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A spoonful of hope and a cup of despair, she thought

"I do not like seeing you like this," Lan said Froht, he looked down on her, disquiet creasing the corners of his eyes For him that was near tears of frustration from another ai’shain with pack animals Moiraine was startled to realize that Kadere’s water wagons had already gone by; she had not realized she had been staring at the plaza for so long

"Like what?" she asked, turning herRand and his escort were already out of the city

"Worried," he said bluntly, no readable expression on that stonecarved face now "Afraid I’ve never seen you afraid, not e had Trollocs and Myrddraal swar over us, not even when you learned the Forsaken were loose and Sa?"

She gave a start, and iht ahead over his stallion’s ears, but the ht he could see a leaf fall behind his back "Do you mean Tarmon Gai’don? A redbird in Seleisin knows as well as I The Light send, not so long as any of the seals remain unbroken" The pair she had were on one of Kadere’s wagons, too, each packed by itself in a cask stuffed ool A different wagon than the redstone doorframe; she had made sure of that

"What else could Iher wish she had bitten her tongue "You have become -- impatient I can remember when you could eeks for one tiny scrap of inforer, but now --" He did look at her then, a blueeyed gaze that would have intiave to the boy, Moiraine Whatever under the Light possessed you?"

"He has been drawing further and further away frouidance I can give, and I will do everything short of sharing his bed to see that he gets it" The rings had told her that that would be disaster Not that she had ever considered it -- the very idea still shocked her! -- but in the rings it was so she would or could have considered in the future It was a s she had seen that it would bring ruination on everything She wished she could re she could learn about him -- but only the simple fact of calamity rerow, if he tells you to fetch his slippers and light his pipe"

She stared at hi She had never found that hurowing up in the Sun Palace in Cairhien had put arrogance deeply into Moiraine’s bones, where she could not even see it -- so she firmly denied -- but for all that Siuan was a Tairen fisherhter, she could ancejokes, however feeble and wrongheaded, he was changing For nearly twenty years he had followed her, and saved her life reat risk to his own Always he had accounted his life a s, valuable only for her need of it; soroom wooed his bride She had never held his heart, and never felt jealousy toward the wo claimed that he had no heart But he had found one this past year, found it when a wo around her neck

He denied her, of course Not his love for Nynaeve al’Meara, once a Wisdom in the Two Rivers and now an Accepted of the White Tower, but that he could ever have her He had two things, he said, a sword that would not break and a war that could not end; he would never gift a bride with those That, at least, Moiraine had taken care of, though he would not kno until it was done If he did, he would very probably try to change matters, stubborn fool man that he could be

"This arid land seeoran I shall have to find soain"

"My humility is honed to razor sharpness," he told her dryly "You never let it grow too dull" Wetting a white scarf from his leather water bottle, he handed her the sodden cloth She tied it around her te to rise above the old

The thick column snaked up the barren side of Chaendaer, its tail still in Rhuidean when its head had crested the slope, then down onto rough, hilly flats dotted with rock spires and flattopped buttes, soray or brown The air was so clear that Moiraine could see for miles, even after they were down off Chaendaer Great natural arches reared, and in every direction jagged ullies and hollows split a land sparsely dotted with low, thorny bushes and leafless spiny plants The rare tree, gnarled and stunted, usually bore spines or thorns as well The sun made it an oven A hard land that had shaped a hard people But Lan was not the only one changing, or being changed She wished she could see what Rand wouldjourney ahead, for everyone

Chapter 8

(Sunburst)

Over the Border

Clinging to her perch at the rear of the jouncing wagon, Nynaeve used one hand for herself and one for her straw hat as she peered back at the furious dust stor behind them in the distance The broad brienerated by the wagon’s ruh to snatch it from her head despite the dark red scarf tied under her chin Lowhilled grassland with occasional thickets rolled by, the grass sere and thin in the latesuon wheels obscured her vision soh besides The white clouds in the sky lied There had been no rain since before they left Tanchico, weeks earlier, and it had been soons that once kept it hard packed

No one appeared riding out of that seely solid wall of brohich was just as well She had lost her anger at brigands trying to stop the the ry, she could not sense the True Source,able to raise such a storm; once whipped up, full of her fury, it held a life of its own Elayne had been startled at the size of it, too, though thankfully she had not let on to Tho -- her teachers in the Tower had said that it would, and certainly none of theh to best one of the Forsaken as she had -- even with that, she still had that limitation Had any of the bandits appeared, Elayne would have had to deal with theone, but she was mak