Lying on her narrow bed, Egwene frowned up at the flickering shadows cast on the ceiling by her single lamp. She wished she could form some plan of action, or reason out what to expect next. Nothing came. The shadows had more pattern than her thoughts. She could hardly even make herself worry about Mat, yet the shame she felt at that was small, crushed by the walls around her.
It was a stark, windowless room, like all those in the novices’ quarters, small and square and painted white, with pegs on one wall for hanging her belongings, the bed built against a second, and a tiny shelf on a third, where in other days she had kept a few books borrowed from the Tower library. A washstand and a three-legged stool completed the furnishings. The floorboards were almost white from scrubbing. She had done that task, on hands and knees, every day she
had lived there, in addition to her other chores and lessons. Novices lived simply, whether they were innkeepers’ daughters or the Daughter-Heir of Andor.
She wore the plain white dress of a novice again—even her belt and pouch were white—but she felt no joy at having rid herself of the hated gray. Her room had become too much of a prison cell. What if they mean to keep me here. In this room. Like a cell. Like a collar and. . . .
She glanced at the door—the dark Accepted would still be standing guard on the other side, she knew—and rolled close to the white plastered wall. Just above the mattress was a small hole, almost invisible unless you knew where to look, drilled through into the next room by novices long ago. Egwene kept her voice to a whisper.
“Elayne?” There was no answer. “Elayne? Are you asleep?”
“How could I sleep?” came Elayne’s reply, a reedy whisper through the hole. “I thought we might be in some trouble, but I did not expect this. Egwene, what are they going to do to us?”
Egwene had no answer, and her guesses were not of the sort she wanted to voice aloud. She did not even want to think of them. “I actually thought we might be heroes, Elayne. We brought back the Horn of Valere safely. We discovered Liandrin is Black Ajah.” Her voice skipped on that. Aes Sedai had always denied the existence of a Black Ajah, an Ajah that served the Dark One, and were known to become angry with anyone who even suggested it was real. But we know it’s real. “We should be heroes, Elayne.”
“ ‘Should and would build no bridges,’ ” Elayne said. “Light, I used to hate it when Mother said that to me, but it’s true. Verin said we mustn’t speak of the Horn, or Liandrin, to anyone but her or the Amyrlin Seat. I do not think any of this will work out the way we thought. It is not fair. We’ve been through so much; you’ve been through so much. It just is not fair.”
“Verin says. Moiraine says. I know why people think Aes Sedai are puppetmasters. I can almost feel the strings on my arms and legs. Whatever they do, it will be what they decide is good for the White Tower, not what is good or fair for us.”
“But you still want to be Aes Sedai. Don’t you?”
Egwene hesitated, but there was never any real question as to her answer. “Yes,” she said. “I still do. It is the only way we will ever be safe. But I will tell you this. I’ll not let myself be stilled.” That was a new thought, voiced as soon as it came to her, but she realized she did not want to take it back. Give up touching the True Source? She could sense it there, even now, the glow just over her shoulder, the shining just out of sight. She resisted the desire to reach out to it. Give up being filled with the One Power, feeling more alive than I ever have before? I won’t! “Not without a fight.”
There was a long silence from the other side of the wall. “How could you stop it? You may be as strong as any of them, now, but neither one of us knows enough yet to stop even one Aes Sedai from shielding us from the Source, and there are dozens of them here.”
Egwene considered. Finally she said, “I could run away. Really run away, this time.”
“They would come after us, Egwene. I’m sure they would. Once you show any ability at all, they don’t let you go until you’ve learned enough not to kill yourself. Or just die from it.”
“I am not a simple village girl anymore. I have seen something of the world. I can keep out of Aes Sedai hands if I want to.” She was trying to convince herself as much as Elayne. And what if I don’t know enough, yet? Enough about the world, enough about the Power? What if just channeling can still kill me? She refused to think of that. So much I have to learn yet. I won’t let them stop me.
“My mother might protect us,” Elayne said, “if what that Whitecloak said is true. I never thought I would hope something like that was the truth. But if it isn’t, Mother is just as likely to send us both back in chains. Will you teach me how to live in a village?”
Egwene blinked at the wall. “You will come with me? If it comes to that, I mean?”
There was another long silence, then a faint whisper. “I do not want to be stilled, Egwene. I will not be. I will not be!”
The door swung open, crashing against the wall, and Egwene sat up with a start. She heard the bang of a door from the other side of the wall. Faolain stepped into Egwene’s room, smiling as her eyes went to the tiny hole. Similar holes joined most of the novice rooms; any woman who had been a novice knew of them.
“Whispering with your friend, eh?” the curly-haired Accepted said with surprising warmth. “Well, it grows lonely, waiting by yourself. Did you have a nice chat?”
Egwene opened her mouth, then closed it again hastily. She could answer Aes Sedai, Sheriam had said. No one else. She regarded the Accepted with a level expression and waited.
The false sympathy slid off Faolain’s face like water running off a roof. “On your feet. The Amyrlin’s not to be kept waiting by the likes of you. You are lucky I did not come in in time to hear you. Move!”
Novices were supposed to obey the Accepted almost as quickly as they obeyed Aes Sedai, but Egwene got to her feet slowly, and took as much time as she dared in smoothing her dress. She gave Faolain a small curtsy and a tiny smile. The scowl that rolled across the Accepted’s face made Egwene’s smile grow before she remembered to rein it in; there was no point in pushing Faolain too far. Holding herself straight, pretending her knees were not shaking, she preceded the Accepted out of the room.
Elayne was already waiting outside with the apple-cheeked Accepted, looking fiercely determined to be brave. Somehow, she managed to give the impression that the Accepted was a handmaid carrying her gloves. Egwene hoped that she herself was doing half so well.
The railed galleries of the novices’ quarters rose tier on tier above, in a hollow column, and fell as many below, to the Novices’ Court. There were no other women in sight. Even if every novice in the Tower had been there, though, less than a quarter of the rooms would have been filled. The four of them walked ’round the empty galleries and down the spiraling ramps in silence; none could bear to have the sounds of voices emphasize the emptiness.
Egwene had never before been into the part of the Tower where the Amyrlin had her rooms. The corridors there were wide enough for a wagon to pass down easily, and taller than they were wide. Colorful tapestries hung on the walls, tapestries in a dozen styles, of floral designs and forest scenes, of heroic deeds and intricate patterns, some so old they looked as if they might break if handled. Their shoes made loud clicks on diamond-shaped floor tiles that repeated the colors of the seven Ajahs.
There were few other women in evidence—an Aes Sedai now and then, sweeping majestically along with no time to notice Accepted or novices; five or six Accepted hurrying self-importantly about their tasks or studies; a sprinkling of serving women with trays, or mops, or armfuls of sheets or towels; a few novices moving on errands even more quickly than the servants.
Nynaeve and her slim-necked escort, Theodrin, joined them. Neither spoke. Nynaeve wore an Accepted’s dress, now, white with the seven colored bands at the hem, but her belt and pouch were her own. She gave Egwene and Elayne each a reassuring smile and a hug—Egwene was so relieved to see another friendly face that she returned the hug with barely a thought that Nynaeve was behaving as if she were comforting children—but as they walked on, Nynaeve gave her thick braid a sharp tug from time to time, too.
Very few men came into that part of the Tower, and Egwene saw only two: Warders walking side by side in conversation, one with his sword on his hip, the other with his on his back. One was short and slender, even slight, the other almost as wide as he was tall, yet both moved with a dangerous grace. The color-shifting Warder cloaks made them queasy-making to watch for long, parts of them sometimes seeming to fade into the walls beyond. She saw Nynaeve looking at them, and shook her head. She has to do something about Lan. If any of us can do anything about anyone after today.