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Kindle Notes & Highlights
Nynaeve al’Meara was what, back in Seanchan, one would call a telarti—a woman with fire in her soul.
“All men are ignorant, Aes Sedai,” Androl said. “The topics of our ignorance may change, but the nature of the world is that no man may know everything.”
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“The last days are upon us,” Moridin said, turning his back on them. “In these hours, you will earn your final rewards. If you have grudges, put them behind you. If you have plots, bring them to completion. Make your final plays, for this… this is the end.”
Men and women whispered the truth into the night. The end has come. The end has come. All will fall. The end has come.
“Then the day of dying will come,” Aviendha said.
“Tell your master!” Rand commanded. “Tell him this fight is not like the others. Tell him I’ve tired of minions, that I’m finished with his petty movement of pawns. Tell him that I’m coming for HIM!”
“An argument must have opposition if it is to prove itself, my son,” she said. “One who argues truly learns the depth of his commitment through adversity. Did you not learn that trees grow roots most strongly when winds blow through them?”
“I do hope,” Rand said. “I hope for the world, for you, for everyone who must fight. That does not change the fact that I have accepted my own death.”
Loial drew out in front, axe raised above his head. Thoughts left him as he found himself angry, furious, at the Trollocs. They didn’t just kill trees. They took the peace from the trees. The call to blood, to death.
Men or women could not know themselves, not truly, until they were strained to their absolute limit. Until they danced the spears with death, felt their blood seeping out to stain the ground, and drove the weapon home into the beating heart of an enemy.
“We can’t fall back from this fight,” Mat said softly. “We don’t retreat. There isn’t anywhere to go. We stand here, or we lose it all.”
“We can’t just beat them, Egwene,” Mat said. “We can’t just stand and hold on. We have to destroy them, drive them away, then hunt them to the last Trolloc. We can’t just survive… we have to win.”
Knock a man down, and you saw what he was made of. That man might run. If he didn’t—if he stood back up with blood at the corner of his mouth and determination in his eyes— then you knew. That man was about to become truly dangerous.
“May the Light illumine a day when men need not kill at all,” Galad said tiredly. “It is not fitting to take joy in death.”
Rand wept.
We are reborn, Rand thought, so we can do better the next time.
And then, Rand al’Thor—the Dragon Reborn—stood up once again to face the Shadow.
“We will never give in,” Rand whispered. “I will never give in.”
“The Black Tower protects,” Logain heard himself say. “Always.”
He understood, finally, that the Dark One was not the enemy. It never had been.
“I see the answer now,” he whispered. “I asked the Aelfinn the wrong question. To choose is our fate. If you have no choice, then you aren’t a man at all. You’re a puppet…”
