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I walked this ith Elayne and Gawyn the day Ithe boundaries of the Void He was cold in there, without eed and burned, but he was icy calht, like a stab She lay on a floor like this, her golden hair spread as though sleeping Ilyena Sunhair My Ilyena

Elaida had been there that day, too She Foretold the pain I’d bring She knew the darkness in h

Ilyena, I did not knohat I was doing I was mad! 1 am mad Oh Ilyena!

Elaida knew -- some -- but she did not tell even all of that Better if she had told

Oh, Light, is there no forgiveness? I did what I did in madness Is there no ase would have ordered ase would be alive, perhaps Elayne’s mother alive Aviendha alive Mat Moiraine How many alive, if I had died?

I have earned my torment I deserve the final death Oh, Ilyena, I deserve death

I deserve death

Bootsteps behind hi corridor not twenty paces from him, two dozen men in breastplates and helmets and the whitecollared red coats of the Queen’s Guards Except that Andor had no queen now, and these men had not served her while she lived A Myrddraal led the found under a rock, overlapping plates of black ar the illusion of a serpent as itmotionless however it moved The look of the Eyeless was fear, but fear was a distant thing in the Void They hesitated when they saw him; then the Halfman raised its blackbladed sword Men who had not already drawn put hands to hilts

Rand -- he thought that was his na before

Men and Myrddraal stiffened where they stood White frost grew thick on them, frost that smoked as Mat’s boots had smoked The Myrddraal’s upraised arm broke off with a loud crack When it hit the floortiles, arm and sword shattered

Rand could feel the cold -- yes, that was his name; Rand -- cold like a knife as he walked past and turned the way they had come Cold, yet warainst the wall, servants liveried in red and white, short of their h for protection Seeing Rand -- there was more to the name; not just Rand -- the man started to rise from where he had huddled away from the Myrddraalled band, but the woman hauled hi out a hand Al’Thor Yes, Rand al’Thor "I’ll not hurt you, but you could be hurt if you stay"

The woman’s brown eyes rolled up in her head She would have collapsed in a heap if therapidly, as if he was praying but could not get the words out

Rand looked where theHis hand had stretched out of his coatsleeve far enough to bare the Dragon’s golden maned head that was part of his skin "I will not hurt you," he said, and walked on, leaving them there He had Rahvin to corner yet Rahvin to kill And then?

No sound but the click of his boots on the tiles And deep in his head, a faint voice iveness He strained to feel Rahvin channeling, to feel theSaidin seared his bones, froze his flesh, scoured his soul, but from without it was not easy to see until you were close A lion in high grass, Asmodean had said once A rabid lion Should As those who should not have died? Or Lanfear? No Not --

He had only ato throw hi flows suddenly woven and an arh the wall, ripping across like a sword through where his chest had been Where that bar slashed, on both sides of the hallways, wall and friezes, doors and tapestries ceased to exist Severed wallhangings and chunks of stone and plaster broken free rained to the floor

Soto use balefire Who had told him that? Moiraine She surely had deserved to live

Balefire leaped fro tohere that other bar had originated The other failed even as his punched through the wall, leaving a purple afteri across his vision He released his own flow Had he done it finally?

Scra ruined doors open so hard that the rees Inside, the rooreat marble fireplace His balefire had taken a bite out of one of the arches leading to a small courtyard with a fountain, and another fro the walk beyond

Rahvin had not gone that way, though, and he had not died in that blast of balefire A residue hung in the air, a fading renized it Different froateway he had made to Skim to Caemlyn, or the one to Travel -- he kne that hat he had done -- into the throne room But he had seen one like this in Tear, hadat least, a hole in reality It was not blackness on the other side In fact, if he had not known the as there, if he could not have seen the weave of it, he ht not have known There before hi onto the same courtyard and fountain, the same columned walk For an instant the neatly rounded holes his balefire had ain Wherever that gateway led, it was to somewhere else, a reflection of the Royal palace as once it had been a reflection of the Stone of Tear Vaguely he regretted not talking to Asmodean about it while he had the chance, but he had never been able to speak of that day to anyone It did not real in his pocket had already proved enough to harry Rahvin

Stepping through quickly, he loosed the weave and hurried away across the courtyard as the gateway vanished Rahvin would have felt that gate if he was close enough and trying The fat little stone man did not n of life, except for himself and one fly That was the way it had been in Tear, too Standlamps in the hallways stood unlit, with pale wicks that had never seen a flame, yet even in what should have been the di from everywhere and nowhere Sos as well Between one glance and the next a tall laht have s, as if someone had shifted them in the time his eyes were away Wherever this wa