The Gathering Storm

"I'll risk it," Gawyn said. "Finally!"

"You won't be taking my horses for this fool's errand," Bryne said sternly.

"There are mounts in his stables owned by the Aes Sedai, Gawyn," Siuan said, ignoring Bryne. "Get one of them for me. A mild one, mind you. Very, very mild."

Gawyn nodded and ran away into the night. Siuan followed him at a more careful pace, plotting. This would all be so much easier if she could create a gateway, but she didn't have enough strength in the Power for that. She had before her stilling, but wishing for things to be different was about as useful as wishing the silverpike you'd caught was a fangfish instead. You sold what you had and were happy for any kind of catch at all.

"Siuan," Bryne said softly, walking beside her. Couldn't he just let her be! "Listen to me. This is insanity! How are you going to get in?"

Siuan glanced at him. "Shemerin got out."

"That was before there was a siege, Siuan." Bryne sounded exasperated. "The place is much tighter now."

Siuan shook her head. "Shemerin was being watched closely. She got out through a Watergate; it's unwatched I'll bet, even now. I'd never heard of it, and I was Amyrlin. I have a map to its location."

Bryne hesitated. Then his face hardened. "It doesn't matter. The two of you still have no chance on your own."

"Then come with us," Siuan said.

"I will not be party to you breaking your oath again."

"Egwene said we could do something if it looked like she was in danger of execution," Siuan said. "She told me she'd let us rescue her then! Well, the way she vanished from the meeting with me tonight, I'm inclined to think she's in danger."

"It isn't Elaida who put her there, but the Seanchan!"

"We don't know for certain."

"Ignorance is not an excuse," Bryne said sternly, stepping closer to her. "You have made oathbreaking far too convenient, Siuan, and I don't want it to become a habit for you. Aes Sedai or not, former Amyrlin or not, people must have rules and boundaries. To say nothing of the fact that you're likely to get yourself killed attempting this!"

"And will you stop me?" She was still holding the source. "Do you think you could manage it?"

He ground his teeth. But he said nothing. Siuan turned and walked away from him, straight toward the fires at the palisade gate.

"Blasted woman," Bryne said from behind. "You'll be the death of me."

She turned, raising an eyebrow.

"I'll come," he said, hand gripping the hilt of his sheathed sword. He cut an imposing figure in the night, the straight lines of his coat matching the set cast of his face. "But there are two conditions."

"Name them," she said.

"The first is that you bond me as your Warder."

Siuan started. He wanted. . . . Light! Bryne wanted to be her Warder? She felt a surge of excitement.

But she hadn't considered taking a Warder, not since Alric's death. Losing him had been a terrible experience. Did she want to risk that again?

Did she dare pass the opportunity to have this man bonded to her, to feel his emotions, have him by her side? After all that she had dreamed and all that she had wished?

Feeling reverent, she stepped back up to Bryne, then laid a hand against his chest and wove the required weaves of Spirit and laid them over him. He breathed in sharply as new awareness blossomed inside of both of them, a new connection. She could feel his emotions, could sense his concern for her, which was shockingly powerful. It was ahead of his worry for Egwene and concern for his soldiers! Oh, Gareth, she thought, feeling herself smile at the sweetness of his love for her.

"I always wondered what that would feel like," Bryne said, raising his hand and making a fist a few times in the torchlight. He sounded amazed. "Would that I could give this to each man in my army!"

Siuan sniffed. "I highly doubt that their wives and families would approve of that."

"They would if it kept the soldiers alive," Bryne said. "I could run a thousand leagues and never want for breath. I could stand against a hundred foes at once and laugh at them all."

She rolled her eyes. Men! She had given him a deeply personal and emotional connection to another person—the likes of which even husbands and wives would never know—and all he could think about was how much better he might have become at swordplay!