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“I taught you so much about being a monarch, Rand. I seem to have forgotten one lesson. It is all right to plan for the worst possibilities, but you must not bask in them. You must not fixate on them. A queen must have hope before all else.”
“I hate to leave you, but I have these hooks in me, pulling me north. I have to go to Rand, and there’s just no arguing with it. I’ll try to come back. If I can’t … well, I want you all to know that I’m proud of you. All of you. You’re welcome in my home when this is over. We’ll open a cask or two of Master al’Vere’s best brandy. We’ll remember those who fell, and we’ll tell our children how we stood when the clouds turned black and the world started to die. We’ll tell them we stood shoulder to shoulder, and there was just no space for the Shadow to squeeze through.”
The best battle plans lasted only until the first sword was drawn, but a good general could work battles like a potter working clay, taking the ebbs and flows of soldiers and molding them.
“Highness…” the officer said. “Great Lord, no man in the Empire’s service would ever dare question the Empress, may she live forever. But if a man had wondered about some of her choices, he would do so no longer. Prince of the Ravens!” He raised his sword, prompting a cheer from those behind.
“This fatigue reminds me of what we lost today. It is an exhaustion my men must endure, and so I will, lest I forget just how tired they are and push them too far.”
“I did not come here to win,” Lan whispered, smiling. “I came here to kill you. Death is lighter than a feather.”
You fool. Her voice in his head. Fond, but sharp. “Egwene?” Am I not allowed to be a hero, too? “It’s not that…” You march to your death. Yet you forbid anyone else from doing so? “I…” Let go, Rand. Let us die for what we believe, and do not try to steal that from us. You have embraced your death. Embrace mine. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. Why? “I’ve failed.” No. Not yet you haven’t.
Cornered and alone, a boy huddled in a cleft in the rock. Horrors with knives and fangs—the Shadow itself made flesh—dug at his hiding place, reaching with nails like knives and ripping his skin. Terrified, crying, bloodied, the boy raised a golden horn to his lips.
At that moment, there rang out a soft but powerful sound, a clear note, golden; one long tone that encompassed everything. The sound of a horn, pure and beautiful. Mat had heard that sound once before.
“I am Birgitte Silverbow,” Birgitte announced, as if to dispel doubt. “The Horn of Valere has sounded, calling all to the Last Battle. The heroes have returned!”
