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Because, Rand replied Because we made this This is where we died

He stood on the very point of Dragonmount, the lone peak that had erupted where Lews Therin had killed himself three thousand years before To one side, he could see down hundreds of feet to where the side of thewas enorer than it looked fro rock It was as if a chunk of thethe peak to rise into the air but the entire side of thechasm It was like the maw of a beast Heat burned from below and flakes of ash twisted into the sky

The dun sky was clouded above hiround seemed equally distant, barely visible, like a quilt reen that was a forest There a stitch that was a river To the east, he saw a sht in the tiny current Tar Valon

Rand sat down, the snow crunching beneath his weight He set the access key into the bank before him and wove Air and Fire to keep himself warm

Then he rested his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands, staring at the dilobe

To think

CHAPTER 50

Veins of Gold

Wind blew around Rand as he sat at the top of the world His weaving of Air and Fire had ray-black tip of rock about three paces wide The peak was like a broken fingernail jutting into the sky, and Rand sat atop it As far as he could tell, it was the very tip of Drag-onhest point in the world

He sat upon his s on the rock in front of hi until he’d found a way to weave Air so that it cohtly around him Like the weave that waruely re to teach hiht Now it ca faonmount’s broken, open mouth lay several hundred feet beneath hient, even at this distance Thefires

He still held to the Source He didn’t dare let go This last time he’d seized it had been the worst he could remember, and he feared that the sickness would overpower hiain

He had been here for hours And yet he did not feel tired He stared at the ter’angreal Thinking

What was he? What was the Dragon Reborn? A sy hand, ain?

He was angry Angry at the world, angry at the Pattern, angry at the Creator for leaving huht did any of them have to demand Rand’s life of him?

Well, Rand had offered that life to thereat while to accept his death, but he badh? Did he have to be in pain until the end?

He had thought that if he h, it would take away the pain If he couldn’t feel, then he couldn’t hurt

The wounds in his side pulsed in agony For a tiet them But the deaths he had caused rubbed his soul raw That list starting with Moiraine Everything had begun to go wrong at her death Before that, he’d still had hope

Before that, he’d never been put in a box

He understood ould be required of hiht he needed Those changes were to keep hi overwhelmed Die to protect people he didn’t know? Chosen to save do those who refused to listen? Chosen to cause the deaths of thousands who fought in his naht that s and remain sane? The only way he had seen had been to cut off his emotions, to make himself cuendiliar

But he had failed He hadn’t been able to stas out The voice inside had been so s the smallest of holes in his heart Even the smallest of holes would let the blood leak free

Those holes would bleed hione now It had vanished when he’d thrown Tarn to the floor and nearly killed him Without that voice, did Rand dare continue? If it was the last remnant of the old Rand--the Rand who had believed that he kneas right and rong--then what did its silence mean?

Rand picked up the access key and stood up, boots scraping stone It was h the sun still lay hidden behind the clouds Below, he could see hills and forests, lakes and villages

"And what if I don’t want the Pattern to continue?" he bellowed He stepped forward, right to the edge of the rock, clutching the access key to his chest

"We live the same lives!" he yelled at thedos Rulers fail their people tiain Men continue to hurt and hate and die and kill!"

Winds buffeted hi at his brown cloak and his fine Tairen trousers But his words carried, echoing across the broken rocks of Drag -onmount It was cold and crisp, the air new His weave kept hih to survive, but it did not stop the chill He hadn’t wanted it to

"What if I think it’s all"What if I don’t want it to keep turning? We live our lives by the blood of others! And those others beco we knoill fade? Great deeds or great tragedies, neither ends will be forgotten, then it will al