A Memory of Light (Wheel of Time, #14; A Memory of Light, #3)

by Robert Jordan

No Light. No love of men. The horror of it sank deep within Rand, shaking him. This was one of the possibilities that the Dark One could choose, if he won. It didn’t mean he would, or that it had to happen, but… oh Light, this was terrible. Far more terrible than a world of captives, far more terrible than a dark land with a broken landscape. This was true horror. This was a full corruption of the world, it was taking everything beautiful from it, leaving behind only a husk. A pretty husk, but still a husk. Rand would rather live a thousand years of torture, retaining the piece of himself that gave him the capacity for good, than live a moment in this world without Light. He turned, enraged, upon the darkness. It consumed the far wall, growing larger. “You make a mistake, Shai’tan!” Rand yelled at that nothingness. “You think to make me despair? You think to shatter my will? This will not do it, I swear to you. This makes me sure to fight!” Something rumbled inside of the Dark One. Rand yelled, pushing outward with his will, shattering the dark world of lies and men who would kill without empathy. It exploded into threads, and Rand was once again in the place outside of time, the Pattern rippling around him. “You show me your true heart?” Rand demanded of the nothingness as he seized those threads. “I will show you mine, Shai’tan. There is an opposite to this Lightless world you would create. “A world without Shadow.”