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The list always began with Moiraine. That name hurt the most of all, for he could have saved her. He should have. He hated himself for allowing her to sacrifice herself for him.
But he knew that death, pain and destruction came in his wake, and he dragged them behind him like a cloak.
A flower in a field of weeds was always a sight, but if you passed cultivated flower beds every day, none of them drew your notice.
People did not respond to anger. They did not respond to demands. Silence and questions, these were far more effective. Indeed, Merise – a fully trained Aes Sedai – wilted before that stare. He put no emotion into it. His rage, his anger, his passion – it was all still there, buried within. But he had surrounded it with ice, cold and immobilizing. It was the ice of the place Semirhage had taught him to go, the place that was like the void, but far more dangerous.
‘Our own skill frightens us, sometimes. What is the ability to kill if one has no outlet for it? A wasted talent? The pathway to becoming a murderer? The power to protect and preserve is daunting. So you look for someone to give the skill to, someone who will use it wisely. The need to make a decision chews at you, even after you’ve made it. I see the question more in younger men. We old hounds, we’re just happy to have a place by the hearth. If someone tells us to fight, we don’t want to shake things up too much. But the young men . . . they wonder.’
He looked at her. ‘Why carry the heron mark if not to be seen by others, Nynaeve?’
‘None of this matters. Mat doesn’t matter. Our similarities and our differences do not matter. All that matters is need. And I need you.’
