acts that certainly seemed criminal; he had destroyed, he had conquered. When she'd last spent any length of time with Rand, they had traveled through the Aiel Waste. He had become a hard man during those months, and she saw that hardness in him still. But there was something else, something deeper.

"What has happened to you?" she found herself asking as she leaned forward on the Amyrlin Seat.

"I was broken," Rand said, hands behind his back. "And then, remarkably, I was reforged. I think he almost had me, Egwene. It was Cadsuane who set me to fixing it, though she did so by accident. Still, I shall have to lift her exile, I suspect."

He spoke differently. There was a formality to his words that she didn't recognize. In another man, she would have assumed a cultured, educated background. But Rand didn't have that. Could tutors have trained him so quickly?

"Why have you come before the Amyrlin Seat?" she asked. "Have you come to make a petition, or have you come to surrender yourself to the White Tower's guidance?"

He studied her, hands still behind his back. Just behind him, thirteen sisters quietly filed into the Hall, the glow of saidar around them as they maintained his shield.

Rand didn't seem to care about that. He studied the room, looking at the various Sitters. His eyes lingered on the seats of Reds, two of which were empty. Pevara and Javindhra hadn't yet returned from their unknown mission. Only Barasine newly chosen to replace Duhara was in attendance. To her credit, she met Rand's eyes evenly.

"I've hated you before," Rand said, turning back to Egwene. "I've felt a lot of emotions, in recent months. It seems that from the very moment Moiraine came to the Two Rivers, I've been struggling to avoid Aes Sedai strings of control. And yet, I allowed other strings more dangerous strings to wrap around me unseen.

"It occurs to me that I've been trying too hard. I worried that if I listened to you, you'd control me. It wasn't a desire for independence that drove me, but a fear of irrelevance. A fear that the acts I accomplished would be yours, and not my own." He hesitated. "I should have wished for such a convenient set of backs upon which to heap the blame for my crimes."

Egwene frowned. The Dragon Reborn had come to the White Tower to engage in idle philosophy? Perhaps he had gone mad. "Rand," Egwene said, softening her tone. "I'm going to have some sisters talk to you to decide if there is anything . . . wrong with you. Please try to understand."