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The quivers had ceased Moghedien’s eyes shone with terror By what Nynaeve felt through the a’da on the floor, shrieking and frothing at theherself She ood a way as any The second step was alh No need to cohedien followed like a whipped dog, shivering

As Nynaeve climbed, she ehedien could handle, to the point where the sweetness of it beca More, and she would approach the point where it was more than she could take in, the point where she would still herself, burn the ability to channel right out of herself Or perhaps out of Moghedien, under the circumstances Or both of them Any way at all, it would be disaster now She held that point though, the life filling her a needle’s light pressure just short of breaking skin It was ason her own She and Moghedien were th in the Power; Tanchico had proved that Was it enough? Moghedien insisted the hedien knew him -- and it did not see unless he was just as strong It was not fair that th in the Power too The Aes Sedai in the Tower had always said they had been equal It just was not --

She was babbling Taking a deep breath, she drew Moghedien behind her off the staircase This was as high as it went

This hall was e corridor, peeked And there he was A tall blackcladthrough the curving slots of one of the stone screens at so below There eat and effort on his face, but he see A handsome face, as handso of her breath for this one

Whatever he was staring at -- Rand perhaps? -- had his full attention, but Nynaeve gave hiht be Rand down there She could not tell whether Rahvin was channeling or not She filled the corridor around hi into it all of saidar she held, fire so hot the stone itself smoked The heat made her flinch back

Rahvin screagered away from her, back to where the hallway became a columned walk A heartbeat, less, while she still flinched, and he stood, inside the flame but surrounded by clear air Every scrap of saidar she could channel was going into that inferno, but he held it at bay She could see hi a red cast, but she could see Smoke rose from his charred coat His face was a seared ruin, one eye milky white But both eyes were malevolent as he turned the the a’dam’s leash, only leaden dullness Nynaeve’s stoiven up Given up because death was there for theh the carved screens above Rand, fingers of it filling every hole, dancing toward the colonnade As it did, the struggle within him ceased abruptly He was hi desperately at saidin, trying to hold onto some of it Now it rushed into him, an avalanche of fire and ice that made his knees buckle, made the Void tremble with pain that shaved at it like a lathe

And Rahvin stumbled backwards out onto the colonnade, face turned to so as though untouched If untouched now, it had not been so before Only the size of the figure, the i anyone else, told Rand it was hiure of char and cracked red flesh that would have strained any Healer toExcept that Rahvin would be inside the Void within that burned remnant of a man, wrapped in emptiness where the body’s pain was distant and saidin close at hand

Saidin raged inside Rand, and he loosed it all Not to Heal

"Rahvin!" he screaht thicker than a man, driven by all the Power he could draw

It struck the Forsaken, and Rahvin ceased to exist The Darkhounds in Rhuidean had become motes before they vanished, whatever kind of life they had had struggling to continue, or the Pattern struggling to maintain itself even for them Before this, Rahvin simply ceased

Rand let the balefire die, pushed saidin away a little Trying to blink away the purple afterie, he stared up at the wide hole in theabove it, stared at thehole in the palace roofs They did not flicker, as if what he had done was too strong even for this place to , it see up there to convince him Rahvin was really dead He ran toward a door

Frantically, Nynaeve threw everything into trying to close the flaht ca to die Those horrible eyes had fixed on Moghedien, not her, but she was going to die too

Liquid fire sliced up into the colonnade, so hot it made the fire she had , and she flung up a hand to protect her face, yet before it had raised halfway, the liquid fire was gone So was Rahvin She did not believe he had escaped There had been an instant, so brief she could alined it, when that white bar touched hiined But she did not believe so She drew a shuddering breath

Moghedien had her face in her hands, weeping, treh the a’da else

Hurried boots grated on the stairs below

Nynaeve spun, took a step toward the spiral staircase She was surprised to realize she was drinking deeply of saidar, holding herself ready

That surprise faded when Rand cliht He was not as she remembered His features were the same, but his face was hard Blue ice made his eyes The bloody rips in his coat and breeches, the blood on his face, seemed to suit that face

The way he looked, she would not be surprised if he killed Moghedien on the spot the instant he discovered who she was Nynaeve had uses for her yet He would recognize an a’daed it, let the leash vanish, leaving only the silver bracelet on her wrist and the collar on Moghedien A moment of panic when she coh as she realized that she still felt the other woman It worked exactly as Elayne had said it would Perhaps he had not seen She was between hihedien; the lea