“What is going on here?” Renna demanded, stepping into the room. “An audience?” She stared at Nynaeve, hands on hips. “I never gave permission for anyone else to link with my pet, Tuli. I do not even know who you—” Her eyes fell on Egwene—Egwene wearing Nynaeve’s dress instead of damane gray. Egwene with no collar around her throat—and her eyes grew as big as saucers. She never had a chance to yell.
Before anyone else could move, Egwene snatched the pitcher from her washstand and smashed it into Renna’s midriff. The pitcher shattered, and the sul’dam lost all her breath in a gurgling gasp and doubled over. As she fell, Egwene leaped on her with a snarl, shoving her flat, grabbing for the collar she had worn where it still lay on the floor, snapping it around the other woman’s neck. With one jerk on the silver leash, Egwene pulled the bracelet from the peg and fitted it to her own wrist. Her lips were pulled back from her teeth, her eyes fixed on Renna’s face with a terrible concentration. Kneeling on the sul’dam’s shoulders, she pressed both hands over the woman’s mouth. Renna gave a tremendous convulsion, and her eyes bulged in her face; hoarse sounds came from her throat, screams held back by Egwene’s hands; her heels drummed on the floor.
“Stop it, Egwene!” Nynaeve grabbed Egwene’s shoulders, pulling her off of the other woman. “Egwene, stop it! That isn’t what you want!” Renna lay gray-faced and panting, staring wildly at the ceiling.
Suddenly Egwene threw herself against Nynaeve, sobbing raggedly at her breast. “She hurt me, Nynaeve. She hurt me. They all did. They hurt me, and hurt me, until I did what they wanted. I hate them. I hate them for hurting me, and I hate them because I couldn’t stop them from making me do what they wanted.”
“I know,” Nynaeve said gently. She smoothed Egwene’s hair. “It is all right to hate them, Egwene. It is. They deserve it. But it isn’t all right to let them make you like they are.”
Seta’s hands were pressed to her face. Renna touched the collar at her throat disbelievingly, with a shaking hand.
Egwene straightened, brushing her tears away quickly. “I’m not. I am not like them.” She almost clawed the bracelet off of her wrist and threw it down. “I’m not. But I wish I could kill them.”
“They deserve it.” Min was staring grimly at the two sul’dam.
“Rand would kill someone who did a thing like that,” Elayne said. She seemed to be steeling herself. “I am sure he would.”
“Perhaps they do,” Nynaeve said, “and perhaps he would. But men often mistake revenge and killing for justice. They seldom have the stomach for justice.” She had often sat in judgment with the Women’s Circle. Sometimes men came before them, thinking women might give them a better hearing than the men of the Village Council, but men always thought they could sway the decision with eloquence, or pleas for mercy. The Women’s Circle gave mercy where it was deserved, but justice always, and it was the Wisdom who pronounced it. She picked up the bracelet Egwene had discarded and closed it. “I would free every woman here, if I could, and destroy every last one of these. But since I cannot. . . .” She slipped the bracelet over the same peg that held the other one, then addressed herself to the sul’dam. Not Leash Holders any longer, she told herself. “Perhaps, if you are very quiet, you will be left alone here long enough to manage to remove the collars. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, and it may be that you’ve done enough good to counterbalance the evil you have done, enough that you will be allowed to remove them. If not, you will be found, eventually. And I think whoever finds you will ask a great many questions before they remove those collars. I think perhaps you will learn at first hand the life you have given to other women. That is justice,” she added, to the others.
Renna wore a fixed stare of horror. Seta’s shoulders shook as she sobbed into her hands. Nynaeve hardened her heart—It is justice, she told herself. It is—and herded the others out of the room.
No one paid any more attention to them going out than they had coming in. Nynaeve supposed she had the sul’dam dress to thank for that, but she could not wait to change into something else. Anything else. The dirtiest rag would feel cleaner on her skin.
The girls were silent, walking close behind her, until they were out on the cobblestone street again. She did not know if it was what she had done or the fear that someone might stop them. She scowled. Would they have felt better if she had let them work themselves up to cutting the women’s throats?
“Horses,” Egwene said. “We will need horses. I know the stable where they took Bela, but I don’t think we can get to her.”
“We have to leave Bela here,” Nynaeve told her. “We are leaving by ship.”
“Where is everybody?” Min said, and suddenly Nynaeve realized the street was empty.
The crowds were gone, not a sign of them to be seen; every shop and window along the street were shuttered tight. But up the street from the harbor came a formation of Seanchan soldiers, a hundred or more in ordered ranks, with an officer at their head in his painted armor. They were still halfway down the street from the women, but they marched with a grim, implacable step, and it seemed to Nynaeve that every eye was fixed on her. That’s ridiculous. I can’t see their eyes inside those helmets, and if anybody had given an alarm, it would be behind us. She stopped anyway.
“There are more behind us,” Min murmured. Nynaeve could hear those boots, now. “I don’t know which will reach us first.”
Nynaeve took a deep breath. “They are nothing to do with us.” She looked beyond the approaching soldiers, to the harbor, filled with tall, boxy Seanchan ships. She could not make out Spray; she prayed it was still there, and ready. “We will walk right past them.” Light, I hope we can.
“What if they want you to join them, Nynaeve?” Elayne asked. “You are wearing that dress. If they start asking questions. . . .”
“I will not go back,” Egwene said grimly. “I’ll die first. Let me show them what they’ve taught me.” To Nynaeve’s eye, a golden nimbus suddenly seemed to surround her.
“No!” she said, but it was too late.
With a roar like thunder, the street under the first ranks of Seanchan erupted, dirt and cobblestones and armored men thrown aside like spray from a fountain. Still glowing, Egwene spun to stare up the street, and the thunderous roar was repeated. Dirt rained down on the women. Shouting Seanchan soldiers scattered in good order to shelter in alleys and behind stoops. In moments they were all out of sight, except for those who lay around the two large holes marring the street. Some of those stirred feebly, and moans drifted along the street.
Nynaeve threw up her hands, trying to look in both directions at once. “You fool! We are trying not to attract attention!” There was no hope of that now. She only hoped they could manage to work their way around the soldiers to the harbor through the alleys. The damane must know, too, now. They could not have missed that.
“I won’t go back to that collar,” Egwene said fiercely. “I won’t!”
“Look out!” Min shouted.
With a shrill whine, a fireball as big as a horse arched into the air over the rooftops and began to fall. Directly toward them.
“Run!” Nynaeve shouted, and threw herself into a dive toward the nearest alleyway, between two shuttered shops.
She landed awkwardly on her stomach with a grunt, losing half her breath, as the fireball struck. Hot wind washed over her down the narrow passage. Gulping air, she rolled onto her back and stared back into the street.