“First,” Egwene said, “you will talk of the Seanchan. I don’t care if you think it’s irrelevant. Anything you tell me might be helpful.” Or, it might reveal Leilwin as a liar, which would be equally useful. “Gawyn, fetch me a chair. I’m going to listen to what she says. After that, we’ll see…”
Rand rifled through the pile of maps, notes and reports. He stood with his arm folded behind his back, a single lamp burning on the desk. Sheathed in glass, the flame danced as breezes eddied through the tent where he stood alone.
Was the flame alive? It ate, it moved on its own. You could smother it, so in a way, it brea
thed. What was it to be alive?
Could an idea live?
A world without the Dark One. A world without evil.
Rand turned back to the maps. What he saw impressed him. Elayne was preparing well. He had not attended the meetings planning each battle. His attention was directed toward the north. Toward Shayol Ghul. His destiny. His grave.
He hated the way these battle maps, with notes for formations and groups, reduced men’s lives to scribbles on a page. Numbers and statistics. Oh, he admitted that the clarity—the distance—was essential for a battlefield commander. He hated it nonetheless.
Here before him was a flame that lived, yet here were also men who were dead. Now that he could not lead the war himself, he hoped to stay away from maps such as this one. He knew seeing these preparations would make him grieve for the soldiers he could not save.
A sudden chill ran across him, the hairs on his arms standing on end—a distinct shiver halfway between excitement and terror. A woman was channeling.
Rand raised his head and found Elayne frozen in the tent doorway. “Light!” she said. “Rand! What are you doing here? Are you trying to kill me with fright?”
He turned, settling his fingers on the battle maps, taking her in. Now here was life. Flushed cheeks, golden hair with a hint of honey and rose, eyes that burned like a bonfire. Her dress of crimson showed the swell of the children she bore. Light, she was beautiful.
“Rand al’Thor?” Elayne asked. “Are you going to talk to me, or do you wish to ogle me further?”
“If I can’t ogle you, whom can I ogle?” Rand asked. “Don’t grin at me like that, farmboy,” she said. “Sneaking into my tent? Really. What would people say?”
“They’d say that I wanted to see you. Besides, I didn’t sneak in. The guards let me in.”
She folded her arms. “They didn’t tell me.”
“I asked them not to.”
“Then, for all intents and purposes, you were sneaking.” Elayne brushed by him. She smelled wonderful. “Honestly, as if Aviendha weren’t enough…”
“I didn’t want the regular soldiers to see me,” Rand said. “I worried it would disturb your camp. I asked the guards not to mention that I was here.” He stepped up to her, resting his hand on her shoulder. “I had to see you again, before…”
“You saw me at Merrilor.”
“Elayne…”
“I’m sorry,” she said, turning back to him. “I am happy to see you, and I am glad you came. I’m just trying to get into my head how you fit into all of this. How we fit into all of this.”
“I don’t know,” Rand said. “I’ve never figured it out. I’m sorry.”
She sighed, sitting down in the chair beside her desk. “I suppose it is good to find there are some things you can’t fix with a wave of your hand.”
“There is much I can’t fix, Elayne.” He glanced at the desk, and the maps. “So much.”
Don’t think about that.
He knelt before her, getting a cocked eyebrow until he placed his hand on her belly—hesitantly, at first. “I didn’t know,” he said. “Not until just recently, the night before the meeting. Twins, it is said?”
“Yes.”
“So Tam will be a grandfather,” Rand said. “And I will be…”
How was a man supposed to react to this news? Was it supposed to shake him, upend him? Rand had been given his share of surprises in life. It seemed he could no longer take two steps without the world changing on him.