New Spring (The Wheel of Time, #0)

by Robert Jordan

Sierin Vayu

The hadori drew eyes. Especially here in the Borderlands, where people had some idea what it meant. “Fools,” Bukama grumbled. “Do they think we’re bandits?

Lan kept silent. A certain reputation clung to Malkieri who still wore the hadori, though not for banditry,

Two years away from the Borderlands, his personal war abandoned for another, and every day the tug grew stronger. He should never have let Bukama talk him into waiting, letting the south soften him. The Aiel had helped maintain his edge.

He lowered his gaze rather than meeting her eyes rudely, and that proved a mistake. Racelle’s fist caught his jaw so hard that his hair flailed as he staggered. “Six years without a word,” she snapped. “Six years!” Grabbing his ears again, she gave him another kiss, longer this time.

he was Arafellin to his toenails. He actually started conversations with women who had not spoken to him first. Lan, raised by Bukama and his friends in Shienar, had been surrounded by a small community who held to Malkieri ways. If Lira did share his bed tonight, as seemed certain, she would discover there was nothing shy or retiring about him once they were abed, yet the woman chose when to enter that bed and when to leave.

She’s raised the Golden Crane. In your name, of course. Since the year turned, she’s been from Fal Moran to Maradon, and coming back now.”

there was an old saying among Malkieri men. Your carneira wears part of your soul as a ribbon in her hair forever. Custom strong as law made it so.

Cadsuane,

her pillow-friend Siuan.

“Instead of spending the night in contemplation, they tried to sneak mice into a sister’s bed—Elaida a’Roihan—and were caught. I doubt any other women have been raised Aes Sedai while still too tender to sit from their last visit to the Mistress of Novices.”

“No one has come to the Tower in a thousand years who could match me. No one to match Meilyn or Kerene in almost six hundred. A thousand years ago, there would have been fifty sisters or more who stood higher than this child. In another hundred years, though, she’ll stand in the first rank. Oh, someone stronger may be found in that time, but there won’t be fifty, and there may be none. We dwindle.”

They’re all dead. Aisha and Kerene, Valera and Ludice and Meilyn. They say Aisha and her Warder were killed by bandits in Murandy. Kerene supposedly fell off a ship in the Alguenya during a storm and drowned. And Meilyn…Meilyn….”

Chesmal Emry came in to…. She…. She announced that Meilyn had been found in her bed, that she’d died during the night.” She finished in a rush and sagged, staring at Moiraine. Moiraine was very glad to be sitting. Her knees would not have supported a feather. It was madness. Murder had been done. “The Red Ajah?” she suggested finally. A Red might kill a sister she thought intended to protect a man who could channel. It was possible.

Bitch what???

They don’t want the Dragon Reborn at the Last Battle.

“I claim the right of a woman alone,” she told them formally. “I travel to Chachin, and I ask the shelter of your swords.”

Lan made no attempt to dry off. He started to choose a new spot for his watch, then stopped and sat back where he had been, in the mud and water. She might have thought it a gesture of humility, only he glanced at her, very nearly meeting her eyes this time. If that was humility, kings were the most humble men on earth.

Aes Sedai were many things, and convoluted enough with it to make other women seem simple, but they were never childish.

thinking he would be less on his guard. Only a fool believed women less dangerous than men, but women often seemed to think men fools when it came to women.

she had given them money. The woman did not know insult when she offered it.

An honorable man protects whoever needs protecting, but children above all, and women above men.

he had seen a Cairhienin in her skin, more than one. And they had all tried to mesh him in a scheme, or two, or three. Over one particularly memorable ten days in the south of Cairhien, he had almost been killed six times and nearly married twice.

An Aes Sedai, if she really was one, and a Cairhienin? There could be no worse combination.

He owed Alys a debt for her Healing, as well as for her torments, though in honor it was only the first he could repay. No. He had to get that odd little woman out of his head, although she seemed to have lodged herself inside his skull, somehow.

shatayan

Usually, only crowned rulers could look for a greeting at the gates from the shatayan. He was swimming in a sea of other people’s expectations.

Lan washed himself from head to toe at the washstand rather than waiting for a bathtub to be brought, and dabbed an ointment that Anya sent Esne for onto his welts, but he let the women dress him. Just because they were servants was no reason to insult them.

Mistress Romera would have been outraged to be offered coin, but a visitor’s servants expected something on the first day and on the last—

His meetings with Edeyn must be public, with as many people around as possible. In private, all advantage belonged to a man’s carneira.

So the AthanaMieres wedding rules are reversed, that’s funny

In a shockingly short time, Anya reentered, carefully closing the door behind her. “My Lord, the Lady Edeyn sends a request for your presence in her chambers.” Her tone was very neutral, her face as blank as an Aes Sedai’s. “Tell her messenger I have not yet recovered from my journey,” he said.

A crouching lioness ready to spring. Edeyn’s personal sigil, and worthy of her.

“I, Edeyn ti Gemallen Arrel, pledge fealty to al’Lan Mandragoran, Lord of the Seven Towers, Lord of the Lakes, the true Blade of Malkier. May he sever the Shadow!” Even Brys looked startled. A moment of silence held while she kissed Lan’s fingers; then cheers erupted on every side. Cries of “The Golden Crane!” and even “Kandor rides with Malkier!”

“Had I known she intended that,” the older man said as they walked up and down, hands clasped behind their backs, “I would never have given her welcome. If you wish it, I’ll let her know that welcome is withdrawn.

Even the mountains will be worn down with time,’”

“You are no longer beautiful, I fear, sweetling,” she said when he came in. “I think you may even be ugly when you are older. But I always enjoyed your eyes more than your face.” Her smile became sultry. “And your hands.”

a king is not a king, alone with his carneira.”

Young men were chosen by their carneira; young women chose theirs.

Edeyn would never give up all of her advantage. Not until she presented his daori to his bride on his wedding day.

The innkeeper proved to be a lean, leathery fellow

Don’t trust skinny innkeepers

The more she had thought about Cadsuane, the more she had become convinced the woman must be Black Ajah.

No she’s just bossy

Black sisters could lie. It was impossible—the Oaths could not be broken!—yet it had to be.

I learned that young Cal knows how to kiss, and aside from that, I came up with a bucket of bilgewater.” Siuan scowled suddenly. “Why are you looking at me that way? I only kissed him, Moiraine. Have you kissed a pretty man since young Cormanes the night before you left for the Tower? Well, it’s been as long for me, too long, and Cal is very pretty.”

One of these days, you’re going to find yourself ready to do more than dream about some man, and I hope I’m there to see it!”

Kinky. But also, she isn’t