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

by Robert Jordan

Nynaeve laughed. “Ridiculous. A tale for children. The Great Lord has always ruled.” Rand could see it. His connection to the Pattern, the glimmering of half-truths and shadowed ways. This possibility… it could happen. It was one path the world could take. The Dark One, here, had won the Last Battle and broken the Wheel of Time. That had allowed him to remake it, to spin the pattern in a new way. Everyone alive had forgotten the past, and now knew only what the Dark One had inserted in their minds. Rand could read the truth, the history of this place, in the threads of the Pattern he had touched earlier. Nynaeve, Egwene, Logain and Cadsuane were now members of the Forsaken, Turned to the Shadow against their will. Moiraine had been executed for being too weak. Elayne, Min, Aviendha… they had been given over to torture, endlessly, at Shayol Ghul. The world was a living nightmare. Each member of the Forsaken ruled as a despot over their own little section of the world. An endless autumn played out as they threw armies, Dreadlords, and factions against one another. An eternal battle. The Blight had extended to every ocean. Seanchan was no more, ruined and scorched until not even rats and crows could survive there. Anyone who could channel was discovered as a youth and Turned. The Dark One did not like the risk that someone would bring hope back to the world. And nobody ever would. Rand screamed as the thirteen began to channel.